The Set Datasource Location feature (called simply Set Location in older versions) allows you to point a Crystal Report to a different table or a different data connection. This is handy when you have several similar tables or when you have several different environments with the same structure. You can reuse the same report and simply point it to the new data. However there is one part of how this works that can be confusing, as was illustrated by a recent call I received from a customer. Continue Reading »
Why doesn’t the “Set Location” work?

Many of you have used the Business Days formula on my web site to determine the number of ‘working days’ between two dates – not counting weekends and holidays. The instructions remind you that since weekends are removed automatically that you should not include holidays in your exclusion list if they are going to fall on a weekend. If you do Continue Reading »
Improvement to my “Business Days” formula

A former student was having trouble adding decimals to the cells of his cross-tab and asked me why. After doing some research I found a problem that I had not noticed before. Cross-tab summaries of Count and DistinctCount that do percentage of total calculations are always truncated to an integer (not rounded). This means that they will not total correctly Continue Reading »
Percentages in Cross-tabs that do not round correctly

If you are interested in speeding up your reports then you should read the following Tek-Tips discussion thread. In this thread several of the site’s top Crystal experts weigh in with recommendations.

One of my customers pointed out to me that you can’t run Merant’s Version Manager and Crystal Reports XI on the same PC without getting a DLL conflict. I am not sure which product is to blame but they use different versions of the same DLL (libeay32.dll) and apparently the different versions are not compatible. There is a solution on BO’s web site but I laughed out loud when I read Continue Reading »
Crystal and Merant’s Version Manager don’t play well together

There is a rumor in the financial markets that BO is a takeover target for a large US company, a rumor strong enough to drive BO share prices up 11% in the US and 6% in France. According to Continue Reading »
Business Objects a Takeover Target?

If you are a Small or Medium size business and want to put your Crystal Reports on the Internet or your Intranet, then you should take a look at RippleStone. Ripplestone is web application that includes many of the features of Crystal Reports Server or BO Enterprise but at a much lower cost. You get: Continue Reading »
Special offer on RippleStone web portal for Crystal Reports:

If you are a current or former partner organization of Business Objects or are considering becoming a partner, you might want to read the legal documents ( suit and counter suit ) filed in the Michigan court battle between CTTS and Business Objects. CTTS filed the original suit over unpaid commissions. This prompted BO to deny that any commissions were due and also to file a counter suit that alleges Continue Reading »
BO countersuit against a former partner highlights risks of a BO partnership

The Middle East can be a tough place to do business – even for BI vendors.

Last year BO’s major Middle East partner, BSG, switched from BO to Cognos. Score one for Cognos.

Then this week Cognos man in the Middle East, David Brierley, made a “shock” switch Continue Reading »
BO “captures” key Middle Eastern operative

A new customer was doing a report by Sales Rep where the details carried over to multiple pages. They want the Sales Rep’s name to repeat on the top of each page throughout the group. So, they used the group option called “repeat group header on each new page”. Then they asked me why this didn’t work on the last page of each group. Continue Reading »
When “Repeat Group Header” won’t repeat