A customer recently sent me a report with an unusual requirement. The report had 2 groups and they needed a running total that reset at the end of each group 1. The unusual part was that the RT would be displayed only at the top and bottom of each page. The idea was to see where the total ended at the bottom of the page and then show it pick up again at that same point at the top of the next page. It sounded simple, but when we tried putting a normal running total field in both the Page Header and the Page Footer we got inconsistent results.

In most cases the value in the Page Header was not the same as the value in the Page Footer of the prior page. Continue Reading »
Side-by-side Running Totals show different results

I just found out that Daylight Savings Time is coming early this year. Instead of April to October DST will now run form the second Sunday in March to the first Sunday in November. If you have reports or other technical systems that do automatic adjustments for DST then these will need to be updated. I just completed a formula for Crystal Reports that adds one hour to all times during the original period. This is handy if Continue Reading »
Daylight Savings Time extended this year

According to an article on CRN yesterday, Business Objects has released a scaled down version of BO Enterprise designed for Mid-Market companies who didn’t want to spend six figures on a reporting platform. They have resurrected the name “Crystal Decisions” for this product line and priced it starting at $20K. It is essentially identical to the larger BO Enterprise product, but is single server and has slightly fewer configuration options.

What I found even more interesting is the description of how this product plays into the BO partner strategy. Apparently BO has trimmed profit margins on Partner deals Continue Reading »
“Crystal Decisions” is back – BO Enterprise for mid-size firms