I have just updated my comparison of RPT management utilities for 2012. These are tools that allow you to scan, document, compare and update RPT files.

Most of the products have not changed much since last year.  The main exception is Find It EZ which has added many new features in the past year.   Report Miner is getting close to a major release and I will let you know when that happens.  The complete list of tools is below:

Report Miner by the Retsel Group
Find it EZ by Find it EZ Software Corp.
Report Analyzer by Cortex Systems
Crystal SpellChecker by Redeemed Software.
Search and Replace by Redeemed Software.
Mass Verify by Redeemed Software
.rpt Inspector 3 Professional Suite by Software Forces, LLC

I create lots of reports for PeachTree accounting so I was surprise to learn that Sage has dropped the PeachTree name and is now calling the product Sage 50 Accounting. This change comes with the new (2013) version.

And just as they did in their last upgrade, they dropped fields from the tables.  The first one I have found is one that some of my customers were using in their reports.  The field is called PSQLCompletedDate and is (was) found in the JrnlHdr table.  If you have been using this field in your reports you will probably need to replace it with the field CompletedDate, also in the JrnlHdr table.

I had a real mystery yesterday that cost me a fruitless half hour. I was trying to pass a shared variable from a subreport in Report Footer B to a formula in Report Footer C. I could see the value being stored correctly in the subreport, but the formula in RFC would not update no matter what I did. So I did some testing.

I had another subreport in the Report Header and it also had some shared variables.  I could display those in RFC with no problem. So I knew that at least some shared variables were working correctly.  Also, if I moved the original subreport to the RH, the variables started working.  So I knew Continue Reading »
A Shared variable that refuses to work

Two different customers have contacted me recently because they were surprised to find a ‘new’ Crystal Reports feature in specific reports. They are usually puzzled as to why there is no way to make these features appear in ALL of their reports. Here are two examples:

1. You go into File > Report Options and see an extra setting at the bottom that says “Convert DateTime Field:” and there are three choices: To Date, To Date-Time, To String.
2. You go into the LINKS tab of the Database Expert and look at the properties of a join. There you see an extra section at the bottom with a check mark that says “Return all rows before joining” then below that you see:

When linking to two files from this file:
Look up both at the same time
Look up all of one and then all of the others
Look up all the combinations of the two files

Rather than being new features in CR, these are actually very old features, from Continue Reading »
Old reports with ‘new’ features?