The Crystal Reports Underground News - Volume 2003.07 (July 2003)
an independent source for Crystal Reports Information by Ken Hamady
Contents for July, 2003:
** CR Advanced Free Trial
** Shopping Around for Crystal Services and Software
** "Awesome Teacher"
** San Francisco Bay Area User group meeting this week:
** Crystal Passage includes Email
** The Expert's Guide to Crystal Reports Formulas
** Charting Enhancements by 3D Graphics
** Crystal Ease 3
** Using "Unlisted" Functions in SQL Expressions
** "..solved my problem within 2 minutes"
** Read back issues at http://www.kenhamady.com/news.html
CR Advanced Free Trial:
You might not notice this on the CD website, but Crystal Decisions is offering a 30-day free trial download for CR 9 Advanced. If you are willing to give them your contact information, you can register and download the Advanced Edition of CRv9 and they will Email you a keycode to allow the install. Note that they won't send it to a Yahoo or Hotmail email addresses. Since the link is not very prominent on the CD web site, you can use the direct link on the LINKS page of my website (near the bottom).
Shopping Around for Crystal Reports Services and Software:
Of course, once you provide all of your contact information you will begin to receive offers for very expensive training, consulting and support. If you consider one of their offers, make sure you get the name and experience of the actual instructor. Then call me to compare notes and prices. I think you will be amazed.
Even when you decide to purchase the software, you should shop around first. You easily can save 15% or more by getting the product from a web retailer like Atomic Park, Programmer's Paradise or CDW. Atomic Park consistently has the lowest prices on Crystal products. And CDW even sells the big-ticket items like processor licenses and maintenance. Below is a chart showing the prices for CRv9 Advanced, Developer and Professional Editions. The first column is list price directly from Crystal Decisions and the other columns are the three retailers I mentioned above. The U rows provide upgrade pricing. You can use upgrade pricing if you own any prior version of any edition of Crystal Reports, including an OEM license.
Price Comparison July 2003:
| CD |
AP |
PP |
CDW |
|
| 9 Adv |
1995 |
1626 |
1729 |
1809 |
| 9 Adv U | 1645 |
1376 |
1485 |
1536 |
| 9 Dev | 595 |
479 |
519 |
530 |
| 9 Dev U | 315 |
270 |
283 |
289 |
| 9 Pro |
495 |
397 |
432 |
447 |
| 9 Pro U |
255 |
216 |
227 |
238 |
"Awesome Teacher" - Marcus D, Advanced Class June 2003:
I don't have any unhappy customers. If you want to take one of my classes in Frederick, MD or Leesburg, VA you can use the site below to review dates, course outlines and registration info:
http://www.kenhamady.com/public.html
Or better yet - schedule a private class at your office, with your data. This is my favorite way to teach, and I charge about half of what Crystal charges for on-site classes. I have personally taught over 1500 satisfied students from Tampa to Anchorage so don't assume that you are too far away. Call for more information at (540) 338-0194.
San Francisco Bay Area User group meeting this week:
If you live in the Bay area and don't have firm plans for Wednesday afternoon there is a UG meeting on July 16, 2003. It is scheduled from 12:45 p.m. to 5 p.m at the Concord Senior Center in Concord (East Bay). The meeting is going to launch a Customer Advocacy Forum to channel enhancement requests to the engineers at CD. Come if you want to participate. For other topics and directions see:
http://www.cdugna.org/regional_user_group/bayarea/meeting_6_16_03.htm
Crystal Passage Now Includes Email Export Capabilities:
It's time to play "choke the web server". There are about a dozen Crystal Reports viewer programs out there that vary widely in cost. There is only one that is free - Crystal Passage. It has some limitations and disclaimers, but you can't argue with the price. Crystal Passage was released as shareware a few months ago by Kevin Groff and it has been a popular download. Each time I mention it we exceed the allowed transfer rate of the host site, causing Kevin to move the files. So, if you have trouble reaching the server, check my LINKS page again in a few days to see if the link has been moved.
This month Kevin has added the Email export destination to the program, allowing you to attach your exported file directly to an Email message. See my LINKS page for more info.
The Expert's Guide to Crystal Reports Formulas:
Learn to write and understand formulas like a Pro with "The Expert's Guide to Crystal Reports Formulas". I take you from the basics all the way through variables, arrays and looping logic. I explain HOW, WHY and WHEN to use these techniques and provide tips and tricks that are rarely taught in classes.
The guide includes 28 annotated reports and 45 no-nonsense pages of detailed explanations. The cost is only $36 and you can download it immediately with most Credit Cards. For more details, visit my website at:
http://www.kenhamady.com/form00.html
Charting Enhancements - Special Price for My Readers:
I learned something interesting this month. The charting module in Crystal Reports v8 and v9 was developed by an external company. Not only that, but this company also does the charting modules for Business Objects, Cognos, MicroStrategy and several other companies. The developer, Three D Graphics in Los Angeles, also does customizations for companies who want to expand or modify the default charting library in their Crystal Reports.
In August, Three D Graphics plans to release an enhanced version of the Crystal Reports charting DLL (SSCSDK80.DLL) which will provide additional features and chart types to the Crystal library. It will be fully compatible with versions 8, 8.5 and 9. You can contact them for more details on the features to be included. Mention my name in August and receive $50 off the Single User edition or $100 off the other 3 editions. Prices are:
Single User $199
Corporate Edition (2 developers and 20 viewers that have CR) $399
Developer Edition (2 developers and runtime) $399
Enterprise Edition (2 developers and 1 Crystal Enterprise server): $399
See my LINKS page for more information.
Crystal Ease 3:
Surfing Gecko software (who wins my "Most Memorable Company Name" award) has released a new version of their report viewer, Crystal Ease 3. The new version adds support for version 9 report files (along with prior versions) and supports Crystal Dictionaries, SQL Queries and Java Bean Classes. The price is the same as the original Crystal Ease, starting at $99 for 10 seats. You can download a trial version for free. See my web site's LINKS page for download information.
Using "Unlisted" Functions in SQL Expressions:
Those of you that have tried adding SQL Expressions to your reports might have been discouraged by the short list of functions listed in the SQL Expression Editor. You might be surprised to find out that this function list is not a complete list of available functions. You can actually use any function that is accepted by the ODBC/SQL driver and the target database. The following functions tested fine in CRv8.5 connected to Microsoft Access via ODBC:
IIF()
CStr()
VAL()
None of these functions are listed in the SQL Expression Editor. By putting these functions into a SQL Expressions (as opposed to a formula field) you may notice that the report processes faster, maybe significantly faster. This is especially true when you are using the expression as a criteria. The downside is that you get very little assistance from Crystal Reports when writing SQL expressions. The error messages come back from the database and can be quite cryptic. You also have to be careful if you try to convert the report to a different driver, because the SQL syntax has more variations. If you want to learn more about using SQL Expressions in reports, drop me a line.
"..solved my problem within 2 minutes..":
Two recent comments from purchasers of my VB Quick Reference Guide:
"..solved my problem within 2 minutes of opening the reference. I was at my wits end. I have to admit that I was skeptical and all ready to say hey I want my $16 back, but I am very satisfied with the material."
Aileen H. - July 2003
"I trawled through 4 different VB6 Bibles and guides without finding a solution that I could understand. I finally gave in and downloaded your 'Quick Reference Guide to Crystal Reports in VB' and within 2 hours had the solution working and installed. Thanks for writing a worthwhile document, well worth the $16".
Simon L. - July 2003
For a clear and simple guide to Crystal Reports in Visual Basic go to:
http://www.kenhamady.com/vbref.html
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Contact Information
Ken Hamady, MS
525K East Market St. PMB 299
Leesburg, VA 20176
(540) 338-0194
ken@kenhamady.com
http://www.kenhamady.com
Copyright 2003 by Ken Hamady
All rights reserved - Republishing this material requires written permission