Creating Reports Using Crystal Reports

Transcription

1 Creating Reports Using Crystal Reports Creating Reports Using Crystal Reports Objectives Learn how to create reports for Visual Studio.NET applications. Use the Crystal Reports designer to lay out report templates. Add the CrystalReportViewer control to a form, to display a report. Learn to use custom formulas to modify the behavior of your reports. Add groupings and totals to reports. Filter the contents of reports, using the SelectionFormula property of the CrystalReportViewer control. Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development 17-1

2 Creating Reports Using Crystal Reports Introducing Crystal Reports At some point in your application development, you ll need to present information to users in a printed format. Although it s possible to communicate with the printer directly, using the various controls and classes provided by Visual Studio.NET, it s not fun managing printed output manually requires a great deal of care and effort. To make it easier for you to create attractive, useful, printed reports, you can use Crystal Reports for Visual Studio.NET, included with Visual Studio.NET. This add-in for Visual Studio.NET allows you to design reports, bind the report to the data source of your choice, distribute the reports, and view the reports on clients computers. Using Crystal Reports for Visual Studio.NET requires you to work through a series of tasks. You must: Create the report template within Visual Studio.NET. This normally involves attaching a data source, then dragging fields from the designer s list of fields onto the report surface. You can also create unbound fields (field columns, for example) and assign formulas to fields (to calculate extended price, perhaps). The Crystal Reports designer is a banded report designer it uses nested sections that allow you to create grouped and nested reports, as shown in Figure 1. Save the report template. When you save the report, you create a file named *.rpt. Depending on how you reference the report from within your application, you may or may not need to distribute this file with your application. Create a report viewer. Your application will need some way of displaying the report. If you re creating a Windows application you ll use the CrystalReportViewer control on a form. You ll need to write a few lines of code that associates a particular report with the viewer, and retrieves the data to fill the report. Run the project. When you load the report viewer, and run the code that attaches a report to the viewer, the Crystal Reports engine uses the report template you ve created, retrieves the most current data from the data source and displays it in the report. Figure 2 shows a simple report displayed within the CrystalReportViewer control on a form. TIP: It s important to remember that when you create a report in Crystal Reports, you re not hard-coding the data. At runtime, the report engine retrieves the most current data and displays that data in the report template you ve created Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development

3 Introducing Crystal Reports Figure 1. Crystal Reports provides a banded report designer, allowing you to lay out your reports in nested sections. Figure 2. Placing the CrystalReportViewer control on a page allows you to view and print a report. Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development 17-3

4 Creating Reports Using Crystal Reports To Embed, or Not to Embed When you add a report to your Windows Application project, Visual Studio.NET sets its Build Action property to Embedded Resource, by default. This means that Visual Studio.NET will compile the report into your executable, and you needn t worry about distributing the report with your application. If you change the Build Action property to any other option (None, Compile, or Content), you ll need to supply the report file with your application. Embedding the report is simpler it means that you needn t worry about carrying around that extra file. Maintaining the file separately from your application, however, means that it s possible to update the report template by simply shipping a new *.rpt file. It s up to you, but the default behavior is to embed the report within the executable. Issues with Crystal Reports Crystal Reports is a huge product covering all its features would take a week-long course of its own. We ve attempted, instead, to show you a few features from each of the major steps in using the product, and point out where you might look for more advanced features. There are some important issues to consider: Redundancy in design mode. In the user interface, you ll generally find two or more ways to accomplish the same task. Whether you choose an item from a context menu, from a wizard, or from the Properties window, you ll end up with the same results. Don t assume that any technique you see here is the only way to accomplish a goal, because most of the time, it s not. Crystal Reports formulas aren t Visual Basic. You can create simple or complex formulas that run in order to render output and formatting. Almost every feature of the product can be modified or enhanced using formulas. (We ll demonstrate changing the formatting of a control based on its value, and highlighting alternate rows, using formulas.) You create these formulas using a syntax that s different from Visual Basic.NET, so be prepared to dig into a new syntax if you want to create formulas. Rich object model. In order to allow you to interact with your report programmatically, Crystal Reports provides a rich object model both for the reports themselves (the ReportDocument object), and for the CrystalReportViewer control. Although we ll demonstrate just a few features of each here, you can dig very deep into these objects if you want to create complex reports Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development

5 Creating a Simple Report Creating a Simple Report In this section, you ll step through creating a simple report, starting with the data management all the way through to displaying the report on a form. Later sections will demonstrate how to embellish the report, but the report you ll investigate here will be quite simple. The finished initial report, shown in Figure 2, includes sales information for every item sold in the Northwind sample database, displaying the unit price and the quantity sold. TIP: In case you want to skip steps in creating this report, we ve included multiple completed versions of the sample report within the sample project. The project includes Report1a, Report1b, and Report1c, each of which represents the state of the report you ll create in this chapter at the end of each of the major sections. Setting Up the Data Although Crystal Reports report designer makes it possible for you to select a data source and build a join between tables, it doesn t support native connections to SQL Server if you want to work with SQL Server, as far as they re concerned, you must use ADO. If you want to use ADO.NET s support for SQL Server, or if you want to create a complex join containing multiple tables, your best bet is to create an ADO.NET DataSet prior to creating the report. That s the approach you ll take here. Look at frmreport within the CrystalReport.sln project To get started, we have created SqlDataAdapter, SqlConnection, and DataSet objects on the form that will contain the CrystalReportViewer control. (To be honest, it doesn t matter where you place these controls it s the typed DataSet class that matters here.) The SqlDataAdapter object, SqlDataAdapter1, includes a SelectCommand object as shown in Figure 3. By dragging multiple tables into the design area, we were able to create a complex join involving data from all the tables. The bottom area of the figure shows the data retrieved from the Northwind sample database. From this SqlDataAdapter, we generated a typed DataSet class named dscustomerorders, and a DataSet object on the form named dscustomerorders1. Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development 17-5

6 Creating Reports Using Crystal Reports Figure 3. The sample SqlDataAdapter object includes data from four tables. Creating the Report To add a new Crystal Reports report to your project, follow these steps: 1. Select the Project Add New Item menu item. Select the Crystal Report option near the bottom of the list, and name your report Report1.rpt. WARNING! The first time you use the Crystal Reports designer, you ll need to register your product. This will take a few minutes of your time, and a live Internet connection. If you bypass the registration, you ll get awfully tired of the nagging, as you attempt to use the product Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development

7 Creating a Simple Report 2. From the Crystal Report Gallery (see Figure 4), you can select to use a report expert to help you create your report, if you like. You can also select the type of Report Expert to use, include standard reports, form letters, and so on. For this exercise, select the Standard expert. Figure 4. Select the type of report you d like to create from the Crystal Report Gallery. Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development 17-7

8 Creating Reports Using Crystal Reports 3. On the Data page of the Standard Report Expert dialog box, you can select the data source you d like to use. In this example, you can use the DataSet object we ve created in the sample project, so drill down through the Project Data node, select the Customers table (the only table within the DataSet), and click Insert Table, as shown in Figure 5. Click Next to move to the next page. Figure 5. Select the table within the prepared DataSet as the source for the report s data Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development

9 Creating a Simple Report 4. On the Fields page, select the fields you d like to have appear on your report. For now, select the ProductName, Quantity, and UnitPrice fields, as shown in Figure 6. (Later sections will add the CompanyName and OrderDate fields.) Click Next to move to the next page. NOTE If you investigate the available fields, you ll find more than just the five we originally selected. In order to support the joins required by the DataSet, the Query Builder tool had to insert primary key fields from all the tables. Although you could use these fields on your report, there s no need to do so. Figure 6. Select the fields required for your report. TIP: The Fields page includes a great deal more information than you ve used so far. You can, for example, specify the column heading to use for each field. You can create formula fields (you ll actually do this in a later section) that can perform calculations on the report, and more. 5. Although you could add grouping, totaling, top N, and more, using the tools provided by Crystal Reports, you can also add those later for now, you re creating a simple columnar report. Click Finish to create the report. Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development 17-9

10 Creating Reports Using Crystal Reports 6. Once you re done, Visual Studio.NET adds Report1.rpt to the current project, and opens the report in the report designer, as shown in Figure 7. From here, you can modify the layout and design of the report. Figure 7. The finished initial report contains just three fields. Your initial report is complete, but you may want to notice and modify a few things: The finished report consists of three sections containing information. The Page Header section contains data that prints at the top of each printed page. The Details section contains placeholders that the report engine fills in, once for each row of input data. The Page Footer section contains data that prints at the bottom of each page. Although the report designer contains Report Header and Report Footer sections, these are disabled by default. (You can right-click on any section, select Format Section from the context menu, and modify the properties of any section.) Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development

11 Creating a Simple Report The report expert placed two calculated fields on the report: PrintDate, in the Page Header section, and PageNumber, in the Page Footer section. Crystal Reports provides a number of these types of special fields. Figure 8 shows the list of available special fields. You can drag any of these onto any section of your report. Figure 8. The Field Explorer window allows you to select and drag any of the available fields onto your report. Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development 17-11

12 Creating Reports Using Crystal Reports Modifying the Report Layout You can modify the layout of your report from within the report designer. To make your report look more like the example shown in Figure 2, make the modifications described in the next two sections. Modify the Header Labels Follow these steps to set up the header labels: 1. In the Page Header section, select the ProductName label, then SHIFT+CLICK on the other two labels in the section. 2. Resize the controls so that they re a bit taller (the underlining for the labels may not appear if you don t). 3. Right-click one of the selected labels, select Format Multiple Objects from the context menu. On the Font tab, select the Verdana font, as shown in Figure 10. Click OK when you re done. Figure 10. Set fonts for controls using the Format Editor dialog box Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development

13 Creating a Simple Report Modify the Remaining Controls Follow these steps to format the remaining controls: 1. Format controls: Repeat the steps in the previous section, selecting all the remaining controls. This time simply set the font to Verdana so that they match the header controls. 2. Display UnitPrice as currency: Right-click on the UnitPrice text box, select Format from the context menu, then set the numeric formatting as shown in Figure 11. Figure 11. Display the currency symbol for the UnitPrice field. 3. Resize the ProductName field and label, and shift the other controls to match. This may involve some careful maneuvering with the designer the Crystal Reports designer isn t nearly as easy to use as the Windows Forms designer! Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development 17-13

14 Creating Reports Using Crystal Reports Add a Report Header By default, the Report Header section is suppressed. To enable the section and add a header label, follow these steps: 4. Right-click on the Report Header section and select Format Section from the context menu. This displays the Section Expert dialog box, shown in Figure 12. Figure 12. Use the Section Expert dialog box to format sections. 5. Uncheck the Suppress (No Drill-Down) item. Click OK to close the dialog box. 6. In the Toolbox window, select the Toolbox tab and drag a Text Object from the toolbox to the Report Header section. 7. Enter the text Customers and Orders into the next text object Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development

15 Creating a Simple Report 8. Right-click on the text object and modify its font to be Verdana (24 point), resizing the control and the section as necessary. When you re done, the report should look like Figure 13. Figure 13. You can enable the Report Header section and add a text object. Setting Report Defaults You may not like the default settings used by the Crystal Reports experts as they create your reports for you, but you can t modify these settings until you have created your first report. For example, it might be nice to use a different font for all the controls on your report, but Crystal Reports designer provides no way for you to change all the controls fonts at once. To accomplish this task for future reports, follow these steps: 1. Right-click on any section in the report designer. 2. From the context menu, select Designer Default Settings. 3. In the Default Settings dialog box, select the Fonts tab. 4. Select each button in turn, and set the default font as you like. Once you ve made changes to the default settings for reports, future reports will respect the changes you ve made. If you like, you can investigate other default settings in the dialog box, as well. Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development 17-15

16 Creating Reports Using Crystal Reports Viewing the Report The report template won t do you much good without some way to view the report, of course. In this section, you ll add a CrystalReportViewer control to the sample form, frmreport.vb, and display the finished initial report. TIP: To avoid having to type the code for this example, you can copy/paste the individual code fragments from the file CrystalReports.txt, in the same folder as the sample project. Follow these steps to view the report: 1. In the Solution Explorer window, double-click the sample form, frmreport.vb, to open the report in the form designer. 2. In the Toolbox window, scroll down until you find the CrystalReportViewer control, and double-click to place an instance of the control on the form. 3. With the CrystalReportViewer control selected, in the Properties window, set the DisplayGroupTree property to False. Removing the group tree (you ll learn more about this pane later in the chapter). 4. Double-click on the form s surface to load the code editor for the form s module, and modify the frmreport_load procedure so that it looks like the following. ' Code fragment 1. Private Sub frmreport_load( _ ByVal sender As System.Object, _ ByVal e As System.EventArgs) _ Handles MyBase.Load Dim rpt As New Report1() SqlDataAdapter1.Fill(DsCustomerOrders1) rpt.setdatasource(dscustomerorders1) CrystalReportViewer1.ReportSource = rpt End Sub Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development

17 Creating a Simple Report Take a few moments to investigate the code, which takes these actions: Creates a report object by declaring an instance of the class that represents the report you ve created. When you create a report within Visual Studio.NET, the designer creates a parallel class with the same name as the report, so that you can interact with the report and its design programmatically: Dim rpt As New Report1() TIP: Every specific report class (Report1, in this case) inherits from the base ReportDocument class. This class provides a number of useful methods and properties for working with your reports, such as PrintToPrinter, Export, and more. See online Help for more information. Fills the DataSet object, DsCustomerOrders1, so that the report can retrieve its data from the DataSet object: SqlDataAdapter1.Fill(DsCustomerOrders1) Sets the data source for the report, indicating exactly where the report can retrieve its data at runtime: rpt.setdatasource(dscustomerorders1) Sets the report source for the viewer control, indicating where the control can find the report to display: CrystalReportViewer1.ReportSource = rpt 5. Use the View Designer menu item to load the form designer again. Select the CrystalReportViewer control and set the control s Dock property to Fill. 6. Press F5 to run the project. Select Display Report Form on the main form, and your report should appear after a few seconds delay. So what have you accomplished so far? So far, you have: Created a report template, named Report1.rpt, using a Crystal Reports report expert. Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development 17-17

18 Creating Reports Using Crystal Reports Modified the report layout, using the Crystal Reports report designer. Added the CrystalReportViewer control to a form, and written code to load the report as the form loads. Displayed the report. What else can you do? At this point, stop and investigate the buttons available on the control s toolbar. Table 1 describes each of the buttons on the toolbar, and lists the properties of the control that allow you to show or hide each button individually. (Some buttons appear as part of a group, and can t be managed individually.) ToolTip Description Control Property Go to First page Go to Previous page Go to Next page Go to Last page ShowPageNavigationButtons ShowPageNavigationButtons ShowPageNavigationButtons ShowPageNavigationButtons Goto Page Close Current View Print Report Displays an input dialog box, allowing you to specify a page number. If you re displaying multiple views of the same report (when drilling down, for example), it closes the current view. Displays standard Print dialog box, allowing you to select printer, copies, print range, print to file, and so on. ShowGotoPageButton ShowCloseButton ShowPrintButton Refresh Refreshes the report s data. ShowRefreshButton Export Report Toggle Group Tree Zoom Allows you to save the report in PDF, MDB, XLS, or RTF format. Shows or hides the pane that allows you to drill down into grouped reports. Allows you to specify zoom level for the report s display. ShowExportButton ShowGroupTreeButton ShowZoomButton Search Text Allows you to search for text ShowTextSearchButton within the report, and highlights matches. Table 1. The CrystalReportViewer control toolbar allows you to interact with the report at runtime. You can show or hide any of the buttons on the toolbar by setting properties of the control Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development

19 Creating a Simple Report In addition to the properties shown in Table 1, the CrystalReportViewer control also supplies three properties that control the display of the control: DisplayBackgroundEdge shows or hides the gray area around the report within the viewer window. The default value is True. Set this property to False to fill the entire viewer window. DisplayGroupTree shows or hides the grouping tree that displays in the left pane of the viewer window by default. Since your simple report doesn t contain any groups, it makes sense to turn off this window completely, although later on you ll add groupings and might want to be able to list and drill down into the groups. DisplayToolbar shows or hides the complete control toolbar. TIP: You can accomplish many of the tasks shown in Table 1 programmatically, as well. For example, the CrystalReportViewer control provides a SearchForText method that allows you to specify a string to locate. The PrintReport method displays the Print dialog box, just like clicking the Print Report button on the toolbar. In addition, the base ReportDocument class provides more powerful methods for working with the report, as well. (You used the SetDataSource method of the ReportDocument class in the example in this section.) Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development 17-19

20 Creating Reports Using Crystal Reports Using Custom Formulas TIP: If you ve skipped the previous section, or want to start fresh here, you can simply rename Report1a.rpt as Report1.rpt and continue from this point. Crystal Reports adds rich support for extensive additions to standard reports using formulas. You can use formulas to apply custom formatting, to create calculated values, and more. In this section, you ll use formulas to accomplish three tasks: Highlight a field: Make the Quantity field value bold and red if it contains a value greater than 50. Color alternate rows: Highlight alternate rows in the printed output, so that every other row has a gray background. Create a calculated field: Add a column named Extended containing the product of the UnitPrice and Quantity fields (that is, using the formula Extended = UnitPrice * Quantity). Highlight a Field Crystal Reports provides rich design-time support for formatting values as it renders the report, so that you needn t write any code. You can specify font, weight, color, borders, and so on, using the Highlighting Expert dialog box. To modify the Quantity field so that it appears bold and in red if the value of the field is greater than 50, follow these steps: 1. On the report design surface, right-click on the Quantity field (in the Details section), and select Change Highlighting from the context menu. 2. On the Highlighting Expert dialog box, click New to create a new formula. 3. Finish filling in the properties on the right side of the dialog box (in the Item editor panel), so that the items look like Figure Click OK to close the dialog box. 5. Run your project and display the report again all the Quantity values greater than 50 should be formatted as you ve specified Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development

21 Using Custom Formulas Figure 14. Set up custom highlighting using the Highlighting Expert. Color Alternate Rows Many reports are easier to read when they include alternate rows highlighted in a subtle color. Crystal Reports makes this possible, although it s not obvious how to do it. In this section, you ll add a formula to your report so that alternate rows appear with a gray background. Follow these steps to get started adding alternate row highlighting: 1. Click the Details section bar (the gray bar containing the text Details) to select the section. 2. Right-click and select Format Section from the context menu. TIP: You can use the Section Expert dialog box to format any section, not just the currently selected one. In addition, you ll use this section to show or hide any section. For example, the Report Header section of the current report has its Suppress property checked, meaning that you ll never see the section. To display the Report Header section (so you can create a cover page, for example), simply uncheck the Suppress property. If you want the header section on its own page, you could also select the New Page After property. Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development 17-21

22 Creating Reports Using Crystal Reports 3. Select the Color tab, so that you can set the colors for the Details section (see Figure 15). Figure 15. The Color tab allows you to set the background color of the selected section. 4. Click the x+2 button to the right of the Background Color check box, displaying the Format Formula Editor dialog box. The Format Formula Editor dialog box, as shown in Figure 16, makes it somewhat easier to create formulas that affect the behavior of your report. (Note the use of the word somewhat in the previous sentence creating formulas in Crystal Reports can be a perilous and frustrating journey. You re not working in Visual Basic.NET here, and the syntax has its own rules. You ll refer to the somewhat skimpy Crystal Reports documentation often.) Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development

23 Using Custom Formulas Figure 16. Use the Format Formula Editor dialog box to create formulas for your reports. In this case, you re creating a formula that returns a valid color to be used for the Section_Back_Color property for the Details section. To do that, you can use the iif function provided by the Crystal Reports engine, returning a value representing a gray background color for odd-numbered rows, and a value representing a white background color for even-numbered rows. TIP: To determine if a row number is even or odd, you can use the modulus operator (MOD, in Visual Basic.Net). This operator returns the remainder when dividing its first operand by its second. For example, 3 MOD 2 returns 1, and 4 MOD 2 returns 0. If a number is even, that number MOD 2 is always 0. This technique provides a simple way to determine if a given number is even or not. Follow these steps to complete the formula: 1. In the Functions pane (the middle of the three panes), expand the Programming Shortcuts node, and then double-click the IIF function node. 2. For the first parameter of the IIF function, you ll need the record number (so you can determine if you re on an even or odd-numbered row). Click immediately to the right of the ( in the expression you re building to place the cursor on the first parameter. Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development 17-23

24 Creating Reports Using Crystal Reports 3. In the Functions pane, expand the Print State node, and then double-click the RecordNumber node. Your expression should now look like the following: IIF(RecordNumber,, ) 4. In the Operators pane, expand the Arithmetic node, and then doubleclick the Modulus node. Finish the expression, adding code so that your expression looks like the following: IIF(RecordNumber mod 2 = 0,, ) 5. For even rows, your report should use no specific background color. To accomplish this, place your cursor after the first comma (so that you re entering a value for the second IIF parameter). In the Functions/middle pane, expand the Color Constants node, and select NoColor from the list of colors. When you re done, the dialog box should look like Figure 17. Figure 17. Select NoColor from the list of color constants to impose no coloring for even rows. 6. For odd rows, you need to create a color that s not in the list of available colors a very light gray. Colors are made up of red, green, and blue components, and integer values between 0 and 255. Gray consists of equal parts of the three colors (the higher the values, the lighter the shade of Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development

25 Using Custom Formulas gray). To create a light gray, you must construct a color consisting of three component color values between 200 or so and 255. Crystal Reports provides its Color function for just this purpose you supply three integers, and it generates a color. For the third IIF parameter, select the Color function at the top of the Color Constants items, and enter 210 for each color component, like this (we selected 210 arbitrarily): IIF (RecordNumber mod 2 = 0, crnocolor, Color (210, 210, 210)) TIP: Your formulas can be full procedures, using variables, flow control, and more. If you need to write complex formulas, you might consider using Visual Basic syntax, rather than Crystal syntax (see the drop-down list at the top of the editor window to switch syntax). Visual Basic syntax isn t Visual Basic, however. It s simply a more Basic-like syntax. If you choose this syntax, your formulas must work as if they were contained within a procedure named Formula, and must include a line of code that assigns a value to the name Formula. We ve found both syntax options to be equally painful for complex formulas, and see no real benefit to either. 7. Check your syntax using the Check button on the toolbar (second from the left). This button runs code that verifies the correctness of your formula s syntax. (You should use this button often, especially if you attempt to create formulas on your own.) If the syntax checks out, click the Save and Close button (the first button on the toolbar) to close the Formula Editor dialog box. TIP: Once you ve assigned a formula to a property, the x+2 icon on the property s formula editing button appears in red. (It s blue before you ve assigned a formula to the property.) Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development 17-25

26 Creating Reports Using Crystal Reports 8. Run the project and view the report again. If you ve followed the instructions carefully, your report will look like Figure 18. Close the report viewer form once you re done. Figure 18. Adding highlighted alternating rows is easy, once you know how. Create a Calculated Field Your report would be more interesting if it contained a column that listed the extended price for each item that is, the product of the UnitPrice and Quantity fields. Although it s possible to create this information in several other places, as you build your application, Crystal Reports makes it easy to create a calculated column just for your report. To add a column to contain the calculated price, follow these steps: 1. In the Field Explorer window (see Figure 8), right-click on Formula Fields and select New from the context menu. 2. In the Formula Name dialog box, enter Extended (see Figure 19) and then click OK. Figure 19. Specify a name for your new formula Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development

27 Using Custom Formulas 3. In the Formula Editor, from the list of report fields, drag Customers.UnitPrice and Customers.Quantity to the text box at the bottom, with a multiplication (*) operator between the fields. When you re done, the formula should look like this: {Customers.UnitPrice} * {Customers.Quantity} 4. Just as before, check your syntax using the Check button, then close the dialog box using the Save and Close button. 5. Now that you ve create a new formula field, your field should appear in the Fields Explorer, as shown in Figure 20. Drag this field into the Details section of the report, placing the new field to the right of the existing fields. Format the new label and field as necessary, so that the report looks like Figure 21. Figure 20. Your new formula appears as a field in the list of available fields. Figure 21. The report can contain formula fields as well as database fields. 6. Set the currency formatting for the text box as you did before: right-click on the field, and in the Format Editor dialog box, turn on the display of the currency symbol. Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development 17-27

28 Creating Reports Using Crystal Reports 7. Run the project and display the report once again. Your report should now look like Figure Close all the forms when you re done. Figure 22. After adding formulas, your report has alternating highlighted rows, highlighted values, and a calculated field Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development

29 Add Custom Grouping and Totals Add Custom Grouping and Totals TIP: If you ve skipped the previous section, or want to start fresh here, you can simply rename Report1b.rpt as Report1.rpt and continue from this point. Your report would be far more useful if it included groupings that allowed you to view sales by company and by order date. Although you could have added these groupings when you first created your report, it s easier to work with the features you ve already seen without groups getting in the way. In this section, you ll add custom groupings that group data by company name and by order date. In addition, you ll add summary totals for the numeric fields on the report. Add Grouping To insert groupings, follow these steps: 1. Right-click on the report design surface within a section (if you right-click on one of the section bars, you won t be able to add a grouping). 2. Select Insert Group from the context menu, displaying the Insert Group dialog box. 3. For the field to group and sort on, select Customers.CompanyName, as shown in Figure 23. (You can use this dialog box to set other group properties, as well, including Keep Group Together and Repeat Group Header On Each Page.) Click OK to dismiss the dialog box. Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development 17-29

30 Creating Reports Using Crystal Reports Figure 23. Select a field to group and sort by from the Insert Group dialog box. 4. Repeat the previous three steps, this time adding Customers.OrderDate as the grouping field. 5. Your report might be easier to read if the OrderDate field was indented, and if the CompanyName field was a bit larger. Format the fields, so that the designer looks like Figure 24. Figure 24. After adding groups, your report should look like this Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development

31 Add Custom Grouping and Totals 6. Run the project, and verify that your report looks like Figure 25. Figure 25. After adding groups, your report provides more useful information. Add Totals For your report, it would be interesting to include the total extended cost for each date, for each customer, and for the entire report. In addition, it would also be useful to view the quantity ordered by each customer as a percentage of the total number of items ordered. Adding subtotals and summary fields is simple, using the tools provided by the Crystal Reports designer. (Along the way, you ll investigate adding all three types of totals: summary, grand total, and subtotal fields.) In this section, you ll add three different summary values: Subtotals (and grand total) for formula field. Grand total for the Quantity field. For each company, a summary field containing the individual company s quantity of items purchased as a percentage of the total quantity of items sold. Follow these steps to add the summary values: 1. Right-click on the report s design surface within one of the footer sections. 2. Select Insert Subtotal from the context menu. Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development 17-31

32 Creating Reports Using Crystal Reports 3. On the Insert Subtotal dialog box (see Figure 26), select field, and select the two check box controls at the bottom these controls add summary fields for all the groups, and insert a grand total field. Click OK when you re done. Figure 26. Use the Insert Subtotal dialog box to create subtotals in one or more sections. 4. Your report will be easier to read if the subtotals appear differently in each section, so format the font for each to be a different color. For example, set the control in the OrderDate footer to appear blue, and the control in the CompanyName footer to appear red. 5. Right-click in a section, and select Insert Grand Total from the context menu. 6. Select Customers.Quantity from the list of fields (see Figure 27), then click OK to insert a grand total field into the Report Footer section Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development

33 Add Custom Grouping and Totals Figure 27. When you insert a Grand Total field, you place a field into the Report Footer section. 7. Right-click in a section, and select Insert Summary from the context menu. 8. Select Customers.Quantity from the list of fields. 9. Select Group #1: Customers.CompanyName for the group in which to insert the summary field. 10. Check the Show as a percentage of check box, and verify that the dropdown list contains Grand Total:Sum of Quantity. 11. Click OK to add the summary field. TIP: You may have noticed, but it s worth pointing out in case you didn t: the report designer is smart it places summary fields underneath the data it s summarizing. You can move the summary fields, of course, but they re placed by default in the right place. 12. Run the project and load the report again, and note the subtotals, grand totals, and summary fields that appear on your report (see Figure 28). Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development 17-33

34 Creating Reports Using Crystal Reports Figure 28. Once you ve added subtotals, grand totals, and summary fields, your report takes care of calculating the correct values for each group. NOTE The examples in this section all added totals by summing values within the section containing the total field. Crystal Reports provides many other functions you can use, including averaging, counts, and so on. You re not limited to displaying simple sums, and can create rich calculated values on your reports using options provided by the report designer. Using the Navigation Pane Now that you ve added groupings to your report, the navigation pane on the left side of the CrystalReportViewer control is useful. If you click the Toggle Group Tree button on the control s toolbar to display the navigation pane, you can select groups by clicking on them, as shown in Figure 29. You can even double-click on the highlighted group on the report, which loads a secondary view showing only the detail rows for the group you ve selected Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development

35 Add Custom Grouping and Totals Figure 29. Once you ve added groups, the navigation pane is useful. Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development 17-35

36 Creating Reports Using Crystal Reports Filtering the Report TIP: If you ve skipped the previous section, or want to start fresh here, you can simply rename Report1c.rpt as Report1.rpt and continue from this point. In your own applications, you may need to filter the rows filling the report dynamically, based on user input. Although you could modify the underlying set of rows filling the report, it s easier to take advantage of a useful property of the CrystalReportViewer control: the SelectionFormula property. The SelectionFormula property allows you to specify any Boolean formula (that is, an expression that results in a True or False value). The report engine compares the values in each row against your criterion, and determines whether to include each row. WARNING! Your selection formula must use Crystal syntax, which can be confusing for Visual Basic developers. Although this example supplies the SelectionFormula property from code, your best bet is to use the Formula Editor dialog box from within the report designer, get the formula working, and then copy it into your code. You can apply your selection formula at design time (which means that your selection criterion are applied by default), or you can apply the formula at runtime, programmatically, allowing you to sometimes view all rows, and other times view subsets of the rows. That s the approach you ll take here although you ll create the selection formula using the Formula Editor window in the designer, you ll actually apply the formula in code. TIP: One quirk of formulas in Crystal Reports is most apparent when creating a selection formula: all field names must be surrounded with curly braces ({}), and you must always include the field using {TableName.FieldName} syntax. In this example, you re retrieving data from a table named Customers within the typed dataset, so you must refer to fields using syntax like this: {Customers.Quantity} Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development

37 Filtering the Report Creating the Selection Formula It s simpler to create the selection formula using the tools provided by the report designer, so this section demonstrates how to use the built-in tools, and then copy the formula back out to your own code, so you can filter rows dynamically. Follow these steps to create the selection formula and use it from the sample application: 1. From within the report designer, right-click on any section and select Report Edit Selection Formula Records from the context menu. 2. Drag and drop fields and operators to create your expression and check its syntax. Your formula should look like this once you re done: {Customers.Quantity} > Note the formula syntax, because you ll use syntax much like this from within your own code. 4. Test out the report once again, verifying that you only see rows for orders detail rows for which the Quantity field is greater than Back in Design view, remove the selection formula by deleting the text in the Formula Editor dialog box from the report itself. If you want to dynamically filter the report s rows, you can set the CrystalReportViewer control s SelectionFormula property before you display the report. The sample project includes a mechanism for setting the control s SelectionFormula property the sample form, frmreport, contains a public property named SelectionFormula, defined like the following: Public Property SelectionFormula() As String Get Return CrystalReportViewer1.SelectionFormula End Get Set(ByVal Value As String) CrystalReportViewer1.SelectionFormula = Value End Set End Property The main sample form can set the form s SelectionFormula property when you click Display Filtered Report. Follow these steps to add this functionality: Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development 17-37

38 Creating Reports Using Crystal Reports 1. Open frmmain in the form designer. 2. Double-click Display Filtered Report to load the corresponding Click event handler. Modify the btnshowfilteredreport_click procedure so that it looks like the following, adding the line of code displayed in boldface (nudquantity is the name of the NumericUpdown control on the form): Private Sub btnshowfilteredreport_click( _ ByVal sender As System.Object, _ ByVal e As System.EventArgs) _ Handles btnshowfilteredrepor.click Dim frm As New frmreport() frm.selectionformula = _ "{Customers.Quantity} > " & nudquantity.text frm.show() End Sub TIP: Note the similarity between the selection formula you ve created here, and the one you entered directly into the report. The only difference is that this formula is a string literal, and must be surrounded with quotes. In addition, here you re using the Text property of the NumericUpdown control to provide the value instead of hard-coding it yourself. 3. Open frmreport in the form designer. 4. Press F7 to view the code associated with the form. 5. Find the SelectionFormula property, and remove any comment characters (apostrophes) within the code. 6. Run the project once more. This time, scroll to or type in a value in the NumericUpdown control, then click Display Filtered Report. You should see your report, filtered to display only rows that meet your filter. If you like, you can change the value on the main form, click the button again, and load a second instance of the report form filtered using the new value Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development

39 Filtering the Report TIP: If you want to modify the SelectionFormula property of the CrystalReportViewer control while the control is active (but before you start printing, obviously), you must also call the RefreshReport method of the control. This causes the report to refill its data, taking into account the new formula. What s Next? Even though this chapter focused on getting you started with Crystal Reports and the CrystalReportViewer control, there s a huge amount more functionality you can dig into. If you re interested, you can investigate: Crystal Reports design-time Experts Subreports Top/Bottom N filters Hierarchical grouping options Sorting data using the report designer Printing options, using properties of the ReportDocument class Handling events of the CrystalReportViewer control, including the ViewZoom and Navigate events Methods of the CrystalReportViewer control, including ShowFirstPage, ShowLastPage, ShowNextPage, ShowPreviousPage, Zoom, PrintReport, and more You ve just barely scratched the surface of this incredibly rich area of Visual Studio.NET. You have the tools to get started creating reports. Dig into the documentation as necessary, and you should be able to accomplish just about any reporting task you take on. TIP: For more information, drop by the Crystal Decisions Web site at You ll find technical articles, samples, and more. Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development 17-39

40 Creating Reports Using Crystal Reports Summary In order to add reporting to your Visual Studio.NET applications, you can use Crystal Reports designer and the CrystalReportViewer control. To use Crystal Reports, you first create a report template, then save the report, create a report viewer, then run the project. You can either embed the report templates within your executable, or distribute them separately. Both techniques have their own merits. The report templates you create pull data from your data source at runtime, displaying the most current data. Before creating a report, set up the data source for the report. Use the Crystal Reports design-time experts to help you lay out your report. Use the CrystalReportViewer control to display the report you created in the report designer. Displaying a report requires writing at least a few lines of code. You can create custom formulas to control the behavior of the report. In this chapter, you learned to highlight values, provide alternating rows different background colors, and create a calculated field. You can group your data and add totals using the Crystal Reports designer. Set the SelectionFormula property of the CrystalReportViewer control to filter data dynamically Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development

41 Filtering the Report Questions 1. True/False: Each Crystal Reports report can only retrieve its data from a single table. 2. How can you display the date on which the report was printed, on the report itself? 3. How could you modify a report so that all customers in Canada have their CompanyName field displayed in italics? 4. How can you cause the Crystal Reports designer to add summary fields to all grouping levels? 5. What property should you set to filter the contents of a report? Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development 17-41

42 Creating Reports Using Crystal Reports Answers 1. True/False: Each Crystal Reports report can only retrieve its data from a single table. False. Reports can draw their data from multiple sources, as in the sample for this chapter. 2. How can you display the date on which the report was printed, on the report itself? Add a special field to the report. The PrintDate field displays the date on which the report was printed. 3. How could you modify a report so that all customers in Canada have their CompanyName field displayed in italics? Add a custom formula for highlighting the CompanyName field. 4. How can you cause the Crystal Reports designer to add summary fields to all grouping levels? Select the Insert Summary Fields for All Groups check box when you re creating the summary field. 5. What property should you set to filter the contents of a report? Set the SelectionFormula property of the CrystalReportViewer control Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development

43 Filtering the Report Lab 17: Creating Reports Using Crystal Reports TIP: Because this lab includes code that you must type in, we ve tried to make it simpler for you. You ll find all the code in CrystalReports.txt, in the same directory as the sample project. To avoid typing the code, you can copy/paste it from the text file instead. Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development 17-43

44 Lab 17: Creating Reports Using Crystal Reports Lab 17 Overview In this lab you ll modify the sample project, adding a report based on the Customers table in the SQL Server Northwind sample database. Once you ve set up the data and created the report, you ll group the data by country, and then add a total showing the number of customers per country. To complete this lab, you ll need to work through three exercises: Create the Report Create the Report Viewer Add Grouping and Summary Values Each exercise includes an Objective section that describes the purpose of the exercise. You are encouraged to try to complete the exercise from the information given in the Objective section. If you require more information to complete the exercise, the Objective section is followed by detailed step-bystep instructions Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development

45 Create the Report Create the Report Objective The sample project contains a report form, frmreport.vb. This form contains pre-configured SqlDataAdapter, SqlConnection, and typed DataSet objects named SqlDataAdapter1, SqlConnection1, and DsCustomers1, respectively. In this exercise, create a simple report template named Customers.rpt. When you re finished laying out the report, it should look like Figure 30. In addition, the font for all the controls in the sample result should be set to Verdana, rather than the default Times New Roman font face. Figure 30. The finished report template should look like this. Things to Consider Because this report is so simple, your best bet is to bypass the report experts, and create the report by hand. Simply elect to create a blank report on the first page of the Crystal Report Gallery, and you re ready to go. If this is the first time you ve used Crystal Reports, or if you haven t registered your product yet, you ll be asked to register. You can safely bypass the nag screen, for now. Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development 17-45

46 Lab 17: Creating Reports Using Crystal Reports If you want all the controls on your report to use the Verdana font, you should set the defaults for the report designer so that all controls use this font by default. PrintDate and Page N of M are available in the list of special fields in the Field Explorer window. The Crystal Reports designer creates text fields that are far too wide, when you drag fields onto the report designer. You ll need to resize each field as you lay out the report. The simplest way to do this is to select the field, then SHIFT+CLICK to select its label. Then resize both at once by clicking and dragging on the sizing handle on the right-hand edge of either control. Because you re bypassing the report expert, you ll need to add the database information to the report yourself. You can right-click on the Database Fields node in the Field Explorer window, and select Add/Remove Database from the context menu. Add the provided DataSet by drilling down into the nodes, as shown in Figure 31. Figure 31. Select the provided DataSet by drilling down into the Database Expert sources. Step-by-Step Instructions 1. Open the sample project, CrystalReportsLab.sln, in Visual Studio.NET. 2. Select the Project Add New Item menu item to display the Add New Item dialog box Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development

47 Create the Report 3. From the list of templates, select Crystal Report, and set the name for the report to be Customers.rpt. 4. On the Crystal Report Gallery dialog box, select the As a Blank Report option, creating a blank report. (If you re asked to register Crystal Reports at this point, you can indicate that you ll register later, and keep working.) Click OK to create the report. 5. Right-click on any section (the white area) of the report designer, and select Designer Default Settings from the context menu. 6. In the Default Settings dialog box, select the Fonts tab. 7. For each of the buttons on the Fonts tab (see Figure 32), modify the default font to be Verdana/10pt. (You can skip the Charts button, if you like you won t be using charts in this demonstration.) Click OK when you re done to dismiss the dialog box. Figure 32. Set default fonts for each of these buttons. 8. In the Toolbox window, select the Toolbox tab, and then drag a Text Object control to the report designer s Report Header section. 9. Enter the text Customers into the new text box. 10. Right-click on the text box, select Format from the context menu, and set the font size to 20. Click OK to dismiss the dialog box, then resize the control as necessary to display all the text. When you re done, the report should look like Figure 33. Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development 17-47

48 Lab 17: Creating Reports Using Crystal Reports Figure 33. The upper-left corner of the report contains a text object. 11. In the Toolbox window, select the Field Explorer tab (at the bottom of the window). 12. To add database information, right-click the Database Fields tab, select Add/Remove Database from the context menu, and then drill down into the list of sources in the Database Expert until you ve selected the Customers table, as shown in Figure 34. Double-click to add the table to the list of Selected Tables. Click OK when you re done to dismiss the dialog box. Figure 34. Select the Customers table that s already been created for you. 13. In the Field Explorer window, expand the Database Fields node and then expand the Customers node. Click and drag the ContactName field to the Details section of the report, adding a field and label to the report. 14. SHIFT+CLICK to select the label field (the data field is already selected), and then use the mouse to resize both fields narrower by clicking on the label s sizing handle on the right-hand side of the control. Drag to the left, making both controls narrower. (See Figure 30 for an idea of how wide to make the controls.) Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development

49 Create the Report 15. Repeat the previous two steps for the City and Country fields. Again, refer to Figure 30 for an idea of how to lay out the fields. 16. In the Field Explorer window, expand the Special Fields node. Click and drag the Print Date field into the Report Header section. (Resize the Print Date field so that it s wider than the suggested, default width.) Repeat for the Page N of M field, dragging into the Page Footer section. (Expand the height of the Report Header section by clicking and dragging the horizontal gray divider bar, between the Report Header and Page Header sections.) 17. Save your project. If your report template looks like Figure 30, you re done. In the next exercise, you ll set up your project to load and display the report. Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development 17-49

50 Lab 17: Creating Reports Using Crystal Reports Create the Report Viewer Objective The sample project contains a form named frmreport.vb. In this exercise, add an instance of the CrystalReportViewer control to this form, and have the control fill the entire form. Make sure the control doesn t display its navigation pane. Write the code necessary to load the control with the report you created in the previous exercise. Verify that when you run the project and select Display Report Form on the main form, your report displays within frmreport.vb. Things to Consider When you add a report to a project, Visual Studio.NET creates a class with the same name as the report that inherits from the base ReportDocument class. Since your report is named Customers.rpt, the class is named Customers. In order to display your report, you need to write a little code in your form s Load event handler. Your code must accomplish these goals: Create a new instance of the report class, Customers. Fill the form s DataSet object, using the Fill method of the SqlDataAdapter object. Set the data source for the report, using the report object s SetDataSource method. Set the ReportSource property of the CrystalReportViewer control to refer to the ReportDocument object you created. Step-by-Step Instructions 1. In the Solution Explorer window, double-click frmreport.vb to load the form into the form designer window. 2. In the Toolbox window, scroll down until you locate the CrystalReportViewer control. Double-click to add an instance of the control to the form. 3. Double-click on the form itself to load the form s module into the code editor window. 4. Modify the frmreport_load procedure, so that it looks like this: Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development

51 Create the Report Viewer ' Code fragment 1. Private Sub frmreport_load( _ ByVal sender As Object, _ ByVal e As System.EventArgs) _ Handles MyBase.Load Dim rpt As New Customers() SqlDataAdapter1.Fill(DsCustomers1) rpt.setdatasource(dscustomers1) CrystalReportViewer1.ReportSource = rpt End Sub 5. Press SHIFT+F7 to reload the form designer. 6. Select the CrystalReportViewer control, and set the control s Dock property to Fill. (Select the block in the middle of the drop-down selection when you drop down the list of options for the property.) Set the control s DisplayGroupTree property to False. 7. Press F5 to run the sample project, click Display Report Form on the main form, and verify that your report loads and displays. Your report should look like Figure Close both forms and save your project. Figure 35. The finished report should look like this. Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development 17-51

52 Lab 17: Creating Reports Using Crystal Reports Add Grouping and Summary Values Objective In this exercise, modify your report, adding a group based on the Country field. In addition, add a summary field that displays the total number of customers from each country. Because you re adding a grouping, it would also be useful to be able to navigate quickly to any of the groups, so turn on the navigation pane in the viewer control, as well. Figure 36 shows the finished report. Figure 36. The finished report contains a grouping on Country, and a summary field containing the number of contacts in each country. Step-by-Step Instructions 1. In the Solution Explorer window, double-click Customers.rpt to load the report into the report designer window. 2. Right-click on any white space on the report, and select Insert Group from the context menu Visual Basic.NET Professional Skills Development