Crystal Reports 2008 Official Guide [Paperback]

Neil Fitzgerald (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0672329891 | ISBN-13: 978-0672329890 | Publication Date: October 12, 2008 | Edition: 1

CRYSTAL REPORTS® 2008

OFFICIAL GUIDE

Whether you’re a DBA, data warehousing or business intelligence professional,
reporting specialist, or developer, this book has the answers you need. Through
hands-on examples, you’ll systematically master Crystal Reports and Xcelsius
2008’s most powerful features for creating, distributing, and delivering content.
One step at a time, long-time Crystal Reports insiders take you from the basics
through advanced content creation and delivery using Xcelsius, Crystal Reports
Server, crystalreports.com, and the offline Crystal Reports Viewer.

Every significant enhancement introduced in Crystal Reports 2008 is covered, including its new visualization options and more robust Web services capabilities. The book concludes by showing how to use Crystal Reports’ powerful .NET and Java SDKs to customize and extend enterprise reporting in virtually unlimited ways.

 

• Learn hands-on, through step-by-step examples and exercises–and discover tips and tricks proven in real-world enterprise environments

  •   Master new Crystal Reports 2008 features, including interactive report viewing, Xcelsius dashboarding, Flex, and Flash integration, Report Designer improvements, report bursting, and more

  •   Publish professional-quality reports against virtually any data source, including relational and OLAP databases, Universes, SAP, PeopleSoft, JavaBeans, .NET/COM objects, XML, and more

  •   Discover advanced visualization techniques using Xcelsius, charts, and maps

  •   Learn methods for distributing reports and integrating content into other applications

            •           Learn about the latest reporting addition to the Business Objects family–Xcelsius and begin creating dynamic and interactive dashboards

 

NEIL FITZGERALD has spent several years working at Business Objects and with one of Business Objects’ largest providers of custom BI and enterprise reporting solutions.

BOB COATES currently works as a Sales Consultant for Business Objects, an SAP company, where he has been employed for more than eleven years.

 

RYAN GOODMAN is the founder of Centigon Solutions, Inc., and remains one of the top Xcelsius experts and evangelists in the world.

 

MICHAEL VOLOSHKO is a senior presales consultant for the financial services team at Business Objects.

 

ON THE WEB

Find all this and more at informit.com/sams:

     •    Java and .NET sample reports and code samples for all examples in the book

     •    Bonus chapters, tips, tricks, and links to great reporting resources

 

CATEGORY: Database

COVERS: Crystal Reports 2008, Crystal Reports Server 2008,

Crystal Reports Viewer, crystalreports.com, Xcelsius 2008

USER LEVEL: Beginning–Intermediate

 

 

informit.com/sams

 

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

About the Lead Author

Neil FitzGerald is an entrepreneur who has successfully started or contributed to multiple consulting companies in the IT consulting domain. Neil combined his bachelor’s degree in computer science from Queen’s University in Kingston, Canada and his MBA from the Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario with his more than 8 years of experience at Business Objects in a variety of senior roles to help provide information solutions to Fortune 500 companies across North America. He has spent more than 13 years in the information delivery domain and is available for onsite or remote consulting to companies large and small. Neil can be contacted at [e-mail].

 

About the Contributing Authors

Bob Coates has worked for Business Objects, an SAP company (through the Crystal Decisions and Business Objects acquisitions), for more than 11 years. While there he worked in technical support, global services, and sales consulting. Presently Bob is a principal sales consultant working on the SAP Synergy Team–a branch of the Strategic Technology Group focused on the top 100 SAP customers. Bob would like to thank his wife Amanda for her infinite patience and support.

 

Ryan Goodman is the founder of Centigon Solutions Inc. As a previous technical evangelist and sales consultant at Infommersion and then Business Objects, Ryan has implemented hundreds of Xcelsius projects spanning more than 4 years. His interactive data visualization and design background coupled with his business insight and technical aptitude have made him one of the top Xcelsius experts in the world. Ryan continues to push the envelope and evangelize Xcelsius on his blog: www.ryangoodman.net/blog.

 

Michael Voloshko is a principal solutions architect for the financial services vertical at Business Objects, an SAP company.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

INTRODUCTION

In this chapter

• Introduction to Information Delivery

• Spectrum of Business Objects Product Usage

• Spectrum of BI Tool Users

• The Product Family from Business Objects

• What Is in This Book

• Equipment Used for This Book

Introduction to Information Delivery

Organizations of all sizes today find themselves increasingly awash in data, yet hungering for information to help them meet their business objectives. These corporations, from Main Street and Wall Street alike, have spent large amounts of time and money over the past 10 or so years implementing systems to help collect data on and streamline their operations. From monolithic Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems (SAP, PeopleSoft, Oracle Financials, and so on) through Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems (Siebel, Rightnow.com, Salesforce.com, and so on) to Custom Data Warehousing projects, these firms are now looking for ways to extract value from the collective body of data to help them run their businesses more productively and competitively. These firms are looking for a strategic information delivery or business intelligence solution to help them become more productive and ultimately compete more effectively. The products covered in this book are geared toward meeting that challenge.

The information delivery products and solutions presented in this book are often categorized under the Business Intelligence (BI) banner. BI is the industry of value-added information delivery based on structured data sources—essentially providing meaningful, business-driven value and information to business end users by connecting them to data with appropriate tools and products. Figure I.1 highlights the conceptual divide of information delivery solutions into the structured and unstructured world. Although evidence suggests an eventual blurring of the boundaries between these discrete industries over time, the Business Objects products covered in this book most aptly fit under the BI banner.

Figure I.1
The information delivery industry divides broadly into structured and unstructured information management.

Industry analysts in the information delivery area regularly highlight the impressive adoption rates of BI products in the past few years as testimony to their value. The dynamic double-digit percentage growth rates for industry leaders such as Business Objects are especially impressive when the difficult macroeconomic operating environment of recent years is taken into account. Ironically, many suggest, this same poor economic environment has largely driven the increased worldwide demand for BI functionality as firms work to increase their productivity and competitiveness by leveraging existing investments—and doing more with less. The next section covers the BI industry driver along with a few others.

Spectrum of Business Objects Product Usage

BI products such as those distributed by Business Objects (Crystal Reports, Crystal Reports Server, BusinessObjects Enterprise, Crystal Xcelsius, and Web Intelligence) are deployed and used in about as many different ways as there are product implementations—and there are millions. However, as you examine a broad swath of BI clients and their implementations, you can find definite themes to their deployments. Taking a step back, distinctive drivers to worldwide BI product adoption become evident. The following sections discuss a few of the most common.

Custom Information Delivery Applications

Despite the increasing functionality of turnkey software and web applications available today, corporations of all sizes still regularly look to custom-developed applications to provide them with unique competitive advantage and to meet their proprietary business requirements. These applications run the gamut in size from small business applications through large departmental applications to enterprise intranet and extranet applications. The key component of these custom projects is the integration of BI functionality, such as formatted reporting, ad hoc query, dashboarding, self-service web reporting, and/or analytic capabilities, within an internally developed application. Table I.1 highlights some typical examples of custom applications using the Business Objects suite of products to help deliver custom applications.

Table I.1 Sample Custom Information Delivery Applications

Application	Application Audience	Product Usage
Small retail chain's internal Java-based sales metrics application	Approximately 20 sales employees and managers	Using Crystal Reports Java Engine, the developer provides the sales team with Web access to on-demand metrics reports built into the intranet application.
Large portfolio	10,000+ high value customers of firm	Using Crystal Xcelsius and Crystal Reports Server, the management firm's developer provides access to the scalable client extranet application reporting infrastructure and facilitates those customers getting online web access to their portfolio reports.
Asset management firm's report batch of institution scheduling application	50,000+ clients	Using the Business Objects reporting server and scheduling engine, the developer's application dynamically creates tens of thousands of customized reports daily and automatically emails them to the appropriate clients in PDF and XLS formats.

A key strength of the Business Objects suite of products is that it lends itself readily to integration into custom applications. From the inclusion of basic formatted reports within Java/J2EE or .NET applications through the inclusion of rich ad hoc query and self-service reporting functionality in proprietary information product applications to provision of large-scale enterprise BI analytics, scheduling, and security functionality in a globally deployed application, the Business Objects suite of products can meet your requirements. Table I.2 provides a jump-point for those looking for each type of application integration covered in this book.

Table I.2 Custom Application Chapters Overview

Development Environment	Required Functionality	Part or Chapters
Java/J2EE	Prebuilt reports included in custom Java application	Part IV, Chapter 18
.NET	Prebuilt reports included in custom .NET application	Part IV, Chapter 19

Enterprise BI Initiatives

With the proliferation of BI tools and the acceleration of product adoption around the globe, there has been concurrent pressure for the involved companies to standardize on a single set of products and tools—effectively a BI infrastructure or platform. The main arguments for such standardization include the following:

• Reduced total cost of product ownership

• Creation of enterprise centers of excellence

• Reduced vendor relationships

• Movement toward a BI infrastructure/platform

As BI products have matured from different areas of historical strength and their marketplace acceptance has grown, end user organizations have found themselves with disparate and incompatible BI tools and products across or even within the same departments in their organization. To eliminate the costliness of managing such a broad set of tools, many firms are now moving to adopt a single BI platform such as BusinessObjects Enterprise (or Crystal Reports Server for smaller businesses).

The infrastructure of BusinessObjects Enterprise provides a single a...

Product Details

• Paperback: 576 pages
• Publisher: Sams; 1 edition (October 12, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0672329891
• ISBN-13: 978-0672329890
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 7 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #189,072 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Should've come in the software package, February 5, 2009

By 

Clark B. Timmins "q-25" (West Jordan, UT USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Crystal Reports 2008 Official Guide (Paperback)

Ten or fifteen years ago, this book would have been in the shrinkwrapped software package as the included reference manual. Now that the software box is more-or-less empty, you have to buy this reference manual separately. The book is a standard reference-type manual designed to provide an overview of every feature within the product including the newest features. Besides the standard overview type stuff, it includes some basic tutorials on often-confusing topics such as report integration; you won't become an expert using these tutorials, however. The book also includes a lot of information on how Crystal Reports integrates with Business Objects' larger software platforms (which will probably be useless for 90% of users).

Beginning users will find the manual easy to use and full of information. Intermediate users will find a few suggestions here and there. Advanced users will probably only give it a flip-through. All in all a solid offering in a fairly crowded field, but one that is authoritative and complete. I might mention that it doesn't include much that isn't in the on-line documentation that installs with the software--but it is easier to use. However, I just can't shake the feeling that the manual should have come in the box.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nice tutorial for new users, May 24, 2010

By 

R. Kell (Hillsboro, OR United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Crystal Reports 2008 Official Guide (Paperback)

I'm new to Crystal Reports, saw this at my local bookstore and purchased it. It was exactly what I wanted and is definitely geared for the new user. If you want a reference guide, go with something like this, according to my Crystal expert friends: http://www.amazon.com/Crystal-Reports-2008-Complete-Reference/dp/0071590986

This book has step-by-step instructions on the core features of Crystal, just what a beginner wants. Worked well for me and gave me a good understanding of the basics. Remember, the title says this book is a "guide," not a Reference Guide.

Note that there are numerous quirks and minor flaws in the book. Here are some things I can remember as an FYI:

* Several screen shots don't quite match the instructions, which confused me at times.
* Instructions are based on the "Xtreme" sample database. The instructions on how to acquire that database are wrong. I had to search the SAP/Business Objects web site and eventually got it (even then it wasn't 100% clear I was getting the right thing).
* I wished the book would list all the prerequisites I'll need to follow the examples early on. Several times I came across URLs (some of which were dead ends) to software that I'll need to continue the chapter. That's a bummer when I'm in study mode. And the URLs are not friendly -- long ones with a mixture of upper and lower case letters. Is that a capital "I" or a lowercase "l"? Do you *really* need 32 random characters in one part of the URL? Yuck.
* The chapters build on each other. Later chapters assume you know how to do everything prior, thus making chapter skipping problematic at times. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but handy to know.

None of the above were deal-breakers. I was stone cold new to Crystal Reporting and it was very easy to follow along and learn the basics. The low scores I've seen on this book seem to be from people who didn't do their homework and view sample chapters -- they are from advanced users who should not have purchased this book in the first place. It does very well as a Guide, which is all it claims to be.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Everything I needed to be productive and creative, December 29, 2010

By 

MDGI - See all my reviews

This review is from: Crystal Reports 2008 Official Guide (Paperback)

Having reviewed a few different Crystal books over the last few years with colleagues, I came upon this "official guide" by ex and or current SAP employees and consultants. After reviewing the book, I came to quickly like the real world scenarios that compliment the core lessons of each chapter. The book presented reporting concepts in an easy easy to grasp manner and was meaningfully organized and thorough. Additionally, the authors have been responsive to email queries and follow-up challenges that I have sent them. All of this leads to my strong rating - highly recommended.