Special Edition Using Crystal Reports 10 [Deluxe Edition] [Paperback]

Neil FitzGerald (Author), Ryan Marples (Author), Naisan Geula (Author), Bob Coates (Author), James Edkins (Author), Michael Voloshko (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0789731134 | ISBN-13: 978-0789731135 | Publication Date: July 14, 2004 | Edition: Special

Special Edition Using Crystal Reports 10 is a reference guide designed to provide hands-on experience with the latest release of the product suite. The latest version of the Crystal Reporting Suite, delivers vast enhancements that drive upgrades from licensees who'll seek a reference to help them migrate. As Crystal Decisions insiders, the authors bring unique and valuable real-world perspectives on implementations and use of the Crystal Reports product. The book includes content, tutorials and samples for reporting within the Microsoft Visual Studio.NET environment and on the SAP Business Information Warehouse. New content on report distribution, and integration into the secured managed reporting solution known as Crystal Enterprise, is also now included in this definitive user guide.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

This book was written to provide a full product adoption life-cycle reference to Crystal Reports Designers, Application Developers integrating Reporting functionality and Crystal Enterprise Administrators.

About the Author

Neil FitzGerald has more than 9 years' experience working with information delivery, business intelligence and enterprise reporting products. He has combined this experience with his bachelor of computer science degree from Queen's University in Kingston, Canada and his MBA from the Ivey School of Business at the University of Western Ontario, to help provide information solutions to Fortune 500 companies across North America. Neil is currently based in New York City and helps Business Objects clients understand the potential of the Crystal suite of products.

Ryan Marples has worked in a variety of roles at Business Objects and formerly Crystal Decisions for six years. His experience in supporting, building, marketing and selling Crystal-based products makes him an authority on the technology. Today Ryan works with the company's largest customers helping them define and architect successful technology deployments. This is the second book he has helped author for the Crystal community. Ryan resides in Vancouver, Canada.

Naisan Geula manages the Business Objects field sales alliance with Microsoft in North America. He is an avid garage tinkerer, mountain bike mechanic and gadget-phile, and he lives in rural Washington with his wife and personal zoo. He greatly enjoys the outdoors and watching technology unite humanity and facilitate a more holistic lifestyle.

Bob Coates has been an employee of Business Objects (through the acquisition of Crystal Decisions) for seven years. He is currently a member of the pre-sales department and the Public Sector team in the United States. Bob started working with Crystal Decisions as a technical product specialist and team leader in technical support; he moved on to become a consultant in the professional services organization and finally moved into his current role in pre-sales. Prior to coming to the technology industry, Bob enjoyed diverse roles as an Infantry Officer in the Canadian Forces Army Reserve (Seaforth Highlanders of Canada), bartender in various bars and restaurants and a first-aid attendant in a sawmill in Vancouver.

James Edkins is a senior pre-sales consultant for Business Objects. He holds a bachelor's degree in information technology and a post graduate diploma in marketing management. He has been in the information technology sector for more than 10 years and has experience working with the Fortune 500 companies in an ERP, product development and business intelligence capacity.

Michael Voloshko is a pre-sales consultant for the financial services team at Business Objects and is based in New York City.

Product Details

• Paperback: 888 pages
• Publisher: Que; Special edition (July 14, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0789731134
• ISBN-13: 978-0789731135
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.4 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #285,497 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Dittos on the Down Side, November 9, 2005

By 

R. Jones (Round Rock, Tx USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Special Edition Using Crystal Reports 10 (Paperback)

As to what others have said:
A reference - I disagree. Too much talk-talk gets in the way of finding anything quickly. Also the index is not as detailed as the text. For example I don't find an index reference to the "verify database" command but I'm sure it's mentioned in the book (somewhere!!). The Crystal reports online help is much better reference, it's more concise and organized to find specifics, the hallmark of a *reference*

Poorly Written - not.

Tedious - in the extreme.

My Spin:
The book addresses every nit and noid, thus making it difficult to find or learn things quickly. It's like trying to swim across the lake but you have to dive to the bottom constantly. And they bring up so much stuff they end up not really teaching or describing it adequately. I'm not so much learning Crystal Reports as I am being overwhelmed by exposure to every menu item and dialog in the system! It's kinda like an 800 page demo. One thing I am not getting out of this book is how to "program" in Crystal - and as an experience programmer, it's syntax is confusing.

I want to "get started quickly" - after all the basics of CR is rather basic. And later I want to "learn more in depth". And over time I want to look up things I forgot. This book just doesn't cut it.

Finally:
This book is OK if you have the time and patience and need to learn it all from scratch. It very "linear" in my view significantly adding to the tedium factor.

23 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A comprehensive Report Design and Delivery Book, August 17, 2004

By 

Alex Stormov "Storm" (NJ USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Special Edition Using Crystal Reports 10 (Paperback)

I had used Crystal Reports in a few projects previously and was tasked with using it again in a large upcoming initiave. I decided to review the current books out there to see what could best help me get back up to speed and give me a deep enough level of material that I could continuously learn from - this book is it.

The Book covered Crystal Report Design in a thorough way that let me get back up to speed quickly and the tips and tricks provided in the chapters were great in showing me how to create Crystal reports in an optimal way. The book took me through all the necessary preliminaries like data-source connections, field selection, grouping, filtering, sorting, etc and then led me to advanced features like Cross-tabs, Report Templates, Charting and Business Views (we use Crystal Enterprise too).

Unlike the other books I reviewed on the market, this one enabled me to not only create great reports using Crystal Reports but also taught me how to deliver those over the web through my custom application - a huge time saver and as mentioned provided great coverage of the other Crystal (or Business Objects) products so that I could actually construct a growth plan for my Crystal Enterprise infrastructure.

Over-all - highly recommended. AS

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Best book I found out there for a novice but poorly edited, September 1, 2005

By 

Steve H "Steve H" (Arnold, MD USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Special Edition Using Crystal Reports 10 (Paperback)

I am a beginner at Crystal Reports. I bought two other books before this one and I was left frustrated by both of them. I bought this book and within one day I was at least able create and edit reports. But this book is so poorly edited its laughable. It makes learning from this book a lot more difficult than it has to be. The book was obviously written by several different authors, some more capable than others. One chapter I am understanding everything on the first read and the next I am completely befuddled having to reread sections four or five times and finally figuring out what to do on my own. I get the sense that the book was hastily rehashed for this software version and the reader is at times left trying to make sense of instructions for earlier releases. There is hardly any sense of continutiy between the chapters and some exercises refer to prodedures that are yet to be covered. The book is rife with typos and it constantly references illustrations that are located pages away. Whats up with that? It wasn't to save paper. If the redundant paragraphs and unnecessarily wordy sentences were properly edited we could have saved a tree per book.
Que and its parent, Pearson are highly respected publishers. Its hard to believe they would release a $50 book of such poor quality. Nevertheless, the book delivered what I needed. If you are at your wit's end tryng to learn Crystal Reports consider buying this book for lack of anything more understandable.