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Using the Report Wizards
There are several report wizards which you can run to quickly and easily create many various types of reports in Crystal Reports. This can often be a way of more quickly creating a report which you would otherwise have to create by hand. You can also edit and modify the reports after you have created them, if needed. This is simply another way of beginning the report creation process. However, these are not tools for the novice user who has no concept of data selection, sorting, filtering and grouping to use. These wizards simply expedite the basic report creation process.
You can start one of the four reports wizards by simply clicking on the hyper linked name of the desired report wizard that appears in the “Start a New Report” section of the “Start Page.” You can also start a report wizard by selecting “File| New” from the Menu Bar and then choosing the name of the desired report wizard from the side menu of choices that appears. You can select either the “Standard Report…,” “Blank Report…,” “Cross-Tab Report…,” “Mailing Label Report…,” or “OLAP Cube Report…” choice to create a report using a wizard of the selected type.
Each type of report wizard will lead you through a screen-by-screen process in which you answer questions and select report options. The screens which follow next will vary depending upon which wizard you selected. You will examine the most common options which you can set by selecting the “Standard” choice.
The first screen you will view after selecting the “Standard” choice is the “Data” screen in the “Standard Report Creation Wizard” dialog box. This is the same as the “Database Expert” dialog box. Any database connections you have created and stored to the “Favorites” folder in the “Database Expert” screen are available in this window. Select or set the desired data connection from the “Available Data Sources:” window and then move the desired data tables into the “Selected Tables:” pane at the right side of the dialog box. When you are ready to continue, click the “Next >” button to continue.
If you added multiple tables in the last screen, you will next view the “Link” screen. Here you review the tables which you have added to the report and you can edit the links, if needed. This is the same as the “Links” tab in the “Database Expert” dialog box. Make any changes you need here, and click the “Next >” button to continue.
In the “Fields” screen, you select the fields that you want to add to the report from the fields shown in the “Available Fields:” list at the left side of the dialog box. Click on the name of the field you want to add to the report and then click the right-pointing arrow “>” button to add the selected field to the “Fields to Display:” list at the right side of the dialog box. If needed, you can click on the name of a selected field in the “Fields to Display:” list and click the “up” and “down” arrows to change the placement of the field within the field list. The order of the fields, from top to bottom, is the order that they will be displayed from left to right in the report. When you have added the desired fields, click the “Next >” button to continue.
Next is the “Grouping” screen, where you can select a field by which to create data groupings within the report from the “Available Fields:” list at the left side of the dialog box. You can then click the right-pointing arrow button “>” to move the selected field to the “Group By:” list at the right side of the screen. You can then choose how to sort the chosen field groupings by selecting the desired sorting option from the drop-down at the bottom of the “Group By:” list.
If you want to create additional groupings within the primary grouping, you can continue to add additional fields from the “Available Fields:” list to the “Group By:” list, where you can then sort them by their values within the main grouping. If needed, you can select one of the groups and then click the “up” and “down” arrows to reorganize the order of the groups shown. When you have added the necessary fields by which to create the data groupings within your report, click the “Next >” button to continue.
If you elected to create data groupings in the report, then after clicking the “Next >” button to continue you will be presented with the “Summaries” screen. Once again, select the name of the field that you want to calculate and summarize for each unique value within the grouping. Then click the right-pointing arrow button “>” to move the selected field to the “Summarized Fields:” list at the right side of the screen. You can choose which summary calculation to perform on the selected field from the drop-down list at the bottom of the “Summarized Fields:” list. If needed, you can choose a summary field value and click the “up” and “down” arrows in the “Summarized Fields:” list to move the field up or down in the list. The order of fields displayed here, from top to bottom, indicates the order that the fields will appear from left to right in the report. When you are ready, click the “Next >” button to continue.
If you added “Summaries” for the “Groups” in your report, then the next screen will be the “Group Sorting” screen, where you can sort the records by the summarized field values for each grouping. You can elect “None” to skip group ordering, or you can select “Top 5 Groups,” or “Bottom 5 Groups,” based on the values displayed in the selected summary value field. When you have set any options that you want to apply, click the “Next >” button to continue.
The next screen is the “Chart” screen. You can select a type of chart which you would like to see in the report by choosing a selected chart type from the option buttons available at the top of the screen. If you don’t want a chart, then select the “No Chart” option button. If you do select a chart type, then type the title into the “Chart title:” text box. You can use the “On change of:” drop-down to select the field whose changing value establishes the series in your chart. Use the “Show Summary:” drop-down to choose the field whose values you wish to chart for each changing value in the field you selected in the “On change of:” drop-down. When you are ready to continue, click the “Next >” button.
In the “Record Selection” screen, you select a field or fields by which you want to filter the records in the selected tables. Choose the field by which you would like to filter the data from the “Available Fields:” list, and click the right-pointing arrow button “>” to move it into the “Filter Fields:” list. You can then select the field by which you wish to filter from the list at the right side of the dialog box and use the drop-down at the bottom of the “Filter Fields:” list to select the desired comparison operator. Then use the drop-down which appears below that one to select the desired comparison value from the drop-down list. You can also type a value directly into the drop-down box instead. When you are ready, click “Next >” to continue.
In the “Template” screen, you can select a report template to use as the basis for the current report from the listing in the “Available Templates” section. If you have a report which you would like to apply as a template you can click the “Browse…” button to select the report using the “Open” dialog box. If you don’t want to apply a template, you can select the “No Template” option from the top of the “Available Templates” list. When you have made your choice, click “Finish” to create the report with the options which you have selected.
Note that if you wanted to change any settings that you made in the previous screens of the “Standard Report Creation Wizard,” you can click the “< Back” button to return to the desired screen and make changes. Then click the “Next >” button until you have reached the end of the wizard, at which point you can click the “Finish” button. If you simply wish to cancel the creation of the report, you can click the “Cancel” button at any time during the “Standard Report Creation Wizard” to cancel the report generation.
Need additional Crystal Reports help? Check out our tutorial for versions 2013 and 2011.
