Standard Report Headings, JAVA script usage,and Report field fixed width

[Former Member]

My company has purchased Crystal Reports 2008 and I'm in the process of determining if the product will do everything we need and not become a maintenance nitemare.

We would like to setup some standard report headings to be used in all reports. I've setup on already as a SUBREPORT and it works fine. We pass optional parameters that may be blank.

We have several questions:

1) Subreport...Once a SUBREPORT is setup as a standard heading and included in multiple reports, we are concerned about what is required if the standard heading subreport changes. Will each report that uses this need to be opened or handled in any way to pickup the subreport changes? Any suggestions how to handle this?

2) Subreport....In order to get the "PAGE N of M" to work in the subreport we've setup the subreport to accept parameters that are passed from the main report and this works fine. But this requires every report using the standard heading to setup the parameters in order to work. Is there any other way that would minimize the setup needed for a standard heading?

3) JAVA... Can we call a Javascript function? If so, any hints/tips on how/where to do this?

4) Standard Report... Creating the report is difficult with guessing the width to define to the field. Is there a way that the report can know and display the exact size of the field being used? A fixed field defininiton of some sort would make it MUCH easier in the layout of the report.

5) Standard Report...We are currently testing with a stored procedure for the SQL query result data but because of the application we will need to build the query dynamically for every report. Is there a way to bind the data and specify the field lengths?

6) Standard Report...When using a defined file structure I needed to add another field. At the time it seemed like I had to start from scratch as the fields that were on the report were now gone. Is there a update method that can be done import the changes and not loose existing fields on a report?

That all for now. Sorry there are so many questions. We are trying to clear up as many issues as we can before starting the 100+ reports needed.

Thanks in advance.

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Vitaly Izmaylov,

I've taken your advice and split out questions 2-6 into seperate questions. Anyone else please respond only to question 1 here.

I see the Re-Import subreport option....and I guess I can only assume that this means that any change to a report heading file (subreport) must be manually re-imported into every report it is used in. There are no behind the scenes files or table that maintain a usage of these reports and can automate the population of the changes.

I was hoping that maybe the subreports would be accessed when called for an pickup any new changes. So if I create 100 reports with standard heading subreport, I would need to manually open and re-import that file in each report to update a report heading change.

Does not sound real fun.

Is all this true?

Thanks,

Tim

[vitaly_izmaylov · Accepted solution]

Yes, subreport needs to be reimported, but with "Re-Import subreport" option selected you just need to open report in Crystal Reports and close it to save changes (no need to run).

An alternative option is to use linked OLE objects.

Keep this question open, somebody may have better idea.

[vitaly_izmaylov]

Hi Tim,

I think you better split your post into separate questions. Some of your questions could be answered right away, but some require additional info. It would be hard to follow-up if they are all together.

Let me try to answer your First question. If you right click the subreport, select format subreport, go to subreport tab, you will see Re-import When Opening option. I think it may help you.