Crystal Report.com - Starter Edition (Establish Data Connection)

[Former Member]

Hi,

I would really appreciate some clarification.

I have uploaded some reports to Crystalreports.com. What I would like to know is:

1. I am trying to use Desktop Publisher to set a scehduler and refresh a report. Does the report needs to have 'Save Data with report' ticked within Crystal Report?

2. When I click 'Run now', I was prompted to enter sa password for the SQL server and parameters of a report that is currently in CrystalReports.com. I did it and then it uploaded successfully. However, the report is empty when I try to access it in CrystalReports.com.

3. On Crystalreports.com, when I right click the report and goes to Document Properties, at the section 'Establish Data Connection', there is option 'Excel' and 'Other'.

Where can I pick up the Excel file? In the drop down, I can only see 'Please select an Excel file'

4. What is 'Other' in Establish Data Connection?

5. The 'Prompt parameter on refresh' - is it only avaialble for Professional Edition? I can see the 'Refresh' button on the toolbar in Crystalreports.com.

Please advise.

[peter_scholtens · Accepted solution]

See below:

1. I am trying to use Desktop Publisher to set a scehduler and refresh a report. Does the report needs to have 'Save Data with report' ticked within Crystal Report?

No, it does not need to. The Desktop Publisher will refresh the report unless you check the "Do not refresh the report before uploading" option. In this case, it would upload the report as saved on your desktop (with data if it was saved with data).

2. When I click 'Run now', I was prompted to enter sa password for the SQL server and parameters of a report that is currently in CrystalReports.com. I did it and then it uploaded successfully. However, the report is empty when I try to access it in CrystalReports.com.

You may have checked "Keep History". In this case, the report is uploaded as an Instance of the report on crystalreports.com and you will find it by clicking on History or View Latest Instance in the report menu.

3. On Crystalreports.com, when I right click the report and goes to Document Properties, at the section 'Establish Data Connection', there is option 'Excel' and 'Other'.

Where can I pick up the Excel file? In the drop down, I can only see 'Please select an Excel file'

You can upload an Excel file to crystalreports.com and use that as a data source for your report. See this forum post for more:

4. What is 'Other' in Establish Data Connection?

It's used for some data sources that would be accessible from crystalreports.com via a web service. I know it can be used for defining a connection to Salesforce.com, for example.

5. The 'Prompt parameter on refresh' - is it only avaialble for Professional Edition? I can see the 'Refresh' button on the toolbar in Crystalreports.com.

This defines whether the user will be prompted by a parameter selection when running live report inside crystalreports.com. So this won't apply to reports on crystalreports.com that don't have a live connection to data. Reports with a live connection would include those connected via the Open Data Connector, to a web service like Salesforce.com, to an Excel file uploaded to crystalreports.com, or to a data warehouse hosted by BI OnDemand (some of our crystalreports.com customers have a data warehouse that we host for them).

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Peter,

Thanks for the clarification. It is very helpful.