Is cross-tab sortable?

[Former Member]

I have some cross tabs, and comparing them to asp.net grid or devexpress, I see they dont have a sort capability or drag and drop columns by the user. Is this sort of functionality possible in Crystal Reports, either with the cross-tab or some other aspect?

[abhilash_kumar · Accepted solution]

Hi Paul,

Yes, the Crosstabs are sortable and you can also drag and drop fields to add rows/columns.

A row or a column in a crosstab is essentially a group. You go into the Crosstab Expert > Select the field in the row/column and go to the Group Options button where you can sort it in Ascending, Descending or Specified order.

You can also Sort the Crosstab to show in Ascending/Descending or Show Top N based on the Summary Fields. This is done by right-clicking the Row/Column in Preview Mode > Row/Column Options > Row/Column Group Sort Expert.

-Abhilash

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

OK thanks, I meant, can user do this? What you describe is the programmer creating this sort

my question is, can it be done by user like we have in DevExpress or ASP.net grids?

[abhilash_kumar · Accepted solution]

You can have a report prompt that let's the user choose what summary they want the Crosstab to be sorted on. That's the easy bit, the more difficult piece is to actually apply it.

It's not impossible but it will require some thinking.

-Abhilash

[ido_millet · Accepted solution]

Option 1: create a formula that returns a different expression based on a parameter.  Then, base the CrossTab on that formula.

Option 2: one of the 3rd-party Crystal Reports viewers listed at http://kenhamady.com/bookmarks.html allows you to interact with the data set in the report using an interactive visualizer or grid. This provides functionality that is similar to tools like Excel pivot tables or Tableau.