Crystal Reports. Overview. Contents. Charting on Print-Time Formulas

Transcription

1 Crystal Reports Charting on Print-Time Formulas Overview Contents In Crystal Reports, you cannot create a chart off a print-time, or WhilePrintingRecords formula. However, in Crystal Reports 9 and above there is a workaround that allows you to pass the print-time formulas from the main report to a subreport, and then create a chart in the subreport. INTRODUCTION... 2 CREATE A CHART ON A PRINT-TIME FORMULA... 2 Format the Report...2 Create Running Total Formulas...4 Insert and Link the Subreport...5 Create the Chart...6 FINDING MORE INFORMATION /14/ :03 AM Copyright 2004 Business Objects. All rights reserved. Page 1

2 Introduction In Crystal Reports (CR) 9 and above, a chart can be made off some, but not all, formulas. Some formulas are evaluated while records are being printed to the report. These formulas are called print-time or WhilePrintingRecords formulas. You cannot create a chart directly off print-time formulas but you can indirectly, using the technique described in this document. This technique consists of four parts: Formatting the report Creating running total formulas for the 'On change of' and 'Show value(s)' values. Creating and linking a subreport Inserting a chart in the subreport NOTE All the formulas in this document can be written in either Crystal or Basic syntax. Each example formula will be displayed in Crystal (black) and Basic (blue) syntaxes. Create a Chart on a Print-Time Formula The following example uses the Customer table from the Microsoft Access database, Xtreme.mdb that is installed with Crystal Reports. Format the Report 1. Insert the Customer Name and Last Year's Sales fields in the Details section. 2. On the Insert menu click Summary. Click Customer.Last Year's Sales from the Choose the field to summarize drop-down box. Click Sum from the Calculate this summary drop-down box. 3. Create a formula named PerCent with the following syntax: //This formula uses Crystal syntax. WhilePrintingRecords; Shared CurrencyVar curcounter; Shared CurrencyVar curtotal; curcounter := curcounter + {Customer.Last Year's Sales}; curtotal := (curcounter/sum ({Customer.Last Year's Sales}))*100; ToNumber(curTotal); 4/14/ :03 AM Copyright 2004 Business Objects. All rights reserved. Page 2

3 'This formula uses Crystal's Basic syntax. Shared curcounter as Currency Shared curtotal as Currency curcounter = curcounter + {Customer.Last Year's Sales} curtotal = (curcounter/sum ({Customer.Last Year's Sales}))*100 formula = ToNumber(curTotal) 4. Insert this formula in the Details section. 5. On the Report menu, click Select Expert. In the Choose Field dialog box, click Customer ID and then click OK. In the Select Expert dialog box, click is less than from the drop-down box. Choose 9 from the new drop-down box that appears. Figure 1-1 When the report is previewed you will see eight customers with their Last Year's Sales values. Under these values you will see a total for all eight customers' Last Year's Sales. The PerCent formula shows a running total of Last Year's Sales as a percentage of the sum of all customers' Last Year's Sales. (See Figure 1-1) Now that the report is formatted you want to create a chart that uses the PerCent formula. On the Insert menu, click Chart. In the Available Fields box; notice that the PerCent formula is not there. The PerCent formula is a print-time formula and will not appear in the Chart Expert. 4/14/ :03 AM Copyright 2004 Business Objects. All rights reserved. Page 3

4 Create Running Total Formulas To be able to create a chart on the PerCent print-time formula, the first step is to roll up the values that will be used as the On change of and Show values values from the main report, into formulas that will be used in a subreport. 1. Right-click the gray area to the left of the Details section and then click Insert Section Below. There will now be both a Details a and a Details b section. 2. Create a running total formula for the 'On Change Of' value for the chart. In this case that will be the Customer Name field: //This formula is written in Crystal syntax. //Name this formula 'OnChangeOf'. whileprintingrecords; stringvar stronchangeof; stronchangeof := stronchangeof + {Customer.Customer Name} + "^"; ' This formula is written in Crystal's Basic syntax. ' Name this formula 'OnChangeOf'. global stronchangeof as string stronchangeof = stronchangeof + {Customer.Customer Name} + "^" Formula = stronchangeof 3. Insert this formula in the Details b section. 4. Create a running total formula for the 'Show Value' value for the chart. In this case that will be the Last Year's Sales field: //This formula is written in Crystal syntax. //Name this formula 'Show value'. stringvar strshowvalue; strshowvalue := strshowvalue + totext({@percent}) + "^"; ' This formula is written in Crystal's Basic syntax. ' Name this formula 'Show Value'. global strshowvalue as string strshowvalue = strshowvalue + totext({@percent}) + "^" Formula = strshowvalue 4/14/ :03 AM Copyright 2004 Business Objects. All rights reserved. Page 4

5 5. Insert this formula in the Details b section. 6. Right-click the gray area to the left of the Details b section and then click Suppress (No Drill-Down). Figure 1-2 NOTE The Details b section is suppressed because the OnChangeOf and ShowValue formulas do not need to be seen when the report is previewed. They do need to be evaluated, though. When a section is suppressed, formulas in that section are evaluated without being seen. Insert and Link the Subreport 1. On the Insert menu, click Subreport. On the Insert Subreport dialog box, enter "ChartSub" in the Report Name text box and then click the Report Wizard button. 2. Move the Customer table into the Selected Tables box. Click the Finish button and then click OK. Place the subreport in the Report Footer section. 3. On the Edit menu, click Subreport Links. Move both the OnChangeOf and ShowValue formulas to the Field(s) to link to box. 4. In the Field(s) to link to box, click the OnChangeOf formula and then clear the Select data in the subreport based on field check box. Do the same thing for the ShowValue formula. Click OK. 5. Right-click the subreport and then click Edit Subreport. On the Report menu, click Selection Formula > Record. Enter the following selection formula: {Customer.Customer Name} in 6. Click the Save button and then close the Record Selection Formula Editor dialog box. 4/14/ :03 AM Copyright 2004 Business Objects. All rights reserved. Page 5

6 Create the Chart 1. In the subreport, create a formula with the following syntax: // This formula is written in Crystal syntax. // Name this formula 'SubShowValue'. ToNumber(Split({?Pm-@ShowValue}, "^")[RecordNumber]) ' This formula is written in Crystal's Basic syntax. ' Name this formula 'SubShowValue'. formula = tonumber(split({?pm-@showvalue}, "^")(RecordNumber)) NOTE formula is based on recordnumber. If the records come into the subreport in a different order from the order of formula, then the values will not match the groups. To work around this, do a record sort in the subreport so that the subreport records are in the same order as they are listed in formula. Make sure that the subreport only returns one record for 1. In the subreport, click the Insert menu, and then click Chart. 2. On the Type tab, click Bar. 3. On the Data tab, move the Customer.Customer Name field from the Available fields box to the On change of box. Move the SubShowValue formula from the Available Fields box to the Show Value(s) box. Click OK. 4/14/ :03 AM Copyright 2004 Business Objects. All rights reserved. Page 6

7 Finding More Information Figure 1-3 When the report is previewed the bars in the chart show the value of the PerCent print-time formula for each customer. (See Figure 1-3) For more information and resources, refer to the product documentation and visit the support area of the web site at: The Business Objects product and technology are protected by US patent numbers 5,555,403; 6,247,008; 6,578,027; 6,490,593; and 6,289,352. The Business Objects logo, the Business Objects tagline, BusinessObjects, BusinessObjects Broadcast Agent, BusinessQuery, Crystal Analysis, Crystal Analysis Holos, Crystal Applications, Crystal Enterprise, Crystal Info, Crystal Reports, Rapid Mart, and WebIntelligence are trademarks or registered trademarks of Business Objects SA in the United States and/or other countries. Various product and service names referenced herein may be trademarks of Business Objects SA. All other company, product, or brand names mentioned herein, may be the trademarks of their respective owners. Specifications subject to change without notice. Not responsible for errors or omissions. Copyright 2004 Business Objects SA. All rights reserved. 4/14/ :03 AM Copyright 2004 Business Objects. All rights reserved. Page 7