Crystal Reports® 2008 For Dummies®

Chapter 5. Pulling Specific Data from a Database

In This Chapter

• Making simple retrievals with Select Expert

• Selecting records with formulas

• Soliciting user input with parameter fields

• Troubleshooting record selection formulas

If all your reports had to do was display all the data in your data sources, report creation would be easy. Organizations wouldn't need people as smart and well educated as you to design their reports. Luckily, for the job security of folks like you and me, report creation isn't that simple. Most reports with value gain that value by extracting specific information from the mass of data in the database — and only that information. This usually requires filtering out unwanted records, leaving behind irrelevant fields, combining data, and presenting data in a meaningful way. Database report designers are clearly valuable to any organization that depends on timely access to the information buried in its databases. With that in mind, this chapter introduces you to some of the most useful data-retrieval tools in Crystal Reports.

Get Data Quickly with Select Expert

Select Expert is an interactive tool for defining which data items to extract from a database and display in a report. Probably the best way to describe Select Expert is to give examples that show it in action.

Suppose that Albert Hellstern, the business manager of Xtreme Mountain Bikes (the sample business used throughout this book), wants to know the current inventory status and how it compares with the minimum ...