Gold – Crystal Reports Introductory Course Cortex User Group Meeting New Orleans – 2011

Teri Schultz

Overview Setup options Customizing base system reports Set Location Basic sections of a report Filtering a report Formatting Grouping, sorting and summing Adding a new table to a report Installing a custom report Videos

Setup Open Crystal Reports. If you are a RCM client you must be logged into Microsoft Dynamics before you can open Crystal Reports. Select File, Options. –On the Layout tab, select rules, guidelines and grid. –On the Database tab, select either tables or stored procedures. –On the Reporting tab, uncheck “Save data with report”. Watch Video 01 CR Setup Options

Backup Report Find a base system report to modify. Download the reports sample book from Copy a report from the \Gold\Crystal\ folder and place it in the \Gold\Crystal\Custom folder. Right click the report, select Properties and uncheck read-only. Rename the report using your customer number. For example, to customize cytClinicianAccessionLog.rpt rename it Cust#ClinicianAccessionLog.rpt

Set Location Base system reports are pointed to the Cortex database on the Seattle server. If you want to run the report from Crystal you must connect the report to the Cortex database on your server. This step is not necessary when running Crystal Reports from Gold because Gold makes the connection for you. Watch Video 02 CR Set Location

Basic Sections of the Report Report Header – once, at the beginning of the report. Can be used as a cover sheet by checking “new page after” in section expert. Page Header – once at the top of each page. Group Header – one way to sort data, the items in this section print only once at the start of the group. Details – repeated for each record pulled from the database. Group Footer – prints once at the end of each group used mostly for subtotals and summaries. Report Footer – once, on the last page of the report. It is the perfect place for grand totals or other summaries for the entire report. Often it is used for charts, maps or cross-tabs that display information for the entire report. Page Footer – This information shows at the bottom of each page of the report. Cortex typically puts the page number, printed date, report name and company name here. Watch Video 03 CR Sections of Report

Filtering a Report On the Report menu, Select Expert option or via the Select Expert icon on the toolbar (the icon that looks like a hand dropping coins). This is the filter for the report. Similar to the WHERE clause in a SQL statement. The filter can be used to two reasons 1.As a permanent filter used every time the report is run. 2.When testing a report, use this feature to narrow the records returned to the report by SQL or to select specific data. For example, add a date range or a specific accession number. But, don’t forget to remove your filter before installing the report in your system. If you have a field selected on the report when you open the Select Expert that field will automatically be added as a tab. Watch Video 04 CR Filter Report

Formatting Guidelines – triangular buttons with attached dashed lines that appear on the ruler bar at the top of the design window. Use these guidelines to easily move and align objects. Sizing – Select one or more objects and use resize handles or right click for more options. When using right click to size objects select all objects to be resized first then right click on object already sized to make others match.

Text vs. Database Column A text field is not a database column like cases.accessionno or clinician.name. It’s a label like “Accession Number” or “Clinician Name”. Normally these are placed in the page header section. If you select a field on the report and right click it a menu will pop up and the first item in the list will tell you if it is a “Text” or a database “Field”. If there is another field on top of the field you are trying to edit, right click and select Move, to back. Then click off the field. Now you will be able to select the desired field. You can type in a text field. You cannot type in a Database field. To update a text field, click on the field to select it. Double click to edit it. Watch Video 05 CR Formatting

Grouping, Sorting and Summing A good method for determining if you should group and the fields on which to group is to listen for the word “by” in the report requirement statements. “I want to see records by clinician then accession number.” Groups override sorts View the Grouping/sorting via the Report menu, Record Sort Expert. Here you can rearrange sorts or add a new sort. Add a summary to count records. Watch Video 06 Grouping and Sorting

Adding a new table to a report Only add tables to the main report that are one to one relationships –Each Case has one clinician and one location. This is a one to one relationship. –Each case has many screeners, diagnosis, procedures. This is a one to many relationship, these items belong in a subreport. Adding multiple one to many relationships to the main report can cause data to increase exponentially. Database Menu, Database Expert option, Data tab. Create a connection to the database if you have not already done so. Expand tables, select the desired table and press the right arrow.

Adding a new table to a report On the Links tab, link the new table by clicking on the column name in the left table and dragging it to the column in right hand table. For example, to link Cases table to the Clinician table: click on Cases.ClinicianID and drag it to Clinician.Number. There is now an arrow linking the two tables. With the arrow selected, press the “Link Options” button. Link Options –Join Type - Left outer join - use this join type 99% of the time. It means include the record from the left whether or not you find a match in the table on the right. –Enforce Join – Not Enforced – this link is only used if explicitly required by the select statement. –Link Type – “=“ – includes all the records where the linked field value in both tables is an exact match. Watch Video 07 CR Add New Table

Installing a custom report Add the new report to Report Maintenance option found on the Edit menu. If you customized a base system report you can use the same options to install the new report. Instructions also included Gold Help. Watch video 08 CR Install Custom Report.

In Summary Customizing base system reports Set Location to your local server and database Know purpose of each section of a report How to filter a report Formatting Grouping, sorting and summing Adding a new table to a report Installing a custom report

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