1. Crystal Reports User Function Libraries
Bruce Ferguson
Chelsea Technologies Ltd
A Presentation to the Auckland Visual Basic User Group, 28 April, 1999

2. Chelsea Technologies Ltd
Crystal Reports training
Crystal Reports development
Crystal Reports consulting
VB development

3. Visual Basic and Crystal Reports
CR 4 distributed with VB
Can design/modify reports
database, ODBC, ADO, ACT, Outlook, servers
License to distribute run time DLL’s
CRYSTL32.OCX object
200+ properties and methods (usually use < 6)
Crystal API

4. Versions of Crystal Reports
Sub reports, variables, crosstab objects, UFL
Crystal Reports 6
More functions, Group tree, Web integration
Crystal Reports 7
Running Totals, Maps, Parameters, Web services

5. Crystal Formula Fields
Calculations based on DB fields
Extensive list of built in functions
Numeric, string, date, time, boolean, ranges, arrays, summary, etc.

6. Demonstration: Simple Crystal Report

7. But what if you want more...

8. Complex Report Development
Sub Reports
Reports inside a report (linked/unlinked)
Separate DB, formulas, format
Variables
Temporary storage
Complex If…then…else
Multi line formulas
Can control evaluation time

9. Crystal Reports Limitations
Based around Database fields
plus some special fields
(print date, page number, page count, author, report filename, etc.)
No loops, for.. next, do… while, etc.
No case statement
Local to each report/sub report

10. User Function Libraries
You can write your own functions
VB, Delphi, C++
Special formatting/data conversion
Information not in the database
Registry
Disk volume information
Text/Data files
Other things - any suggestions?

11. Why use UFL? Available to all reports/versions
More efficient processing
More powerful
Can be placed in any section
Customise your reports

12. Writing a UFL Create a new VB project (ActiveX DLL) Create a new class
Create a public function
(numeric, date, string, etc.)
Compile the DLL
Register the DLL

13. Naming the UFL Project file Name CRUFLxxx.DLL Project Name: CRUFLnnn
Class Name: ccc
Public Function Name: fff
UFL: nnncccfff

14. Demonstration

15. Processing the UFL Report Header/Footer Page Header/Footer
Group Header/Footer
Details
Sub Report

16. Conclusion UFL are very powerful and easy to develop
Available to all reports/versions
More efficient/consistent processing
More powerful
Can be placed in any section of the report
Customise your reports
Any questions?