Crystal Reports: One Report, Multiple Output Options

Phil Simon is a frequent keynote speaker and recognized technology authority. He is the award-winning author of six management books, including The Visual Organization: Data Visualization, Big Data, and the Quest for Better Decisions. He consults organizations on matters related to strategy, data, and technology. His contributions have been featured on The Harvard Business Review, CNN, Wired, NBC, CNBC, Inc. Magazine, BusinessWeek, The Huffifington Post, Fast Company, The New York Times, ReadWriteWeb, and many other sites.

One Report – Multiple Output Formats

One of the disadvantages of using groupings in a single Crystal report is that the export intoExcel makes the data “unsortable.” However, there is a neat way around this. You can use thesuppressing section functionality to, in one report, prompt a user if they want to export it cleanlyto Excel (suppressing all of the groupings). This is great if end-users want one report withdifferent output options. The one downside is that you couldn't schedule this in LRS because thereport needs the prompt - export to Excel yes/no.

Let’s look at a simple example of an employee listing by department. This report has two detailsections: a – with groupings; b – without groupings.

Let’s look at the prompt for an Excel export:

In English, the report asks the end-user if s/he wants to Export the report to Excel. Of course,should the user select “N”, s/he will still be able to export the report, although the output will notbe terribly-user friendly.

Let’s look now at the section expert:

Note the red check-box on the right hand side; this indicates that the data will be conditionallysuppressed. In other words, the data will not appear if certain conditions are met. Let’s look atthat more closely.

Details – a will be suppressed if the user selects Y (for the Excel export). The same is true for thepage header, group footer, and the like.

Conversely, Details – b is the opposite:

Now, let’s look at the two reporting options in action. First, Export to Excel = N:

Note here how the groupings appear with a summary at the end.

Note how, on the same report, the groupings are suppressed, leaving a clean “flat file.” How doesthis export to Excel? See below:

Voila! The output from the same report can be used now without any massive reformatting.