Manipulating the data

Do you want the data organized into groups?

How? By customer? By date? By hierarchy? Or by other criteria? Seagate Crystal Reports provides several options for grouping data in a report. See Grouping data.

Do you want the data sorted based on record or group values?

Seagate Crystal Reports gives you both alternatives. See Understanding sort options.

Do you want the report to contain only specific records or groups?

Seagate Crystal Reports gives you the opportunity to base a report on all records in a given database, or on a limited set of records from the database. Seagate Crystal Reports can be used to select records based on simple date ranges or comparisons, or to create complex formulas to identify the records to be included. Take a few minutes to determine the records needed for the report and list the criteria to be used for selecting those records. See Selecting records.

Do you want to summarize the data?

Do you want to total, average, count, or determine the maximum or minimum value included in all the values in any column on the report?

Seagate Crystal Reports allows you to do this, and it also allows the grand total (or the grand total average, grand total count, and so on) to be placed at the bottom of the selected column. See Calculating a percentage and Selecting top or bottom N groups.

What information should be flagged on the report?

You may want to call attention to some data by flagging it on the report. For example, non-moving inventory items are often flagged on inventory reports so they can be given special attention. You might want to flag each item that has shown no activity during the last month, during the last three months, or during some other defined period. To flag information, identify it and any conditions that will trigger the flagging.

How do you want information flagged?

You may want to flag items with an asterisk or some other symbol, or you may want a word to appear as a flag. In any case, you should write out flagging instructions so they are handy.

Seagate Crystal Reports gives you the opportunity to underline report elements, and change the font type, size, or color used for specific report items. It allows you to put borders around items and to draw lines and boxes (to break the report into sections), set off headings, and so on. All of these formatting tools can be used to highlight key data on a report. See Formatting.