Reporting with Visual Studio and Crystal Reports

✍ Scribed by Elkoush, Mahmoud

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2013
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 148
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

The simplest way to learn Crystal Reports and Visual Studio is to follow the hands-on exercises in this tutorial. In no time you'll be producing stunning charts and be able to create a reporting application from scratch.

Overview

• A step-by-step guide that goes beyond theory, letting you get hand-on experience
• Utilize a dataset and table adapter as data sources for your report
• Learn how to add reports to forms and pass parameters dynamically

In Detail

Reports are documents that present focused, salient content to a specific audience. Crystal Reports is a business intelligence application that will help you design and generate reports from a wide range of data sources. It helps you summarize a good deal of information in a visually appealing manner.

"Reporting with Visual Studio and Crystal Reports" is a practical, hands-on guide that will provide you with a number of clear, step-by-step exercises, and help you take advantage of the real power of Crystal Reports. This book will not only help you create effective reports, but also teach you how to create a reporting application.

"Reporting with Visual Studio and Crystal Reports" will guide you through the installation of Crystal Reports and Visual Studio. As you progress from one chapter to the next, you will gradually build a reporting application. You will also learn how to select the right data, and enhance your report by grouping and sorting data. This book will also help you create chart reports to improve your report design. With this book, you will learn how to create a complete reporting application and a wide variety of reports.

What you will learn from this book

• Set up Microsoft Visual Studio, Crystal Reports, and Microsoft SQL server
• Create a new reporting application
• Design the application GUI
• Connect to a database and use a dataset and table adapter
• Add Crystal Reports to the application
• Add database fields to the report and format them
• Group and sort report data using parameter fields and special fields

Approach

A fast-paced, example-based guide to learn how to create a reporting application using Visual Studio and Crystal Reports.

Who this book is written for

"Reporting with Visual Studio and Crystal Reports" is for developers new to Crystal Reports. It will also prove useful to intermediate users who wish to explore some new techniques in Crystal Reports using Microsoft Visual Studio. Readers are expected to have basic knowledge of C#, Microsoft Visual Studio, and Structured Query Language (SQL).

✦ Table of Contents

Content: Preface --
Chapter 1. Setting up the requirements. Installing Microsoft Visual Studio 2012
Getting the source
Installation
Installing Crystal Report for Visual Studio 2012
Getting the source
Installation
Installing Microsoft SQL Server 2008
Getting the source
Installation
Installing Northwind database in Microsoft SQL Server 2008
Getting the source
Installation
Summary --
Chapter 2. Designing a sample application. Creating a new application
Adding controls to the form
Employees
Beginning your design process
Products and orders
Beginning your design process
Employees and orders
Beginning your design process
Validating form data
Sketching your reports on paper
Summary --
Chapter 3. Selecting the data. SQL queries in Microsoft Visual Studio
Connecting to our database
Add database diagram
Test queries
Populate the ComboBoxes with data
Add DataSet to the application
Populate the cbEmpTitle ComboBox
Populate the cbEmpCity ComboBox
Populate the cbEmpCountry ComboBox
Populate the cbProductsCategory ComboBox
Populate cbOrdersCountry ComboBox
Summary --
Chapter 4. Creating first report. Preparing a report data
Selecting the report data
Creating a TableAdapter
Adding a report to the application
Working with lines and boxes
Using special fields
Adding the report to a form
Summary --
Chapter 5. Enhancing Reports
Using parameter fields
Working with formula fields
Working with subreport
Grouping and sorting data
Summary --
Chapter 6. Working with Cross-Tab reports. Creating our report
Customizing the Cross-Tab appearance
Performing page setup
Summary --
Chapter 7. Working with charts. Creating the reports data source
Creating the first report (bar chart)
Removing the legend
Removing the chart's title
Changing the chart's appearance
Creating the second report (pie chart)
Removing the legend
Removing the chart's title
Changing the chart's appearance
Creating the third report (gauge chart)
Removing the legend
Removing the chart's title
Changing the chart's appearance
Creating the fourth report (all in one)
Summary --
Index.

✦ Subjects

Application software;Development;Computer programs.;C# (Computer program language);Microsoft .NET Framework.;Microsoft Visual studio.;C♯ (Computer program language);COMPUTERS;General.