How to create and run reports

  • Only users with the appropriate permissions can run (daReport), and create / modify (daDesign) reports.
  • Crystal Reports design software is not bundled with Vitalware: it is required in order to create and modify a Crystal report.

Getting your registration data into Vitalware is the first step in turning it into information. Once in Vitalware there are many ways in which you can enhance and present the data through searching, linking, sorting, grouping and listing records. Perhaps the most useful way to present your data however is in a report.

Vitalware facilitates the production of reports using the most common and popular reporting application, Crystal Reports, but it is also able to produce reports with many other applications. It is possible to run a report directly out of Vitalware in any ODBC (Open Database Connectivity) compliant application such as Microsoft Word and Excel and, from Vitalware 3.0 onwards, to report directly to an ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) RecordSet object (see below for details).

There are various other ways to report on your Vitalware data however. Using the reporting mechanism it is a fairly simple matter to export your data in a broad range of formats, including CSV and XML, any of which can be manipulated outside of Vitalware to produce sophisticated reports.

And, simplest of all, it is possible to copy data straight out of List View in any Vitalware module and paste it directly into Microsoft Excel, where manipulation of the data can quickly produce meaningful reports (see Three ways to create a simple report in MS Excel (no coding required) for details).

Out of the box, Vitalware modules are supplied with a variety of useful reports designed using Crystal Reports. The Crystal Reports Viewer is bundled with Vitalware, allowing users to:

  • Preview a Crystal report.
  • Print a Crystal report.
  • Export the Crystal report in a variety of formats, e.g. PDF, Microsoft Excel (XLS), Comma Separated Values (CSV), Microsoft Word (RTF), HTML, Tab Separated Text (TTX), XML.

As useful as these pre-defined reports might be, at some point you will probably find that you need to customize an existing report or build entirely new reports.

Vitalware does not itself produce a report: rather, it exports data that is processed by the most common and popular third party applications to generate a report: a Crystal report, a Microsoft Excel report, etc. Crystal Reports is a sophisticated tool and can be challenging to use; and extracting data for advanced manipulation in Microsoft Excel or, say, a mail merge in Microsoft Word, requires familiarity with Visual Basic programming. This reality of advanced reporting is a reflection of the complexity of popular reporting tools, and it is worth stressing at the outset: producing advanced reports using third party tools like Crystal Reports and Microsoft Word requires experience or specialized training in these tools.

There are two broad stages to developing a new report:

  1. The first stage occurs within Vitalware and involves selecting and preparing the fields on which to report. When a report is run out of Vitalware, a data file is produced.

    This first stage in creating a report is the same for every possible type of report you can create in Vitalware.

  2. The second stage occurs within a third party application (Crystal Reports, Microsoft Word, etc.) and involves designing a report to process and present the data file that was output by Vitalware.

    This second stage occurs within a third party application and the process varies from one application to another.

Type

Description
Crystal ADO Report Generates a report using ADO RecordSets for Crystal (which are accessible via Crystal's ADO connector).
Crystal Print Generates a report and prints it.
Crystal Report Generates a report and displays it in the Crystal Viewer.
Crystal Report - Multi-hierarchy Generates a report in a multi-hierarchical format used for generating Lookup Lists.
Export CSV Format Generates a file in CSV format and asks you where to save it.
Export ODBC Data Source Generates a file in ODBC format and saves it automatically in the ODBC folder on your PC.
Export XML Document Generates a file in XML format and asks you where to save it.
Microsoft ADO Report Generates a report using ADO RecordSets for Microsoft products.
Microsoft Excel Generates a report in Microsoft Excel format and opens Excel to view the report.
Microsoft PowerPoint Generates a report in Microsoft PowerPoint format and opens PowerPoint to view the report.
Microsoft Word Generates a report in Microsoft Word format and opens Word to view the report.
WordPerfect Generates a report in WordPerfect format and opens WordPerfect to view the report.
XML Document Generates a report in XML, downloads it to your computer and invokes the registered XML viewer (generally a web browser).
XSLT Report Generates a report in XSLT, downloads it to your computer and invokes the registered XSLT viewer.

Vitalware's Reporting subsystem was modified in order to bypass some filtering which occurs when a Crystal Report or Microsoft report (Excel, Word, etc.) is generated out of Vitalware. Bypassing the filtering improves report generation and performance.

The Reporting subsystem has been modified in two major ways:

  • Crystal Reports.

    In order to build and generate a report, Crystal Reports requires a .csv file with the exported Vitalware data. In previous versions of Vitalware, data was exported as XML and then filtered to produce one or more ODBC compliant .csv files. The filtering process has been bypassed and Vitalware is now able to generate the ODBC data source directly.

    Note: This change does not affect the way that you build a Crystal Report, it simply means that the ODBC data source (one or more .CSV files) output by Vitalware is generated far more efficiently. With the Reports|Type Registry entry it is possible to specify whether the filtering process is bypassed or not.

  • Two new report formats have been introduced that report directly to an ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) RecordSet object (XML) rather than reporting to an ODBC data source (CSV). The new report options are:
    • Crystal ADO: report using ADO RecordSets for Crystal (which are accessible via Crystal's ADO connector).
    • Microsoft ADO: report using ADO RecordSets for Microsoft products.
  • Crystal and Microsoft reports (Excel, PowerPoint and Word) which currently connect to an ODBC data source can be modified to use an ADO RecordSet.
  • The Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint report Types which connect directly to an ODBC data source are still available if required.
  • A Developer Edition of Crystal Reports Designer is required in order to create an ADO Crystal Report or convert a Crystal report to use ADO rather than ODBC. When installing or modifying Crystal Reports Designer, be sure to install ADO.NET as a Data Access option:

    Crystal Reports Setup