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Crystal off multiple BEx Queries: How to consolidate multiple prompts into one for same field?

I have 3 BEx queries feeding one Crystal Report. Each of the BEx query has two prompt (variable) for time periods and City. I want Crystal to only prompt once for time period and City, and when user enters values… I want those values to feed all 3 BEx prompts.

How can I go about achieving this? Do I need to create prompts at Crystal level…. Or is there a workaround that can be used so that user sees only ( one prompt for time period and one for City) instead of 3 prompts for ‘time period’ and 3 prompts for ‘City’.
Please note that each BEx query is coming from a separate DSO.
Tool: Crystal Reports 2011

Thank you

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Mike McCracken

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Kurt Reinhardt

FYI, having a report based on multiple queries is a bad idea from a performance perspective. Each query must be fully executed independently of each other other Crystal Reports functionality occurs, such as linking and filtering. So, if you're relying on a join from one query to another to implicitly filter data you'll find that the filtering will occur on the client on the database server.

Best practices, in most cases, is to never use more than one "external" data source in your report. I would categorize SQL Commands, Stored Procedures, Universe Queries and BEX Queries as "external" data sources, because Crystal Reports relies on them to provide and execute their queries instead of building its own SQL based on them (like it does when you build basic reports with tables and views and record selection criteria).

zafridi

ASKER

Thanks. I have found that having same text description in multiple prompts only asks the user to enter values once. Value entered is passed to all the prompts with exact same text description.