how2 use boe xi r2 repository to store / reuse common forumulas and sql commands
How can the boe xi r2 repository be used to store and reuse common formulas and sql commands so that multiple developers can pull them into new reports repeatedly to ensure consistency in data selection and calculations?
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Full disclosure, I work for a consulting company that specializes in Crystal Reports, but there are a lot of fantastic consultants and/or companies that provide development, support and training, some whom frequent this site.
To give an example of my last experience with SAP support - I had a customer who was having an issue with a report that had a 5-level dynamic cascading parameter where four of the five levels allowed multiple value selection. Simply put, it wasn't working as expected, so I did some troubleshooting and found that Crystal was basically passing through the parameters and not querying them as a single recordset. Crystal wouldn't loop back through the cascades, however, which meant it was dropping a lot of potential values the user should have been able to select. I checked with a colleague to see if he'd seen this behavior before and he had. He told me there was a fix pack for it. So, I logged in to SAP and started looking for the fix pack and couldn't find it. I opened a support ticket on behalf of my customer, dealt with basic level 1 customer support, had to prove what was happening was actually happening and I did so against SAP's own Xtreme Sample database. Ultimately, I was told the fix pack only applied to customers who used BusinessObjects Enterprise. There was NO fix or ETA for one for pure Crystal Reports Customers. Keep in mind, Dynamic Cascading parameters were the Holy Grail of Crystal Reports for going on 10 years. I sat in a focus group at a conference in Vancouver, CA years ago with some other Crystal Reports users and we all wanted that feature. When it was finally introduced, it was THE marquee feature of Crystal Reports XI, but it's basically broken a year or two after release and I had to chat with multiple representatives, be escalated, spend weeks waiting to find out there was no fix. Crazy...
~Kurt
To give an example of my last experience with SAP support - I had a customer who was having an issue with a report that had a 5-level dynamic cascading parameter where four of the five levels allowed multiple value selection. Simply put, it wasn't working as expected, so I did some troubleshooting and found that Crystal was basically passing through the parameters and not querying them as a single recordset. Crystal wouldn't loop back through the cascades, however, which meant it was dropping a lot of potential values the user should have been able to select. I checked with a colleague to see if he'd seen this behavior before and he had. He told me there was a fix pack for it. So, I logged in to SAP and started looking for the fix pack and couldn't find it. I opened a support ticket on behalf of my customer, dealt with basic level 1 customer support, had to prove what was happening was actually happening and I did so against SAP's own Xtreme Sample database. Ultimately, I was told the fix pack only applied to customers who used BusinessObjects Enterprise. There was NO fix or ETA for one for pure Crystal Reports Customers. Keep in mind, Dynamic Cascading parameters were the Holy Grail of Crystal Reports for going on 10 years. I sat in a focus group at a conference in Vancouver, CA years ago with some other Crystal Reports users and we all wanted that feature. When it was finally introduced, it was THE marquee feature of Crystal Reports XI, but it's basically broken a year or two after release and I had to chat with multiple representatives, be escalated, spend weeks waiting to find out there was no fix. Crazy...
~Kurt
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I got a link to documentation: looks like we can add text/bitmaps (and we have been doing with labels), custom functions(doesn't let us us fieldnames so we're limited there), and commands / sql scripts and I've been able to add commands and use as sources for rpts...
Weird - just say my response above, but that was to a different question regarding support. Sorry to confuse the issue.
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