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Gary DemosFlag for United States of America

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Pass a parameter from a Windows form to a crystal report in VB.NET

Caution - I need very specific instructions as I am not at all proficient in VB.net or CR.  
I want to enter a strNumber in a textbox on a windows form, and have it passed to a Crystal Report parameter for sorting (CR report is on the same form).

I'm using Visual Studio 2015/VB.net

I created a Windows form named frmSubSpecsReport
I created a Textbox on the form named txtJobNumber and a variable strJobNumber to hold the value that is typed into the textbox
I created a parameter in the report named JobNumber, which I will use to sort through all the jobs to find the correct one
I want to capture the number that a user types into the textbox and pass it to the JobNumber parameter in CR

I've used the Imports at the top of the form:
Imports CrystalDecisions.CrystalReports.Engine
Imports CrystalDecisions.Shared

I've added this code for the button click event -

        Dim ParameterFields As CrystalDecisions.Shared.ParameterFields
        Dim ParameterField As CrystalDecisions.Shared.ParameterField
        Dim ParameterDiscreteValue As CrystalDecisions.Shared.ParameterDiscreteValue
        Dim strJobNumber As String = txtJobNumber.Text

'assign a report object to the viewer
        Dim crSubSpecsReport As New CrystalReport1    
  I got an error using CrystalReport1 as not being referenced ?? So I added the following to get the error to go away, but really don't know what it does:
Private Class CrystalReport1
    End Class

Then the code continues as follows:
        CrystalReportViewer1.ReportSource = New crSubSpecsReport

        'reference the parameterfields collection
        ParameterFields = CrystalReportViewer1.ParameterFieldInfo

        'reference the ParameterField object (name of the parameter i CR)
        ParameterField = ParameterFields("JobNumber")

        'create a parameterValue object
        ParameterDiscreteValue = New ParameterDiscreteValue

        'assign a default value
        ParameterDiscreteValue.Value = "strJobNumber"

        'add the ParameterValue object to the CurrentValues or DefaultValues collection
        ParameterField.CurrentValues.Add(ParameterDiscreteValue)

When I run the program, the CR parameter input form appears (not what I want) and when I enter a number, it does appear on the report, but if I use the textbox and click the button, then "strJobNumber" appears instead of the number entered.

Thanks very much for taking a look at this!
Avatar of Gary Demos
Gary Demos
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ASKER

I have found another template which works using the ReportDocument class, but it still displays the CR parameter input form first, then after entering a string it moves to the report form where I can enter a string in the textbox, and then click the button and it does display on the report.

My problem now is this - I would like to go directly to the form and bypass the CR parameter dialog.
Here is the code that I changed to:

Private Sub btnViewReport_Click(sender As Object, e As EventArgs) Handles btnViewReport.Click

        Dim crSubSpecsReport As New ReportDocument
        crSubSpecsReport.Load("D:\Visual Studio 2015 Projects\Production Reports\Production Reports\crSubSpecsReport.rpt")
        Dim crParameterFieldDefinitions As ParameterFieldDefinitions
        Dim crParameterFieldDefinition As ParameterFieldDefinition
        Dim crParameterValues As New ParameterValues
        Dim crParameterDiscreteValue As New ParameterDiscreteValue
        crParameterDiscreteValue.Value = txtJobNumber.Text
        crParameterFieldDefinitions = crSubSpecsReport.DataDefinition.ParameterFields
        crParameterFieldDefinition =
            crParameterFieldDefinitions.Item("JobNumber")
        crParameterValues = crParameterFieldDefinition.CurrentValues
        crParameterValues.Clear()
        crParameterValues.Add(crParameterDiscreteValue)
        crParameterFieldDefinition.ApplyCurrentValues(crParameterValues)
        CrystalReportViewer1.ReportSource = crSubSpecsReport
        CrystalReportViewer1.Refresh()


    End Sub
Avatar of Mike McCracken
Mike McCracken

Thanks for the link - I will try it out today!
The link above was to a program written in VS 2005 and it would not update to VS2015. I found the code difficult to follow as well since it was using a Dataset and I am using OLE DB connection since I'm connecting to a SQL 2000 DB. I don't know enough to fill in the blanks in coding, and if someone could show me how I need to modify my code above that would be very helpful.

Thanks, Gary
I will look into it but I am not a .Net programmer so I will have similar problems.

mlmcc
Yes the .NET is the part I need help with.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
Avatar of Mike McCracken
Mike McCracken

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Thank you - the first link looks very interesing and informative. I'll dig into it and see how it goes.