Creating a simple but useful Crystal Report

What is Crystal Reports?

Crystal Reports is a database reporting application. It has powerful capabilities to access and analyze various sources of data for its reports.

Note: Please do comment for suggestions and improvements for me to update my first tip/trick entry. Thanks!

Steps in Making Crystal Report

First, you need to download the complete package in:

*VS = Visual Studio

For VS2010: http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-7824

For VS2008: http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-27917

After Download and Install. 

1. Create a new project.
2. Add a CrystalReportViewer to your WebForm.

Select the project name and then perform the following:

1. Add New Item
2. Select Report and then select Crystal Reports
3. Save your File as "StudentList.rpt"

Just close the dialog box that appear or select Blank Report

A Blank report will be created.

Now, select the project name and then perform the following:

1. Add New Item
2. Select DataSet
3. Save your DataSet as "StudentRec.xsd"
4. Drag a table from your Sever Explorer going to your DataSet designer.

Go back to CrystalReport.rpt.

Create a class Library and named it as "ReportHelper" and then rename the Class as "DataReport" and then write the following code below:

Note: This is the code when you are using a DataSet.

using System.text;
using System.Data;
using System.Data.SqlClient;

namespace ReportHelper
{
    public class DataReport
    {
       private static string _connString = @"Data Source";
        public static DataSet LoadReport()
        {
            SqlConnection myConn = new SqlConnection(_connString);
            SqlDataAdapter da = new SqlDataAdapter("Select * from StudentRecord", myConn);
            DataSet ds = new DataSet();
            da.Fill(ds, "StudTable");
            return ds;
        }
    }
}

On Page_Load event write the following code and then run your application.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Linq;
using System.Web;
using System.Web.UI;
using System.Web.UI.WebControls;
using ReportHelper;
using System.Data;
using System.Data.SqlClient;

namespace CrystalReport
{

    public partial class WebForm1 : System.Web.UI.Page    {
        protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            DataView dview = new DataView();
            dview.Table = DataReport.LoadReport().Tables["StudTable"];

            StudentList myreport = new StudentList();
            myreport.SetDataSource(dview)
            CrystalReportViewer1.ReportSource = myreport;
            CrystalReportViewer1.DataBind();
        }
    }
}

I hope that this Tip may help you to understand and create a simple but useful Crystal Report.

Thank you for reading my tip.

-Jason P.