Mastering Business Analysis with Crystal Reports 9 (Wordware Applications Library)

Overview

So far in this book, you've been working with reports that require little to no manipulation of data. In other words, you grab a database field, throw it onto your report, and all records display.

While this is fine, the real power of Crystal Reports comes from its ease of manipulating data so that a report presents information in a meaningful manner for your users.

In this chapter, you'll learn how to filter the records you want included (or not included) within your report. This filtering of records is known in the world of report development as record selection. Record selection is the process of including specific records within a report.

Crystal Reports provides the following two tools for carrying out the process of record selection:

• The Select Expert: This tool provides a visual means of filtering data.

• Record Selection Formula: These are formulas that filter data, using some sort of filtering criteria. We learn more about record selection formulas in Chapter 11.

In this chapter, we learn about filtering through the Select Expert.