A
AMeador
I have, at one point in time, been a pretty good programmer, but
that was years ago. I can pass programming classes with and A with no
problem, but writting a business class application is a bit of a
struggle. I am relitively new to .NET and C#, but do have pretty strong
background in computers and general programming concepts.
Now to my question. I have to create an app that will pull data from
a database and create a report. This report will have many rows and
five columns. The columns are for four quarters and afifth column is
for a YTD total. You would think that the YTD would be the sum of the
other four columns, but it it not. On a per row basis, the five columns
will be calculated the same way - they will run a query for the data it
is looking for with a start date and an end date to match the time
frame of the column. So, Q1 will be from July 1 to Sept 30; Q2 will be
from Oct 1 to Dec 31; and so on. The YTD will be calculated with the
same equation, but the start date will be July 1 and the end date will
be June 30. These totals will be counting unique people over the given
time frame. So, due to the fact that the YTD column will also be for
unique people over the whole year, it may have a different count than
adding the four quarters totals. Each row will have a different set of
data it is counting, but almost all of them will be doing tallies this
way. There are a few sections that will require a different number of
colums and different calcualtions.
The main question is what should I use to create this report? Is
this more complex than can be done with the Crystal Reports engine
included in VS2003? Can the full version of Crystal Reports do this?
Should I try to use something like Excel? I'm just not sure what method
to use to try to get this report made. We have a short term goal of
giving this report to a "parent" organization that currently receives
this in Excel format, but the longer term goal is to give them an
application that can pull the data from out SQL servers and give them
the report in realtime. The Crystal Reports engine can export the
report in Excel format if I understand it correctly.
Trying to print manually from Windows and .NET seem like a major
pain. From my very limited knowledge of Crystal Reports, I just don't
know if it can do a report like this or not. I'm not sure about using
Excel directly. I have never written an application that would
integrate with an outside app like Excel to create anything, so I don't
know if this is too hard or if maybe this is a good option. I am also
trying to keep this a "professional" app, so I am kindof resistant to
doing something that would require the use of Excel to generate a
report. This just feels hokey. Because of this I lean towards the
Crystal Reports engine, but if it can't do this, then I have to do
something else.
As much advice as possible would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you in advance!
that was years ago. I can pass programming classes with and A with no
problem, but writting a business class application is a bit of a
struggle. I am relitively new to .NET and C#, but do have pretty strong
background in computers and general programming concepts.
Now to my question. I have to create an app that will pull data from
a database and create a report. This report will have many rows and
five columns. The columns are for four quarters and afifth column is
for a YTD total. You would think that the YTD would be the sum of the
other four columns, but it it not. On a per row basis, the five columns
will be calculated the same way - they will run a query for the data it
is looking for with a start date and an end date to match the time
frame of the column. So, Q1 will be from July 1 to Sept 30; Q2 will be
from Oct 1 to Dec 31; and so on. The YTD will be calculated with the
same equation, but the start date will be July 1 and the end date will
be June 30. These totals will be counting unique people over the given
time frame. So, due to the fact that the YTD column will also be for
unique people over the whole year, it may have a different count than
adding the four quarters totals. Each row will have a different set of
data it is counting, but almost all of them will be doing tallies this
way. There are a few sections that will require a different number of
colums and different calcualtions.
The main question is what should I use to create this report? Is
this more complex than can be done with the Crystal Reports engine
included in VS2003? Can the full version of Crystal Reports do this?
Should I try to use something like Excel? I'm just not sure what method
to use to try to get this report made. We have a short term goal of
giving this report to a "parent" organization that currently receives
this in Excel format, but the longer term goal is to give them an
application that can pull the data from out SQL servers and give them
the report in realtime. The Crystal Reports engine can export the
report in Excel format if I understand it correctly.
Trying to print manually from Windows and .NET seem like a major
pain. From my very limited knowledge of Crystal Reports, I just don't
know if it can do a report like this or not. I'm not sure about using
Excel directly. I have never written an application that would
integrate with an outside app like Excel to create anything, so I don't
know if this is too hard or if maybe this is a good option. I am also
trying to keep this a "professional" app, so I am kindof resistant to
doing something that would require the use of Excel to generate a
report. This just feels hokey. Because of this I lean towards the
Crystal Reports engine, but if it can't do this, then I have to do
something else.
As much advice as possible would be greatly appreciated!
Thank you in advance!
