Chapter 9: Working with Multiple Tables

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mastering crystal reports 9
Chapter 9 - Working with Multiple Tables
Mastering Crystal Reports 9
by Cate McCoy and Gord Maric
Sybex 2003

Overview

One of the jobs of the report designer is to understand the meaning of the stored data and its inherent relationships. People who design and build a database are generally a different set of people than those who ultimately need to retrieve data from it. Database designers and programmers focus on capturing the right information and creating a storage facility to efficiently hold it. Business people, on the other hand, focus on the intelligence and sleuthing needed at the other end of the process to retrieve and synthesize the data in order to answer business questions. Because the two groups inherently have different purposes, bridging the gap between understanding the storage and knowing how to use the data to answer questions can be frustrating.

As a report designer, you play a powerful role sitting in between the two groups and providing a context for the data in order to transform it into information. This puts the responsibility of accurately representing the data on your shoulders. Nothing brings this to the forefront any clearer than the need to work with multiple tables in a way that generates correct information. To build a good report, it is an absolute requirement that you understand the data relationships behind the report and how they can safely and accurately be combined.

Featured in this chapter:

  • Understanding essential database concepts

  • Working with multiple tables

  • Creating database schemas

  • Defining business rules

  • Using the Database Expert Links dialog

  • Understanding the types of links

  • Creating an inner join

  • Creating a left outer join

  • Creating a right outer join

  • Creating a full outer join

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Mastering Crystal Reports 9
Mastering Crystal Reports 9
ISBN: 0782141730
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2005
Pages: 217

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