Chapter 20. Introduction to Web Intelligence

In this chapter

What Is Web Intelligence? 480

Reporting Paradigm 481

Report Anatomy 485

On-Report Analysis 491

Report Variables and Formulas 499

Drilling 502

Synchronizing Data from Multiple Data Sources 508

Conclusion 510

This chapter is designed to introduce the Crystal Reports writer to the Web Intelligence report engine. The Web Intelligence engine is an extremely sophisticated reporting engine that functions under a different reporting paradigm than Crystal Reports. A single chapter cannot adequately teach you how to use all the capabilities of the Web Intelligence engine. Because this book is primarily devoted to Crystal Reports development, you should not expect to find equally in-depth how-to knowledge on report development using Web Intelligence. However, after reading this chapter you should be familiar with the Web Intelligence reporting paradigm; understand the tools, nomenclature, and workflow of creating Web Intelligence reports; understand some (but not all) of the key differentiating capabilities of the engine; and be able to provide some high-level guidance to the Crystal Report developer about when to use Crystal Reports or the Web Intelligence report engine.