Feature requests - Please read before requesting something

[#1]

Hello all,

UPDATE: They are just about to make the Idea Place full featured, currently beta. It's going to be THE place and a great place to post these suggestions with Points being awarded to the contributors, details to be announced also. It's available now, look up, second from the right

[Idea Place|http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/idea-place]

Second page has Crystal Reports, click on the agree to terms if it pops up.

You can start entering your suggestions now, knowing it's still beta, but nothing should be lost when it goes GA.

I'll leave this post open for a while but once it's open please post your suggestions there so you get the credit for your idea.

Enjoy all....

Don

[UPDATE] - Regarding the charting enhancements - Cr uses a third party charting dll and we don't have the ability to add new features to the basic functionality. Check the Feature info on new product lines for any updates to charting functionality. We are well aware of the limitation the basic charting functions have.

I believe we are working on a feature request forum but lots of details to work out yet. In the mean time if you have a request please add it it here. PLEASE keep it short and to the point to conserve space. Steps on where and how it would work if you know. If it's DB or other third party application related specify the product with a link to their site.

As this progresses I may add more info or suggestions.

DO NOT POST YOUR QUESTIONS IN THIS POST. IT IS FOR FEATURE REQUESTS ONLY AND NOT TO BE USED AS A PLACE TO GET ANSWERS. Post your question first and if no work around or solution is sent then post your enhancement here.

I will delete such questions.

Thank you

Don

Enhancement Requests are exactly that. There are no guarantee's these features will be put into Future versions. The Product teams do look at every request and determine if they can be done and when or if they will be added.

If any of these are something that you must have please log a case and provide a very good business Case why they are required and it will get escalated to see if they can be implemented in current product versions. New features are only added to Service Pack patches.

List of Enhancement Request for this post:

ADAPT01449906 - "Deactivate Drill" object property

ADAPT01449910 - Equal Horizontal / Vertical allignment formatting feature

ADAPT01449913 - Reset dialog box positions for larger screen sizes and dual monitors changes

ADAPT01449947 - Allow to adjust/set the number of recent reports to display

ADAPT01449978 - Formula Debugging Features

ADAPT01449983 - Enable Scroll mouse wheel in formula editor dialog box

ADAPT01450043 - Crystal to support Open Type fonts

ADAPT01450238 - Hijra calendar support in our Date Parameter Calendar Prompt UI

ADAPT01450252 - Repeat Subreport Report Header if subreport spans more than one page

ADAPT01450258 - Allow support of spatial queries

ADAPT01450278 - Rotate a text object n degrees

ADAPT01450288 - Spell Checker in Crystal Designer

ADAPT01450755 - Put the Zoom button back in the menu bar

Edited by: Don Williams on Jul 12, 2010 9:25 AM

Edited by: Don Williams on Jul 13, 2010 7:09 AM

Edited by: Don Williams on Oct 1, 2010 2:43 PM

[Former Member]

BOE Enhancement - this is CR only

On the InfoView History page, automatically refresh the page every <configurable> seconds (or minutes). (There's an HTML Refresh directive that would do it, but there are other methods as well...) Perhaps this could be part of the user's profile.

Thanks,

Carl

Edited by: Don Williams on Jul 12, 2010 10:21 AM

[former_member11696]

And if a 1000 users all had this option on do you think it would affect performance for the WEB server as well as BOE? Good suggestion but....

[Former Member]

Of course, this should be controllable by the sys admin (ie, a min refresh time, with option to totally disable) at the server level. That's also why I suggested a time in minutes. Disable it by default, if you're that worried about it.

Just about any feature of just about any program can be misused... Like allowing 1000 reports to run simultaneously on a report server with only 1 CPU and little memory. Does that mean BOE should limit the number of report jobs per server to 1?

I know my users (and myself) would very much appreciate this feature...

Thanks for reconsidering...

Carl

Don - Edited this one to keep the info clear.

In BOE we cache the job requests so if the system is below recommended hardware for performance it's not an issue in BOE, its just going to take a long time to process all requests and the potential for jobs to fail due to system limitations.

But yes making it configurable could be something our Product team could sue....

Don

Edited by: Don Williams on Feb 2, 2010 8:53 AM

[Former Member]

[Don] - This is a BOE enhancement request - not for stand alone CR use. An application using our BOE SDK's could be used to add this functionality to your own InfoView. The convenience in BOE is to have multiple reports, one for each format customized and optimized for each export type according to the end users requirements.

Add a "function" to return what format the scheduled output is intended for (printer, acrobat, excel, etc.). A simple example as to where this would be useful would be for a group value: When printing, you only want to see the value at the top of the page or upon a change in value. However, when exporting to Excel (especially Data Only format), you'd want to include the value on every line, so if the user ends up sorting (or otherwise manipulating) the spreadsheet, they don't "loose" the group value.

This currently can be achieved by adding a parameter to the report, but then the user has to specify how the output is going to be used twice (in the parameter, and in selecting the output format) every time they schedule the report.

Thanks,

Carl

Edited by: Don Williams on Jul 12, 2010 10:15 AM

[Former Member]

(Never mind... My mistake...)

Edited by: Carl Sopchak on Jan 20, 2010 12:14 PM

[Former Member]

[Don] - good idea but the problem is if we allow anyone who creates their own to fill up the root tree people can be confused which one to choose or select. By having the generic types in the root it fills up the main list and can confuse those who don't use your driver. It's up to you to educate your users which one to use in your help file.

No Enhancement request created

Hi,

It would be good to have a possibility to select our own Custom Database Connection types from the u201CAvailable Data Sourcesu201D section in the u201CStandard Report Creation Wizardu201D that you get when you try to create a new report.

Our problem case:

We are planning to create Crystal Report using local XML and Schema file. The XML and the Schema is generated from another process flow and is not in the required format Crystal Report support. So the option for us is to develop a DB connecter which acts as a bridge between our side and Crystal side which will convert the XML and Schema to Crystal standards and vise versa. If we are to create this still we can not select this from the u201CAvailable Data Sourcesu201D section in the u201CStandard Report Creation Wizardu201D. What we want is to select this instead of the standard XML driver.

Thanks,

Chanaka

Edited by: Don Williams on Jul 12, 2010 10:08 AM

[Former Member]

Enhancement_Request: ADAPT01449983

Hello Don

In Formula Editor it would be great if we could use the scroll wheel on the mouse to navigate vertically through a formula

I use cr 2008 sp2

Best regards

Patrick

Edited by: Don Williams on Jul 12, 2010 10:05 AM

[Former Member]

Hello Don

It would be useful if, when the colour of a chart series is set by condition, that the legend marker representing that series would have the same colour

I suppose it really means that the legend marker colours match the chart series they represent

Best regards and thanks

Patrick Coote

[Former Member]

Ability to get the parameter descriptions using formulas. Currently there is no way to get the parameter description inside a report.

[Former Member]

Or the ability to be able to create a parameter description through a formula (like composing a full name from components to select a User ID).

Fuskie

Who has run into this numerous times...

[Former Member]

Feature request: Formula Debugging Features. - Enhancement_Request: ADAPT01449978

Allow setting of unconditional breakpoints (always break), conditional breakpoints (when = 123), and iteration-count based breakpoints (break on the 3rd iteration of the formula) to simplify the debugging of formulas. When the breakpoint is hit, pop up the formula in the same manner as is done today when there's a formula error such as divide by zero. (I.e. Show all fields and variables with their current values.)

Thanks,

Carl

Edited by: Don Williams on Jul 12, 2010 10:01 AM

[Former Member]

[Don] - this is a known limitation - has to do with the font sizing and rendering. I believe this has been tracked as a bug but likely will be enhanced in future releases if it can be.

It would be great to have a dialog that tells the user what is the minimum allowed raster size.

Currently, I am able to e.g. set the grid size to 0,0105 inches. When I reopen the dialog, it is set to 0,01 inches. When I close the application and reopen it, the grid size is set to 0,083 inches.

Edit: This feature request is close to a bug report. Where would I be able to submit bug reports? Thanks in advance, Florian

Edited by: florianschneider on Jan 12, 2010 11:58 AM

Edited by: Don Williams on Jul 12, 2010 9:40 AM

[former_member11696]

Did you make the change while Crystal Reports was open? CR reads the registry keys and then writes them back when its closed. Try again with the designer closed first. If it's still an issue then CR writes those as default values, they are hardcoded in crw32 and can't be cahnged for a reason.

To log a bug you should purchase a case, if it is determined to be a bug you will get credit for your purchase. If not no ccredit.

[Former Member]

Of course Crystal Reports was open! How should I change the grid size without Crystal Reports being open?

What I was talking about was the "Grid size" option which you can find by navigating to File->Options->Layout->Grid options .

Edited by: florianschneider on Jan 18, 2010 9:51 AM

[Former Member]

Central configuration setting for the measurement unit

I would like to see a place where I can globally change the measurement unit, i.e. that allows me to switch between point, inches, centimeters and pixels for the whole application.

[Don] - Not an easy thing to do. Although there are options in CR 2008 if you install the MLB ( all language install option ) by clicking on the View and then selecting the region the system should adjust the default measurement according to the location.

Post this as a new forum post with more details and business case why you need it.

Edited by: Don Williams on Jul 12, 2010 9:31 AM

[Former Member]

User definable chart legend entries

Currently, there seems to be no way to specify a custom text for legend entries of a chart (or something like a rule or formula for this).

The current workaround is to use a second chart that is modified in such a way that the legend of the second chart fits what you want to have as a legend for the first chart. See a corresponding [forum post.|;

[Former Member]

Enhancement_Request: ADAPT01449947 - Suggested this be configurable to allow as many as one requires

It would be nice to be able to specify (up to a fairly high number, maybe 50?) the number of "Recent Reports" shown on the Start Page in Designer. (Navigating through layers of folders in the BOE Repository can be quite tedious!)

Thanks,

Carl

Edited by: Don Williams on Jul 12, 2010 9:18 AM

[Former Member]

I've said it before, but I'd really like to have Show SQL Query exposed as a function, so I could put the SQL in the report so that the QA folks could verify that the query was correct.

This would be a parallel to the RecordSelection() and GroupSelection() functions.

(Oh, and second the parameter description request above.)

Edited by: Garrett Fitzgerald on Jan 6, 2010 10:08 AM

[Don]

I don't see how this would add anything to the report other than in your Example for your QA people. Using our SDK's you can/could write a program to get/verify the SQL:

GroupPath gp = new GroupPath();

string tmp = String.Empty;

rptClientDoc.RowsetController.GetSQLStatement(gp, out tmp);

MessageBox.Show(tmp, "Data Source Set and SQL Statement", MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Information);

Currently all they have to do is Show Query from the Database menu. If they need to automate it then use the SDK.

No Enhancement request created.

Edited by: Don Williams on Jul 12, 2010 9:11 AM

[Former Member]

[Don] - This should be fixed with current versions - Problem_Report: ADAPT00345441

Another very common thing I see in these forum posts is displaying the "description" of a dynamic parameter instead of the internal value. In order to do that now, you need to get the value from the database.

This is a request to be able to select how a parameter would be displayed if it is on the report. Options should be Value, Description, or Both (just like the options for what is displayed when entering the parameter). This option should be independent of what is seen when being prompted. (I may want to show only the description when prompting, but for technical reasons show both description and value on the report.)

Thanks,

Carl

Edited by: Don Williams on Jul 12, 2010 9:07 AM

[Former Member]

Hi Don,

This is the problem I would like to be solved allowing formatting of numbers separately for the data labels and on the legend.

I want to create a pie chart with data labels expressed in percent and a legend with actual numbers. It seems to me impossible to format the legend numbers in a way that they have a thousands separator if I choose to show the data labels in percent.

What I can do is to show the data label as numbers and format them with thousands separator and then put the number in percent in the legend or both the numbers in percent and the numbers with the thousands separator in the legend. But I need the data labels as percent and the legend only with numbers formatted with a thousands separator.

Thanks

Antonio

[Former Member]

[Don] - Good idea but you can write your own UFL to add this functionality. Another option is this report: http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/boc/index?rid=/library/uuid/301b7dec-9f75-2b10-8887-c53096c9f0a3

And search Forums on "ufl" and you'll find more info on how to. - No Enhancement request for this one.

Allow "relative dates" to be entered for date-typed parameters, and have Crystal translate it to the appropriate date. By "relative date", I mean the ability to specify a date relative to the current system date: Prior Day, Current Month, etc., plus or minus a number of days, months, etc.

Not to dictate how this might be implemented, but more to fully explain the functionality desired, this should support entering dates of the form

{B|E}{P|C|N}[F]{D|W|M|Q|Y}[{+|-}n[[F]{D|W|M|Q|Y}][{/DOW}]]

where {B|E} = Beginning or End of, {P|C|N} = Prior, Current or Next, [F] is optional and indicates a Fiscal Year (without F would mean calendar dates), {D|W|M|Q|Y} = Day, Week, Month, Quarter or Year, with an optional plus or minus number (n) of {D|W|M|Q|Y} (or same as first {D|W|M|Q|Y} if not specified), and an optional Day Of Week adjustment ({/DOW}).

The Fiscal Year would be based on some specification (config file, system registry, Enterprise calendar?, ...) of a date that is the first day of any given fiscal year, and whether or not the fiscal year is 4/4/5 or Calendar based. (Are there other bases for Fiscal Years? If so, they should be included...)

The DOW adjustment would adjust the date to the same day of the week that the date without the +/- adjustment would land on. For example, BPW-1Y/DOW would calculate the date for BPW (if run 12/16/2009 would be Sunday 12/06/2009), subtract a year (giving 12/06/2008), then adjust to the nearest Sunday (giving 12/07/2008).

The primary purpose for this functionality is to allow a single report to be run ad hoc or be set up to run automatically periodically for any (or several) relative date ranges. For example, a Sales Report could be run Daily, Weekly Monthly and Quarterly without having to specify specific date ranges, nor having several versions of the same report.

Thanks,

Carl

Edited by: Carl Sopchak on Feb 2, 2010 4:44 PM (Changed {P|C} to {P|C|N}...)

Edited by: Don Williams on Jul 12, 2010 8:40 AM

[Former Member]

Extremely belated second to Carl's request for relative date parameters.

To give more clarity about exactly what I'm looking for, I want to be able to write my reports so that I can either provide a date range, or leave it blank to give the previous month. However, I tend to write the reports using SQL Commands, and pass the parameters directly into the query -- which means I can't use optional parameters.

I would think that by now, CRS2008 would provide this ability, but it's a rather glaring hole in the scheduling functionality.

[Former Member]

Garrett,

I've basically have implemented a subset of my relative date request. It works by using string parameters for the date(s), and having database and crystal functions that convert the relative date entered into a real date. I have one function for a "starting date" (beginning of month, e.g.) and one for "ending date" (end of month, e.g.). If the string is not a recognized relative date, it assumes it is a regular date, so the functions always returns a valid date - or crashes. The Crystal functions are kept in the repository to make it easy to add to a new report. The database functions allow the relative dates to be passed to SQL (which I also use quite extensively) with minimal impact on the complexity of the SQL.

The only down side to this is that the date picker (calendar) is not available. Since I have always considered them more of a pain than a help, I give that up. (They are never smart enough to start with a reasonable guess as to what the date being entered might be. For example, an ending date picker really should start with the starting date's date most times. They are also very cumbersome to traverse - A drop-down for month would be far better than single-month-skipping arrow buttons. I could go on...)

HTH,

Carl

[Former Member]

Default values for dynamic parameters.

Problem.

I have a parameter for a report that is populated using a stored procedure call. We also want to supply a default value WITHOUT any weird functions, field selection code ect. This is easily done in the "Other" reporting tool and from what I see it is a often requested feature/issue for many report writers.

We do not use VB for most of our reports so doing it through code is not a solution for us. We were using Dynamic Parameters add in but this no longer works with the latest version of Business Intelligence.

Don - This could be a bug and needs to be called in and investigated.

Edited by: Don Williams on Jul 12, 2010 8:33 AM

[Former Member]

Please create a "Skip Group Labels" Formula.

I have many reports where the number of data points to be charted varies. As the number of data points increases the X-axis labels become crowded and then overlap. Currently the only solution is to have multiple charts, each one containing a different number for the chart "Skip Group Labels" field and dynamically determine which chart to display. This increases development and maintenance times significantly.

It would be nice to be able to set the chart "Skip Group Labels" number within a formula dynamically.

[Former Member]

Be able to set chart type (bar, line, pie, etc.) dynamically based on a parameter.

[Former Member]

I also support Carl's request for always visable dialog and formula workshop pop-ups. From an operating system perspective dual monitors is equivalent to a wide monitor and popups located "far right" cannot be accessed from a smaller monitor (from a VPN session).

There are multiple solutions including:

(1) set location from lower right hand corner instead of from the upper left corner.

(2) if upper left corner of dialog is not visable, based on monitor size, reset to default location.

(3) other

Thanks for creating this forum thread Don.

[Former Member]

Always-visible dialogs: - Enhancement_Request: ADAPT01449913

When VPN-ing into work from home, if any Crystal Designer dialogs were last used on the far right of my large 24" wide-screen monitor at work (my favorite place to put them), they do not appear on my tiny 17" standard monitor at home. They are displayed at a location that is not on the screen. One has to realize what is going on, or it appears that Designer has hung. (You can close the dialog with Ctrl-F4 usually...) The only way to get the dialog to re-appear on the current desktop (that I am aware of) is to delete system registry keys.

This is a request to force all dialogs to be displayed within the current desktop's size, or at least force the edge of the dialog title bar to be on the screen so it can be dragged to an appropriate spot. This would simply be a check to see if the system registry's stored position's upper left corner and lower right corner are both within the dimensions of the desktop. If not, "discard" the registry values and proceed as if they were never found.

Thanks for listening,

Carl

Edited by: Carl Sopchak on Mar 31, 2010 12:06 PM (fixed lower right corner; used to say left)

Edited by: Don Williams on Jul 12, 2010 8:30 AM

[Former Member]

Equal Horizontal / Vertical - Enhancement_Request: ADAPT01449910

If I have multiple objects (e.g. fields) selected going across the page, I would love to have an "Equal Horizontal" feature that would make the horizontal spacing between the objects the same. The first and last objects would stay where they are, but all of the other ones would be equidistant from each other. The same would go for objects going up and down the page, only then it would be a "Equal Vertical".

Edited by: Don Williams on Jul 12, 2010 8:23 AM

[JWiseman]

hello Don,

i would like to see a "Deactivate Drill" object property. - Enhancement_Request: ADAPT01449906

Problem:

an end user can click on objects and drill into a tab where the information doesn't make sense. this can confuse and anger users.

1) end user can click on a subreport and then end up viewing only the subreport in the viewer...you don't want this behaviour

2) end user can click on a group header and then end up viewing only a group header and some details...again, not desired behaviour

this problem can affect every single report that has a subreport and every single report that has at least one group header or group summary.

Solution:

Disable Drill Property

when designing a report, the report developer should be able to right click on an object and choose Format, and go to the General tab. there should be an option to Disable Drill.

this property should apply to subreports and any group headers and summaries where drill can be activated.

thanks,

jamie

Edited by: Don Williams on Jul 12, 2010 8:18 AM