Generate Despatch note

[Former Member]

I have a solution in my head but i just wonder if it will work. I work at a logistics company where we generate a lot of despatch notes from an AS400. These PrePrinted 2 ply Despatch Notes are expensive to buy and it would probably be better to print to A4. Im using Visual Studio 2005 with Crystal Reports.

I've designed the Despatch note, now my idea is to have the AS400 to send a file to a Window's directory, this file will consist of all the details on the Despatch Note. Items/Quantites/Item No's etc...How can i get visual studio to poll this directory? If it see's this file it will automatically generate the Despatch Note in Crystal Reports and this will be printed to a chosen printer on the network. Is that possible and is that clear?

Thank you, Jonah

[former_member11696 · Accepted solution]

Hi Jonah,

This is similar to the Event trigger in Business Objects Enterprise. What it simply does is using Windows API's it looks to see if a specified file is in a location every minute or so and if it is there it fires the event. In your case you could program your app to look in your specified folder for a file using Windows API's, if it exists then jump into CR API's, open the Report and set the data source to that file.

You can post your question to the Report Design forum for what types of files you can use as a data source. CR .NET is limited to the file types you can use as a data source so you may need to upgrade to a full developer version of Crystal Reports.

Thank you

Don