Building Custom Reports

Using Crystal Reports, you can add features such as charts, formulas, field highlighting, and running totals to a listing report. You can also import graphics (such as company logos) and completely reformat a listing report. To build custom reports, you need a version of Crystal Reports that is version 8.5 or beyond.

Customized listing reports appear on the Custom tab of the HelpDesk Web Report Viewer. After you customize a listing report, you cannot edit it in the Report Editor. You must use Crystal Reports.

While HelpDesk comes with numerous custom reports out of the box, it may be desirable to create additional custom reports. The process of creating such a report is as follows:

 

1    Open the Report Editor for the desired project.

2    Select the Listing tab.

3    Locate a report that has the Custom Report checkbox checked. If checked, this indicates that the report will appear in the Custom tab of Reports section of the Web views.

4    Click the Copy Report button. Choose a name for the new report, type it in, and press OK.

5    Press Apply to save your changes.

     Note: After doing this, HelpDesk will have already saved two .rpt files in the CustomizedFiles folder allocated to this project. In order to view the reports in the Web views, they must be moved to the Web view folder. This can be achieved by regenerating the Web views that are related to the project.

     Example:

           CUSTOMIZEDFILES\#Project#HelpDesk\#AllWebViews#\

6 Regenerate the Web views that are related to the project.

7 Navigate to the Web view's Reports folder, and locate the two .rpt files. From here you can use Crystal Reports to edit the .rpt files.      If you wish to add, change, or remove fields, create cross tabs, or add new charts, you will need advanced knowledge of Crystal Reports. Please contact support for more information.

If the report name is "Open Issues - Age by Priority" then the filenames will be:

     rptListingGOpen$Issue$-$Age$by$Prioritylandscape.rpt

     rptListingGOpen$Issue$-$Age$by$Priorityportrait.rpt

Once the modifications have been made to both files, they must now be copied to the CustomizedFiles folder to ensure they will be included the next time the Web views are generated.

See Customizing Web View Files for more information on the CustomizedFiles folder.

Using Crystal Reports for all Listing Reports

It is also possible to use the Crystal Reports engine for all the Listing reports, rather than the HTML report engine. In this case, a Creation API for Crystal Reports 9.0 would need to be purchased from a third party. Once purchased, this Creation API, after having been installed on the web server, will enable HelpDesk to display all existing and future Listing reports using the Crystal Reports Engine. This is done automatically without the need to use the Crystal Reports Editor. Since this involves the automatic generation of .rpt files, Crystal Reports requires that the Creation API be present.

Related Topics

Defining Listing Reports

Customizing Shared Web View Files

Changing Report Viewers