Back Office Report as source for Crystal

I have a Crystal MM280 - it's tricky and takes time - not as much time as trying to build a MM280 from scratch and balancing it back.

I would like to know how to suppress blank sections on a Crystal report based off a Lawson back office report.

Anyone have any pointers on suppressing blank sections on a Crystal with a lawson .prt as the data source?

My e-mail is joanna.bledsoe@jhsmh.org

(vc727 I sent a message to your inbox about your PR260)

Are you using LBI to publish them?
Or are you trying to use Crystal and the Lawson OLEDB provider to access the report as a datasource?

It would be nice to know how to do both.

1. Make sure you have the latest Lawson OLE DB Object Services installed (version 9.0.4), to make sure you have the correct registry settings to launch Lawson OLE DB Object Services from Crystal.

2. Open Crystal and create a blank report.

3a. Skip to step 4 if you already have the OLE DB connection set up, Expand the "Create New Connection" tree and double click "OLE DB (ADO)"
3b. If you installed the Lawson OLE DB Object Services correctly you should be able to see and select "OLE DB Connector for Lawson OLE DB Object Services".
3c. Now you have to logon to your Lawson system. Data source is the hostname where the Lawson Portal resides. i.e. If you access Lawson Portal from "http://mylawson.portal.com/lawson/portal" then the data source would be mylawson.portal.com.

4. Expand the connection named after your Lawson Portal Host. Double Click Add Command and the Lawson OleDB Object Service Query Builder should launch.

5. Click on the drop down beside Select Command and select Report

6. In the navigator pane ckick down into the tree and find your report. it should be attached to your user name and the batch number you specified.

7. In my experience, we cannot use the *.prt file to report on in Crystal; you need the xml file. When you run the report there is a setting to create the xml file and you have to make sure you turn it on otherwise you won't get any useful data. In my case I was creating a report off of BL122 reports and the data was stored in a file called inv. Double click on the xml file that was created for your report and you should see a link appear in the bottom right pane that starts with "report:JOBNAME=YOURBATCH...".
You can click on Execute in the top right pane to see the data that will available to your report.

8. Click on OK on the Query Builder Window and OK in the Database Expert window and then create your Crystal Report the fields available to your back office report should now be available to your Crystal Report under Database Fields.

Just note that this type of reporting has very limited functionality unless your users have access to Crystal because the connect string (command) cannot be parameterized, it can only be selected through the query builder interface. So each user would need access to Crystal in order to run their own reports. If you have a canned back office report that always goes to the same batchid, then this might be useful.

Hope this helps,

Marshall

Are you using LBI to publish them?
Or are you trying to use Crystal and the Lawson OLEDB provider to access the report as a datasource?

Sorry, I wasn't very clear.  The steps above are to create a report in Crystal Reports that is pointed at data in a Lawson Back Offiice report. 

The choice of publishing to LBI or using Crystal Reports is very much dependent on how the back office report is run i.e. a regularly scheduled report versus ad hoc random runs of a report. 

In my case the original intention was to use LBI to publish nice looking invoices based on Lawson Back Office report data(bl122) but Lawson OLE DB Object services is limited in the way the connect strings are used. Creating adhoc reports are not feasible because the OLE DB connect string used in the Crystal report command is fixed text and it cannot be manipulated through the use of parameters or wild cards. After publishing, a report is always pointed at the same batch id run by the same user as specified in the connect string when the report is published.

In my opinion, publishing to LBI is only useful if the back office report is a regularly scheduled report that is always run by the same user.

Ad hoc reports can be created If users running the back office reports also have access to Crystal designer then they can select the exact back office report that they want the data to come from. This is more suitable for running adhoc reports but not feasible if you have many users running reports because each user would need a Crystal License.

what parameters are most of you using to publish the MM280 on LBI.

what parameters are most of you using to publish the MM280 on LBI.

Trying to Publish a crystal (backoffice report as datasource) in LBI, to use the bursting capabilities. LBI Production requires a login id and password to connect to the back office report(since this is done via the Lawson OLEDB connection), other than setting up a production id/psw, is there another way of doing this?

The ole db user-id and password checks against Lawson security for that user-id and password and whether the user-id has access to run that particular program/report in Lawson. This is the rason why you can set up back office reports using lawson oledb and not sql. So there is no way LBI is going to surpass dsso and not check lawson security for the user-id and password trying to run the particular program/report in Lawson.

Currently there is an id and password to access the tables/views using the ole db (ado) connection for production,
that is just for LBI. But because the scheduled backoffice reports (ran through portal) and the crystal is trying to connect with these, and portal/Lawson security is using the Active Directory, and the rule is Active Directory is tied to employees, then there can't be an alias for LBI Production. So are there any other options?