Crystal Reports 10 Fundamentals

Quick Facts

Delivery Method Online
Professional Certificate
24hrs Suggested Study Time
3 Months Access
Tutor Support
Study On Any Device
6056 Students

Make the points you want to make by converting raw database or accounting information into impressive and meaningful reports.

Discover the secret techniques pros use to produce handsome reports that clearly convey almost any type of information to any type of audience. This class will help you unleash the hidden power of Crystal Reports to present database or accounting information in a way that unmistakably communicates the points you want to make.

If you have information you need to intelligently communicate to others, but cannot do so because it lies buried in your database, accounting program, or other data source, you need Crystal Reports--and this course.

It doesn't matter whether you need to develop a quick-turnaround report that your boss needed yesterday or an elaborate financial report for your company's annual report. Crystal Reports can handle it all, and your instructor will show you how.

You'll discover how to extract the data you want your report to include, how to sort it into the order you want, how to group related information together, and how to include totals for groups of figures or for the entire report. All the while, you'll gain valuable firsthand experience with the process of creating, running, and publishing polished, professional quality reports.

NOTE: If you have Crystal Reports XI, 2008, or 2011, then you should enroll in ""Crystal Reports Fundamentals"" rather than this course. Please check the Requirements for further information.

Courses are delivered to you through expertly executed lessons, online instruction and interaction with like-minded students. Our courses are designed to deliver all of the benefits of studying in a classroom whilst giving you the flexibility to study at a time and place to suit your needs. You can access your classroom 24/7 from any device with an internet connection.

This course has a 3 month duration. You'll complete comprehensive lessons, quizzes and assignments before submitting your final exam at the end of the course to achieve your certificate. Courses must be completed within the 3 month access period.

Crystal Reports is the world's most popular software tool for creating reports based on data stored in databases. It's popular because of its power and flexibility, which will help you create reports that communicate the information you want to convey to the people you want to convey it to. In our first lesson, you'll learn why it's important to find out everything you need to know about the report you want to create before you even launch the Crystal Reports application. This advance planning gives you a much better chance of creating a report that achieves your objectives.

In this lesson, we'll hit the ground running and create a Crystal report from scratch. You'll learn how to connect to any of several different types of data sources, pull data from the data source, and place it into a report. Then you'll learn how easy Crystal Reports makes giving your report a professional appearance with a report header, page headers, page footers, and a report footer, in addition to column headings and the data itself. You'll also learn how to arrange all these items on a page for maximum visual impact.

Once you know how to pull data from a database and display it in a basic report, the next step is pulling data from multiple tables and displaying only the data you want, filtering out any irrelevant information. In this lesson, you'll learn how to perform all those functions, including building reports that allow the user to decide at runtime what to display. In effect, you can build one report that serves the purpose of multiple reports.

Displaying the information in a database is one thing—displaying it in a way that communicates effectively is another. One important way to enhance communication is to organize the data in a meaningful way. In today's lesson, you'll learn how to sort a report's data and how to group related data items together. You'll learn how to summarize numerical data with group totals and obtain an overall grand total. We'll also look into Crystal Reports' drilldown capability, which allows your report readers to use a simple mouse click to access suppressed details of a specific data group.

In this lesson, you'll dive into the details of the various report sections. We'll look at the Section Expert, which is your major tool for selecting options that control the appearance and the function of the various sections of a report. We'll also explore how to create a multicolumn report, most commonly used for printing mailing labels.

Today, you'll get hands-on experience formatting a report. We'll practice using absolute formatting, a feature that can dynamically adjust the appearance of your report based on the data it contains. We'll look at a number of formatting options that Crystal Reports offers to help you give your report just the look you want. By including Report Alerts in a report, for instance, you can guarantee that the person viewing the report will see and acknowledge anything that you consider to be of high importance. A report template is a great way to achieve a consistent appearance across a family of reports. We'll practice using both these options and more in this lesson.

Crystal Reports can do more than just display the data you select from your data source. It can also show correlations between related categories of data items using the Cross-Tab Object. You can show such correlations across the entire data set or within a selected group of data items. As usual, Crystal Reports provides considerable flexibility in how it presents the cross-tab data to users. In this lesson, you'll learn what the options are and how to use them.

You'll often need to create a report based on some, but not all, of the data in a database. For example, a sales manager may want to look only at the purchase records of her top five customers. Alternatively, she may want to view the performance of her bottom 10 salespeople. Crystal Reports makes it easy to produce such reports, as well as others that are selective about what they display. In this lesson, you'll create such targeted reports that make it easy for managers to make informed decisions.

You can make your reports dynamic, sensitive to what's happening at runtime, by using Crystal Reports formulas and control structures, and you'll find out how in this lesson. With formulas, you can operate on data and put the result into your report. You can save time and effort by including one or more of the predefined functions in your formulas. You can even create your own custom functions, save them, and use them both now and in the future. These facilities give you the flexibility to produce a sophisticated custom report written from scratch with a programming language such as Visual Basic or C#, but with much less time and effort.

Crystal Reports gives you the ability to embed one report inside another. The two reports can be related in some way, or they could be totally unrelated. As long as you have a reason for displaying both reports at once, you can do it, and you'll find out how in today's lesson. An alternative to embedding a subreport within a main report is embedding a hyperlink to the subreport, so we'll practice embedding subreports in this lesson, too.

In this lesson, we'll explore Crystal Reports' wide offering of charts and maps that can add visual dimension to the display of information in a report. For the visual learners in your target audience, charts and maps may be far better than columns of numbers at getting your point across. Today, you'll learn how to choose a chart type that best conveys the information you want to emphasize. You'll find out how to use color, font, scale, legends, and titles to help you highlight trends in the data or data points that fall outside the expected range.

After you've created a report, you need to distribute it. Crystal Reports gives you several convenient distribution options, and we'll explore them all in our final lesson. We'll talk about print and fax options, as well as exporting a report to any of a number of popular file formats, and transmitting it to the people who should read it. You'll learn how to post the report on your organization's intranet or the World Wide Web, then we'll discuss distributing reports via Crystal Enterprise's Crystal Reports Viewer.

Allen Taylor

Allen G. Taylor is a 30-year veteran of the computer industry and the author of 28 computer-related books, including "Crystal Reports 2008 For Dummies," "Database Development For Dummies" and "SQL For Dummies." He has been teaching computer course... Read more

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Frequently Asked Questions

Once you've made the payment, we'll send you a confirmation email with a link to start your course. Feel free to get started whenever you're ready!

You'll have 3 months access to your course. In that time you are free to study at your own pace. The course duration is 24 hours.

Online learning is a flexible way to study that fits around your schedule, giving you the freedom to learn at your own pace from anywhere in the world. You'll have 3 months to complete the course and can take the multiple-choice questions and final exam whenever it suits you.

If you need help, you can contact us anytime. You can also join the discussion area where you can interact with other students. The discussion area for each lesson is open for the entire duration of the course.

Of course! We offer a 7-day money back guarantee. As long as you haven't completed the course, you can get a full refund within 7 days of enrolling.

We do not offer extensions or transfers for this self-paced course. However, you will have 3 months to complete the course, and if you need to cancel within the first 10 days of enrolment, we offer a money back guarantee.

What people are saying about our courses

I found the course to be extremely helpful. The material associated with the course will also serve as an excellent reference as I practice and become more efficient with Crystal Reports.

Verified Student

I really enjoyed this class. I like the instructor's comments about real life business cases. He made me a better report writer.

Verified Student

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The Learning Environment

From the moment that you enrol in the Crystal Reports 10 Fundamentals you will become an integral part of our learning community. You'll find yourself with the freedom to learn at a speed that suits you, on any device, from anywhere in the world. Achieving your career goals no longer has to mean compromising family and work commitments.

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Crystal Reports 10 Fundamentals

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Total Quality Fundamentals

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Quick Facts

Delivery Method Online
Professional Certificate
24hrs Suggested Study Time
3 Months Access
Tutor Support
Study On Any Device
4364 Students

Learn the basics of total quality management.

Learn how to effectively apply the fundamentals of total quality. Understand what quality is and learn about the history of the quality movement. Discover the role of customers in quality and determine the major elements of a quality system. Master key concepts such as the cost of nonquality, variation, and total employee involvement (TEI). Increase your value to your company by learning about various motivational models, leadership, and teamwork. Determine how to effectively apply quality standards by creating and implementing internal and external auditing activities. Learn the ins and outs of ISO 9000, ISO 14000, and the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.

In this online course, you will learn how successful organisations apply quality to their everyday activities. You will find out how to use teamwork to make the most of employees' abilities and potential. I will help you manage the process of change, reduce customer complaints, and increase customer service. You will learn of a number of quality fallacies and how to lessen their impact.

In our first lesson, we'll discuss the concept of professional quality certification as defined by the American Society for Quality (ASQ). Next, we'll come up with a universal definition of quality, a challenging proposition because so many people have different perspective of what quality is and what it isn't. You'll learn about the history of the quality movement and see how Six Sigma fits in. We'll finish up by examining Total Quality Management (TQM) and discuss its concepts and components.

Quality is best viewed as a total customer satisfaction package. You satisfy customers by effectively combining products and services. To help you get to know customers better, we'll discuss different customer types. We'll also discuss how you can minimize customer complaints. You'll discover the role that your organization plays in providing high customer satisfaction by maintaining a quality philosophy and creating quality systems.

I've often observed that companies don't pay enough attention to problems until they begin to see sales and profits drop. Because of this tendency, an effective way to get top management's attention and hopefully increase their commitment to quality is to express problems in terms of costs. In this lesson, I'll discuss the cost of nonquality (also called the "cost of quality") and its components—external failure, internal failure, appraisal, and prevention costs. We'll also explore the concept of variation and discuss how you can use statistical process control (SPC) to meet customer requirements.

Companies grow by entering new markets and meeting unmet customer needs. To achieve and maintain this growth, it's important to have a healthy organization that has the right mix of leadership and power. Today you'll learn about the basic leadership styles and two leadership models. You'll also discover how the concepts of distinctive competency, competitive advantage, and organizational assessment position your organization for success.

In today's lesson, you'll learn what makes people tick and how to manage change. Reaching quality levels you desire will require dedication from everyone in the organization, so you need to know what motivates people in order to successfully work with and direct them. Also, as you work with people, you're faced with change. We'll talk about forces for change, learn why people resist these forces, and discuss ways to manage change.

It seems as if teams are everywhere. Despite the popularity of teams, far too many people report that their experience hasn't been too fulfilling. Six Sigma and quality projects rely on high-performing teams, so it's vital that you learn the secrets of team building. Many companies fail to devote enough time to training. After we complete today's lesson, I hope you'll be able to play a large role in making sure that employees receive the right type of preparation. When we finish, you'll have a solid understanding of how to build a strong team and effectively deliver training.

When companies decide to improve quality and better satisfy customers, they won't succeed unless all employees are behind these goals. Once you get employee commitment, you need to measure your progress. In this lesson I'll share a concept, "total employee involvement" (TEI), to help you get the most from the total power of every single person at your firm. You'll learn about the role that management and employees play in TEI. You'll also learn how to determine progress by using traditional and progressive performance measurements.

Standards and auditing work hand-in-hand. The first helps you plan and the second makes sure that you follow your plans. Firms that conform to standards are more capable of competing. In this lesson, we'll explore the basics of standards and auditing. We'll talk about how standards are used and how they're developed. We'll also explore their benefits and discover how they're defined. Regarding auditing, we'll examine their features, discuss the different types of audits, and look at why auditing is a challenging activity.

In this lesson, we'll explore how your firm can use external auditing to assess suppliers' capabilities and internal auditing to improve company operations. You'll learn the difference between external and internal auditing. And I'll share the nuts and bolts of auditing and show you how to plan and conduct an audit and write a final audit report.

I believe that ISO 9000 is one of the main reasons why organizations continue to focus on quality. It's difficult for companies to disregard quality once they make a decision to adopt the ISO 9000 standard. In today's lesson, we'll start out with some background about ISO, discuss what ISO 9000 represents, identify the challenges of implementing it, and go over a recipe for successfully putting ISO in place. We'll also talk about each section of the ISO 9001:2000 standard.

In this lesson, we'll tackle a number of topics that will increase your knowledge about quality standards and systems. Although ISO 9000 has a high profile, other methods and structures also play a vital role in quality improvement. First, we'll close our study of ISO by looking at a series of standards to manage the environment—ISO 14000. Next, we'll dive into the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award (MBNQA), an esteemed award given for quality excellence in the United States. Finally, we'll explore three systems that apply to many of you: QS-9000, the Advanced Quality System (AQS), and the Conformité Europeenne (CE) mark.

After you implement everything from the lessons of this course, you can safely say your organization has a quality culture. Without a quality culture, it's difficult to satisfy customers, improve processes, and reduce costs. In addition to discussing a quality culture, we'll also examine quality fallacies. We'll finish up the lesson by identifying the most common quality fallacies and discuss what beliefs should take their place.

Tony Swaim

Tony Swaim has helped many clients, colleagues, and students reach their professional and personal goals. He has been an online instructor since 1998 and has taught at colleges and universities across the United States since 1981. His focus areas ... Read more

Read Tony Swaim's Profile

Frequently Asked Questions

Once you've made the payment, we'll send you a confirmation email with a link to start your course. Feel free to get started whenever you're ready!

You'll have 3 months access to your course. In that time you are free to study at your own pace. The course duration is 24 hours.

Of course! We offer a 7-day money back guarantee. As long as you haven't completed the course, you can get a full refund within 7 days of enrolling.

What people are saying about our courses

Excellent Instuctor! Very informational class. Met my reasons for taking the class.

Verified Student

I consider this an excellent introduction to Six Sigma. The topics are really fascinating to me and I just look forward to get more knowledge in the next course and pursue the Six Sigma certification.

Verified Student

I found this on-line course to be well laid out, and the materials supplied second to none. Instruction from Tony was both informative and in depth.

Verified Student

See More Reviews

The Learning Environment

From the moment that you enrol in the Total Quality Fundamentals you will become an integral part of our learning community. You'll find yourself with the freedom to learn at a speed that suits you, on any device, from anywhere in the world. Achieving your career goals no longer has to mean compromising family and work commitments.

Ready to get started?

Enrol Now