Each chapter is well written for anyone who needs to develop
reports. Chapter 7: Writing Formulas describes this topic in depth starting from
creating basic formulas, including a great explanation of the basic syntax. In
living up to the name of the encyclopedia terms, this chapter dives into the
more complex issues, such as "Evaluation Time Defaults". That
subject can be helpful when you are creating more complex reports. This gives
a great description of when formulas are evaluated when your report runs.
Another useful feature of the book is found in Chapter 9,
"Incorporating Subreports". In this chapter, there are a series of 9
tutorials specifically for subreports. They range the gamut, including a
tutorial on how to hide subreport sections.
I think the "Maximizing SQL Performance" chapter
has some useful pointers about how to get your reports SQL to run on the
server. Suggestions in this chapter range from "how to optimize the query
detailing specifics of the where clause", to "details on Stored
Procedures".
The Charting chapter includes good information on using
charts in your Crystal report. I was disappointed that this book didn't go
through all the chart options available for each different chart. Since this
book includes the word "encyclopedia" in the title, I would love to
be able to go back to the book to see more detail on all these options.
The "Creating Cross-Tab Reports" chapter contains
a great explanation of when and why you should use a Cross-Tab report. "Understanding
Cross-Tab Reports" is where you can find that explanation. Besides
listing the reasons why, Brian uncovers the limitation of this type of
reports. Throughout the rest of the chapter, Brian takes you through how to
create the cross-tab, including listing properties differences.
The Cross-Tab Report chapter includes Tutorials. One that I
found most intriguing involves an explanation of "Copying a Cross-Tab into
Arrays". This includes creating a complex formula to take advantage of
the arrays that are created in this tutorial.
The final chapter I'll look over in this review is the final
appendix. "Appendix A: Financial Reporting" is intended to be a
reference guide for creating standard financial reports using Crystal Reports.
This appendix includes a Balance Sheet, an Income Statement, and a Multi-Year
Income Statement. By introducing the reader to basic accounting principles,
then showing some sample accounting databases, there is a good basis for the
reader for the tutorials that follow. I believe that putting some standard
reports like this in is a good idea and can be helpful, assuming it's adopted
by others. Probably having Crystal include these reports as samples on the
install would help it.