Again Marketing Team of Packt Publication (Jay Raval) has contacted me to review a book called “Reporting with Visual Studio and Crystal Reports” and I always have fun to review books so I said yes to them. This blog post is all about reviewing a book “Reporting with Visual Studio and Crystal Reports”.
About Author:
This book is written by Mahmoud Elkoush who is having more then 6 years of experience in software development. He has used many technology throughout his careers such as Microsoft Visual Studio, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle databases, Crystal Reports and so on. He has worked on as project manager in some of the companies and currently working as Chief Information officer at Geomeric. He blogs at http://fuzon.biz/
Chapter 1: Setting Up the Requirements:
This chapter is all about setting environment to run samples provided in this book. It describes how to install Visual Studio 2012, SQL Server 2008 , Crystal Reports for Visual Studio 2012. It also explains how we can have Northwind database in SQL Server.
Chapter 2: Designing a Sample Application:
In this chapter author described about Creating a new sample application, Adding controls to form, Validating form data, Sketching reports on paper. This chapter is basic where we learn how to create forms and then we will have some designing ideas of sample reports.
Chapter 3: Selecting the Data:
In this chapter we are going to learn about connecting to SQL server database through windows application in Visual Studio. He also describes how we can populate combo box and other controls with database data.
Chapter 4: Creating First Report:
This chapter describes about Creating first report with Visual Studio, Where authors teaches how to select data from database and create a table adapter. How we are can add a report to application and whole report creation wizard is explored. Once report is ready he explains how we can add boxes and lines in reports. He also explained about some of special fields for Crystal report like page number etc. Then he also explains how we can add that report to windows form application.
Chapter 5: Enhancing Report:
In this book author explained about various fields like parameter fields, Formula fields where we can create a various formula and given all the details about Sub Reports. It also explain how easily we can create a sub report. In this chapter author also explained about grouping and sorting of data.
Chapter 6: Working with Cross Tab Report:
In this reports Author explained about working with Cross Tab Report. He explained what is cross tab report and what is the usefulness of cross tab reports. Then he explains how we can create a cross tab report with sample from Northwind database. This chapter also explains about customizing the cross tab appearance and various options available.
Chapter 7: Working with Charts:
In this chapter author explained about creating various charts with Crystal Reports like Pie Chart, Gauge Chart etc. This chpter explains all above charts in details and customizing various attributes of chart. This chapter is one of my favourite chapter.
Conclusion:
This book is for a very good read for the developers new to Crystal Reports. It explains all the basic details from Installing crystal report and visual studio to cross tab and charts using crystal reports. It helps to learn crystal report very quickly. Even intermediate users can also learn some techniques about Crystal reports. I would highly recommend this book for Novice developer or the developers who is new to crystal report. There is not much for advance users of Crystal report.
On this occasion, I would also like to thank Packt Publication marketing team specially Jay Raval for choosing me to review book. I had fun reading this book.
Stay tuned for more!!
About Author:
This book is written by Mahmoud Elkoush who is having more then 6 years of experience in software development. He has used many technology throughout his careers such as Microsoft Visual Studio, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle databases, Crystal Reports and so on. He has worked on as project manager in some of the companies and currently working as Chief Information officer at Geomeric. He blogs at http://fuzon.biz/
Table of Content and Detail review of each chapter:
This chapter is all about setting environment to run samples provided in this book. It describes how to install Visual Studio 2012, SQL Server 2008 , Crystal Reports for Visual Studio 2012. It also explains how we can have Northwind database in SQL Server.
Chapter 2: Designing a Sample Application:
In this chapter author described about Creating a new sample application, Adding controls to form, Validating form data, Sketching reports on paper. This chapter is basic where we learn how to create forms and then we will have some designing ideas of sample reports.
Chapter 3: Selecting the Data:
In this chapter we are going to learn about connecting to SQL server database through windows application in Visual Studio. He also describes how we can populate combo box and other controls with database data.
Chapter 4: Creating First Report:
This chapter describes about Creating first report with Visual Studio, Where authors teaches how to select data from database and create a table adapter. How we are can add a report to application and whole report creation wizard is explored. Once report is ready he explains how we can add boxes and lines in reports. He also explained about some of special fields for Crystal report like page number etc. Then he also explains how we can add that report to windows form application.
Chapter 5: Enhancing Report:
In this book author explained about various fields like parameter fields, Formula fields where we can create a various formula and given all the details about Sub Reports. It also explain how easily we can create a sub report. In this chapter author also explained about grouping and sorting of data.
Chapter 6: Working with Cross Tab Report:
In this reports Author explained about working with Cross Tab Report. He explained what is cross tab report and what is the usefulness of cross tab reports. Then he explains how we can create a cross tab report with sample from Northwind database. This chapter also explains about customizing the cross tab appearance and various options available.
Chapter 7: Working with Charts:
In this chapter author explained about creating various charts with Crystal Reports like Pie Chart, Gauge Chart etc. This chpter explains all above charts in details and customizing various attributes of chart. This chapter is one of my favourite chapter.
Conclusion:
This book is for a very good read for the developers new to Crystal Reports. It explains all the basic details from Installing crystal report and visual studio to cross tab and charts using crystal reports. It helps to learn crystal report very quickly. Even intermediate users can also learn some techniques about Crystal reports. I would highly recommend this book for Novice developer or the developers who is new to crystal report. There is not much for advance users of Crystal report.
On this occasion, I would also like to thank Packt Publication marketing team specially Jay Raval for choosing me to review book. I had fun reading this book.
Stay tuned for more!!
Congratulations to the author !
ReplyDeleteThis is really a very good effort and hopefully it will soon achieve popularity among the developers. The review is also very informative. Just want to know, does this book also contain "crystal reports for ASP.Net" ?
Thanks Suvendu
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