" Click OK.

#Close Seagate Crystal Reports and then reopen. The program will now allow you to access any database, regardless of size.

NOTE: Any reports that are open when the Optimize for Large Database check box is toggled on will not be affected by this

option. Seagate Crystal Reports will continue to work with this report with the database outline stored in memory.

HANDS-ON (Reporting on OLAP data)

The following tutorial demonstrates basic techniques for creating a cross-tab report based on the Arbor Essbase Sample Basic database. If you do not have access to this database, contact you Network Administrator. In addition to this tutorial, Seagate Crystal Reports online Help file contains several more tutorials for reporting on Essbase data. Search for Working with Essbase in Seagate Crystal Reports online Help.

How to create a cross-tab with Essbase data

A cross-tab report illustrates how one set of data relates to another set of data. Often, each set of data comes from a different dimension in the Essbase database, and the report can be viewed as a true dimensional report based on dimensional data.

Cross-tabs are the most natural types of reports to create with OLAP data, and you may find yourself using the Cross-Tab Report Expert for most of your reporting tasks. Because cross-tab data is laid out similar to a spreadsheet, you may already be familiar with many of the concepts illustrated here, and you will start building expert cross-tabs with very little training.

Cross-tab reports can actually be designed using any of three different methods in Seagate Crystal Reports:

1.Using generational data in the Cross-Tab Report Expert,

2.Using dimensional data or a combination of dimensional and generational data in the Cross-Tab Report Expert, or

However, only generations up to the highest generation you selected appear here.

For example, when you selected the Profit member and its descendants, each generation from the Measures dimension was added to the OLAP Generation Fields list. When you selected the children of Year, only generations 1 and 2 from the Year dimension were included in this list because you did not indicate any members from generation 3 of the Year dimension.

When you add a generation from a dimension to the Rows or Columns sections of a cross-tab, a band is created in the crosstab report for that generation, and only members that you specified on the Members Tab are included in the band. If you add Basic.Measures, Generation 2 to the Rows section, for instance, only the Profit member will appear in the cross-tab. Even though Inventory and Ratios are also generation 2 members of Measures, you only included the Profit member from generation 2 when you selected members on the Members Tab.

Smart aggregates are created for any dimension generations appearing here that you did not specifically select. For example, you selected only the children (generation 2) of Year on the Members Tab, but generation 1 (Year itself) also appears in the OLAP fields list. If you include Basic.Year, Generation 1 in your cross-tab, the program will create a Year band and calculate the aggregate based on generation 2 members.

This relationship between members selected on the Members Tab and generations added to the cross-tab on the Cross-Tab Tab is important to understand. Pay close attention to your database, the members you select, and the generations that are added to the cross-tab. Without careful consideration, you may have inaccurate results in your report.

Below the Report Fields list is the Database Fields list. This section of the list box allows you to select entire dimensions to place in the cross-tab. Like the generation list items, though, only members you actually selected on the Members Tab will appear for each dimension. Unlike the generation list items, members from different generations within the same dimension appear together in the same band of the cross-tab.

For more information on selecting dimensional data for crosstabs, search for Cross-Tab Options and the tutorial Dimensional Cross-Tabs in Seagate Crystal Reports online Help.

If you scroll to the bottom of the list box, you will notice that the last item in the list box is DATA. This field represents actual numeric data in your database (rather than members of a dimension).

The largest feature of the Cross-Tab Tab is the cross-tab layout section that fills the upper left corner of the tab. Use this section of the tab to design the actual layout of your report.

A cross-tab report consists of three features: rows, columns, and summary data. The rows and columns indicate how you are examining and comparing the summary data. Summary data is evaluated based on the comparisons between rows and columns. The cross-tab report you create in this tutorial will examine Profit data from the Measures dimension over a period of time represented by the members of the Year dimension.

" Scroll to the bottom of the list box on the Cross-Tab Tab, and select the DATA field. In any cross-tab report you create with OLAP data, the cross-tab must summarize actual numeric values, not OLAP database members. These values can come directly from the DATA field of the OLAP database or can be generated by a formula or summary field.

# Drag the DATA field to the Summarized Field list box in the cross-tab layout section. Basic.DATA appears in the

Summarized Field list box.

$ Scroll back up in the list box, and select Basic.Year, Gen 2 from the list. Drag this generation field to the Columns list box of the cross-tab layout section.

% Select Basic.Year, Gen 1 from the list box, and drag it to the Columns list box.

A message box appears, indicating that you have not selected members from the Year dimension in the correct order.

When you add members to a cross-tab, you will naturally want to group generations in the same order that they are organized in the original database. For example, quarters from the Year

cross-tab. For instance, generation 2 members of the Year dimension appear together in a band of columns, while generation 1 of the Year dimension appears in a separate band above generation 2. Now you can clearly see why the program forces you to place generations in the cross-tab layout in a certain order.

Notice also that the program added a Year band and a Total column at the right hand side of the report for generation 1 of the Year dimension. When you see a column or row that is labeled Total, the program is calculating the aggregate values. If aggregate values are not labeled Total, the values are coming directly from the Essbase database. Since you did not select any generation 1 members for this dimension, these values do not come from the original Essbase database. Instead, this Year Total column contains the aggregates calculated by Seagate Crystal Reports. These aggregates were calculated simply by adding together the values for the generation 2 members that did come from the Essbase database.

To better understand smart aggregation and cross-tab aggregation, you will change the OLAP properties selected for the Year dimension.

NOTE: To avoid accidentally losing your work, you may want to save the report as it currently stands before continuing with the tutorial.

Select one of the members from the Year dimension in the cross-tab report. You can select any one of the quarters or select Year itself.

Choose the CHANGE OLAP MEMBERS command from the Edit menu. The OLAP Members dialog box appears.

!Currently, Year (children ONLY) appears in the Current Members list box. Select this item, and click Properties. The Member Properties dialog box appears.

"Change the properties for the Year member to This member and children, and click OK. Year (and children) now appears in the Current Members list box.

#Click OK in the OLAP Members dialog box. Seagate Crystal Reports regenerates your cross-tab.

Although it is possible to add a third dimension directly into the cross-tab object, adding the dimension as a group on the primary body of the report can often have better results, depending on the data you are presenting.

!% Choose the REPORT EXPERT command from the Report menu. A message box appears stating that the actions you are about to take can not be undone using the UNDO command on the Edit menu. Click Yes in response to the message box, and the Create Report Expert appears again.

!& Click the Members Tab to display available and selected database members.

!' Click the node next to the Scenario dimension in the Database Fields list box to view the children of Scenario.

" Select the Actual member, and click Add, then select the Budget member, and click Add. These two members are now available to your report, but you will not add them to the actual cross-tab.

" Click the Group Tab. You will create groups in the report based on the Actual and Budget members.

"In the Report Fields list box, scroll down and select the Scenario dimension. This is the dimension containing the Actual and Budget members that we want to group on.

"! Click Add, and Basic.Scenario appears in the Sort Fields list box. The report will now contain groups for each of the selected members of this dimension.

""Click Preview Report to generate the new groups in your report.

Notice that three separate cross-tabs now appear in the report.

"# Click the Design Tab to view the report in Design mode. Two new report sections now appear in your report, a Group Header and a Group Footer. In addition, a second cross-tab object now appears in the Group Header section.

When the program grouped the report based on the selected members of the Scenario dimension, it also copied the crosstab object to the Group Header section, resulting in a separate cross-tab for each group. Since the first grouping that appears

when you preview the report is for the Actual member, the cross-tab, likewise, contains Actual data. The second cross-tab for the second group, on the other hand, contains Budget data.

Seagate Crystal Reports also left the original cross-tab object in the Report Header section. This cross-tab represents summary information based on data from all groups. It acts as a type of grand total cross-tab. This way, your reports can display crosstab information specific to each group, along with a final summary cross-tab.

Since the groups you created here are for Actual vs. Budget data, a summary cross-tab does not make sense. You will remove the cross-tab that appears at the top of the report.

"$ From the Design Tab, select the cross-tab object that appears in the Report Header section by clicking in the upper left hand corner, above the rows and to the left of the columns, and press Delete.

NOTE: You may want to resize the Report Header section to make it smaller now that it does not contain a Cross-Tab object. To do this, simply drag the boundary at the bottom of the section upward until the section is an appropriate size.

"% Click the Preview Tab to see the results of the changes you made. Two cross-tabs now appear in your report, one for the Actual group containing Actual related data, and one for the Budget group containing Budget related data.

"& Choose the SECTION command from the Format menu, and the Section Expert appears.

"' Select the Group Footer #1: Basic.Scenario in the Sections list box, and toggle the New Page After check box on.

# Click OK when finished. The report is now split among two pages, one for each group and, therefore, one for each crosstab. You can finish the report by adding a title, date, and any other formatting appropriate to the data.

As you can see, designing cross-tab reports is exceptionally easy. OLAP data, by its inherent design, naturally fits the cross-tab concept. After designing a few reports using your own Essbase data, you will quickly master this powerful report design.

What you will find in this chapter...

Using multiple sections in reports, Page 214

HANDS-ON (Multiple Section Reports), Page 215