HP Intelligent Management Center Standard Software Platform - Manual (Page 93)

Are you familiar enough with the data to find the necessary information?
When looking for a Customer Contact name, can the field be found in a
database table?
If not, your MIS professional, database administrator, or co-workers will have
to help you become familiar with the data.
What specific data should appear in the body of the report?
The body should contain all the data needed to fulfill the statement of purpose
you wrote for the report. It should also contain all of the data needed by the
various users that you have identified.
This step requires you to look at the available database table(s). Crystal
Reports allows you to combine data from different databases when you
create reports, so you have a great deal of flexibility in your work.
• Much of the data in a typical report is taken directly from data fields. Which
data fields will be used, and where are they located?
• Other data will be calculated based on data fields. Which data fields will
be used in the calculations?
• Still other data will be placed directly into the report using text objects
(headings, notes, labels, and so on).
Does the data exist or does it need to be calculated?
Some report information can be drawn directly from data fields (sales
information, for example); other information will have to be calculated based
on data field values (for example, sales commission, based on the relationship
of sales to quota). In your planning, it can be helpful to segregate or flag data
that needs to be calculated from that which can be used directly. See
Specifying formulas .
What types of fields contain data?
You should take the time to get to know the data type for data fields that will
be used in your calculations. Since formula functions and operators work
with specific kinds of data, it is important to recognize the data type you are
Crystal Reports 2008 SP3 User's Guide 93
5 Report Design Concepts
Deciding on the content of the report