Crystal Reports

VS 2008 Changing a datasource at runtime

2009-04-07T16:46:00Z

This is a walk through for changing the datasource of a VS 2008 Crystal Report at runtime.

Create a new form in VB, add the Crystal Report Viewer control, dock it. For the sake of simplicity, I've kept the code as concise as possible. The form has two public properties, the report name and the data source. We pass those in before opening the form.

Imports Microsoft.VisualBasic
Imports System
Imports System.Drawing
Imports System.Windows.Forms


Public Class ReportCrystal
    Dim crDoc As New CrystalDecisions.CrystalReports.Engine.ReportDocument


    'public variables
    Public ReportName As String
    Public ReportDataTable As DataTable



    Private Sub ReportCrystal_Load(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Me.Load
        Dim strStartupPath As String = Application.StartupPath
        strStartupPath += "\reports\" & Me.ReportName
        crDoc.Load(strStartupPath)
        crDoc.SetDataSource(ReportDataTable)
        Me.CrystalReportViewer1.ReportSource = crDoc
    End Sub
End Class

So, the report is called like this. Naturally there will be parameters, but that is not covered here.

Private Sub btnPrintTickets_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles btnPrintTickets.Click
    Dim frm As New ReportCrystal


    frm.ReportName = "PickingTickets.rpt"
    'code to populate a datatable. This code uses my custom data access classes, but any data access code will do. 
    frm.ReportDataTable = SPs.sp_SOP10200_SEL_bySopnumbe(Me.Orders, Me.txtPalletID.Text, Me.chkOptimize.Checked, AppUser.Database).getTable


    frm.ShowDialog()
End Sub

'CrystalReportViewer' is ambiguous in the namespace 'CrystalDecisions.Web'

2008-06-23T16:14:00Z

Also:

Error 13 'ReportDocument' is ambiguous in the namespace 'CrystalDecisions.CrystalReports.Engine'. C:\projects\Culinart\Culinart\Reports\POSCash.aspx.vb 11 18 C:\...\Culinart\

Error 15 'DiskFileDestinationOptions' is ambiguous in the namespace 'CrystalDecisions.Shared'. C:\projects\Culinart\Culinart\Reports\POSCash.aspx.vb 47 26 C:\...\Culinart\

Error 16 'ExportDestinationType' is ambiguous in the namespace 'CrystalDecisions.Shared'. C:\projects\Culinart\Culinart\Reports\POSCash.aspx.vb 50 57 C:\...\Culinart\

Error 17 'ExportFormatType' is ambiguous in the namespace 'CrystalDecisions.Shared'. C:\projects\Culinart\Culinart\Reports\POSCash.aspx.vb 51 52 C:\...\Culinart\

I solved this by going to Project Propertities > References, somehow I had references to two different versions of crystal in my project. While doing this I noticed that the references kept coming back. I searched the project and found that I had double lines iin the web config to different versions of Crystal.

Crystal in VB Deployment Projects (Visual Studio 2008)

2007-12-12T20:23:00Z

In Visual Studio 2008, merge modules are no longer used for crystal reports controls.

To add the crystal reports files:

1. Go to the deployment project's properties page.
2. Click the "Prerequisites" button.
3. Add the "Crystal Reports Basic for Visual Studio 2008"

It may also require the "Windows Installer 3.1"