crystal reports - using access as a datasource - how to use access data in Crystal Reports tutorial

okay on this video I want to show you how to connect to an access database uh for your data source for the report so um and then we'll just start to make a simple blank report from there you want to come into Crystal and you want to come over here and pick on blank report or you can also pick on file new and make a blank report that way it's really the same thing so let's pick on blank report now uh if your data source is already in the list where it says my connections you can just click on that and then make another report from that data source which is fine but more than likely if you're watching this video maybe you haven't connected that access database at all yet so you want to come down here and pick on create new uh connection and then you're going to see that Crystal has lots of different data types it can connect to later on we'll have a a video about how to connect to Excel or to some of the other data types that we see here but in this case there is a category that's called access Cel you're going to expand that and now you're going to get this screen where you can get more specific so uh notice how it says database type even though we picked the access Excel category notice how there's more than that there's dbase there's Excel HTML Lotus 123 Paradox and text files so in this case I want to pick on access and then we're going to do a browse uh now this is going to open up Windows Explorer mine happens to be in the my documents folder but of course you can go to any other uh folder from the Windows Explorer so I'm going to scroll down here and I have this access database that's called tables so I'm going to double click on that now uh sometimes an access database requires a username and password if that were the case you would click on this little box and then fill in that information over here on these other fields but this one does not need that so uh let me uncheck that and then we're going to pick on Finish watch this section over here when I pick on finish all right now under the access Excel category you see here's the tables database you can tell it's an access database because of the uh the MDB extension and then uh in the access database I can have tables um now the queries come up either uh sometimes they're called views or more complic queries or show show up as store procedures as we can see so we did just make a connection to that access database now we can use any of these tables or even the store procedures or the views within our query within our report so I'm going to pick on orders and then you can see that the orders table is now part of our report now we can use more than one of these uh there'll be another video later on about how to how to use more than one data source so for right now we're just going to use the simple table and I want to click on okay and then notice how we're in what we call a blank report uh now there's going to be other videos about describing these sections right now but in this case we're just going to move things to the detail area the detail section is going to show up for each different record in that uh in that table so watch where I'm going to go I'm going to go to the field Explorer I'm going to expand that here uh now uh the database fields are the fields that actually come from the tables there's the ERS table that we just chose I'm going to expand that and now here's the fields where is it getting these field names from it's actually getting these from uh the table in in the in that access database so these are the actual field names in the access table watch what we're going to do we're just going to pick up these fields and move it right into the port I'm just going to drag it right in there very easily just draging these fields in now this is very subtle but notice how each field that I've dragged in has a check mark next to it to it that indicates that you've used the field at least one time it doesn't prevent you from using the field more than once but it just indicates that you've used that field at least one time in this case I'm going to use the customer ID and move it right in there uh perhaps we'll have the freight amount and perhaps we'll have the order amount I'm just dragging those right in now uh let's say at the bottom of the page we'd like to have uh the page number and maybe the date those kind of things can be found uh under what we call the special Fields there's going to be another video about the field Explorer so we can get further in detail with this so I'm going to expand the special fields and we're going to pick on I like this page number over here this says page n of M which will say like page one of six or page two of seven whatever it's going to say or you can just use the regular page number now I'm going to move the page number into a section that's called the page footer the page page footer will appear on the bottom of each uh report page so that's why I like to have the page number and then I'm also going to use the date I I like this date over here the print date that'll be the date that the report was printed and that'll change every time that you print the report so I'm just going to pick that up and also move that into the page Pho so let's say now that you wanted the name of your uh report at the top of the page well that's not really going to be in the field Explorer uh that usually would just be a piece of text to add a piece of text we're going to pick on uh insert text object up here in the toolbar and then you're going to move that let's say in the page header section because that's going to print at the top of each page so I'm just going to click there and this happens to be the orders report so I'm typing that in adding text to your report like this is very easy all we did was we picked on the uh the insert text object and then you move the text where you want want that to appear now once that object is in there just like any object I can move it by just uh dragging it across the screen using a drag and drop notice when I'm dragging that these lines come up to help you position your Fields so maybe I want that right there and then uh I'm going to make that bold and then maybe we'll make that a different font size as well now sometimes you have to resize a field uh to resize the field you're going to use use the sizing handles on the left on the right on the the bottom or the top or in the corners of the field now you can tell you're on a a sizing handle because your your mouse will become a double arrow like that so in this case I want to go to the bottom sizing handle and just drag it down so that'll become a little bit bigger all right but now we're going to run the report to run the report we're going to pick on a view and then print preview and just like that there's a report so um now of course there's going to be other videos about going Beyond uh what we're looking at here but that's how to get a report started with an access data source what we really did was we picked on file new and then blank report and then over here we picked on create new connections and then we picked on the access Excel category and we said make new connection and then from there we pick the access as the database type and then we point it to the access database with this browse feature and that's how we can use access as a data data source within a crystal report