Crystal Reports in JobBOSS

I was recently contracted to do some work for a local engineering and manufacturing firm who uses the JobBOSS application software. They needed some custom Crystal reports to be developed as their existing canned reports were good but not doing what they needed to.

After a few false starts, we were able to get some custom Crystal reports loaded. Here is some advice for developing Crystal reports with JobBOSS.

• Have Crystal Reports at the site. It is expensive to have Crystal as I know, but you will save time in the long run to make the investment and to have it. If you know what you want, you can probably get away with the trial version, but only have 30 days to use it.

• Know what you want reported. I deciphered the SQL from some of the existing reports by looking at the “(reportname)_rpt.htm” files on the JobBOSS server, then created a new report. JobBOSS support can share with you a schema of your tables. From there, decide what you want to report and bring in those tables through the “database expert” in Crystal. Drag and drop the fields into the report. Save it to the “User Defined” section of reporting in JobBOSS.

• Have some basic reporting knowledge. Even with little reporting experience, with dragging and dropping, you will be able to quickly assemble a Crystal report. Snag a Crystal reports book or find one online.

• Call me, I can help! Contact me through my company’s site at http://www.afterhourscoders.com.

In summary, I found it to be pretty easy to develop custom Crystal Reports with JobBOSS. You can also develop these reports to help decision making in your business!