Introduction

Crystal Analysis provides even more power and greater flexibility for report designers than the powerful Worksheet and Charting functionality introduced in the last chapter. Several additional Analytic Objects are available for use in report design and the Crystal Analysis Designer provides advanced parameter capabilities that facilitate end-user interactivity with the underlying report. These parameters enable end users to specify a number of different parameters within a report, including but not limited to the actual underlying cube, the member-sets, and the dimension members.

Other advanced capabilities provided within Crystal Analysis include Crystal Analysis Actions and Data Analysis. Actions provide a flexible and powerful method of extending the reach of Crystal Analysis applications outside of the existing report. Data Analysis provides some out-of-the-box statistical functions to enable rapid report design and end-user analysis—these include Trend Line, Regression Analysis, and Moving Average calculations in addition to Best Fitting Curve and Summary Statistics functions.

This chapter covers the following advanced Crystal Analysis capabilities:

• Crystal Analysis Advanced Designer Objects

• Crystal Analysis parameters

• Crystal Analysis actions

• Data Analysis and Calculations including an introduction to Multi-Dimensional Expressions (MDX) and Crystal OLAP Syntax (COS)

• Report Options menu