SAGE & CRYSTAL REPORTS NEWS & HELP

We have recently finished a project writing Crystal Reports for North Herts District Council's planning department linking to their new IDOX Uniform system.   We originally did training on Crystal Reports linking to their Acolaid system and these reports needed to be transferred to the new system.

We are therefore quite familiar with the database structures for both of these products.  If you need training on Crystal Reports linking to either of these products or would like us to write the reports for you, please get in touch at info@japeconsulting.co.uk

​It's that time of year again.  I have been asked recently by some of my customers how to send email christmas cards from Sage, so here is a quick guide:

1. Click on Customers or Suppliers
2. Select the records you want to send them to, or click Swap to select all
3. Click on File, Microsoft Integration, Contents to Microsoft Word, New Document
4. This will open up Microsoft Word
5. You then need to type the email message you want to send.  If you want the persons name to be included at the top you can click on Insert Merge Field and select the field <<Contact Name>> and this will enter the name of the person in the Contact name field in Sage.
6. Click on Finish and Merge, send Email messages
     - In the To box, select EMAIL
     - In the subject box, type the subject you want the email to have
     - In the mail format, select Plain text
     - Select All.  Note: it is a good idea to do a test first, so if you just select Current Record it will send it to
        the first record in the list.
     - Click OK.  This will send them automatically from Microsoft outlook.

Good luck and Merry Xmas!

If you are on an old version of Sage 50  (prior to Sage 50 2015), Sage are offering a good offer this August for upgrades.  The cost is between £100 - £400 + VAT depending on what suite and number of users/companies you have.  If you upgrade with us we can give you a free online training session one-to-one with an Accredited Sage trainer to go through the new features that have appeared since your current version.  Call us on 020 8535 7005 or email info@japeconsulting.co.uk.

I have done a lot of work recently for a customer which involved replacing specific fields within a Crystal Reports.  In doing so, I have made use of the really useful 'swap' feature.  If you hold down the shift key and drag a field from the Field Explorer over the top of another field, it totally replaces it but retains all the formatting of the original field.  Very useful time saving feature.

I have produced a lot of Sage invoice layouts for customers over the years and I can go to any customer site and look at a list of the supplier invoices they have received and immediately spot one that has been produced on Sage.  That's because it has been produced using the Sage plain paper version which has rounded corners and is instantly recognisable!  If you want to change that layout and make the boxes have square corners, you need to do the following:

1. Select to print an invoice
2. Click on the layout you use and then right click and select Edit
3. Click on the box and then on the right hand side of the screen there should be a properties window (if this is not there click on View, Properties to open it)
4. Within this properties window there is an option for "Border".  Click on this and then click on the ... button and you will then see an option for "Rounded corner radius".  Change this to 0 and click OK.  
5. Save the layout and job done!

If you need help on this or want a layout designed, please get in touch at info@japeconsulting.co.uk

I visited a customer to do some Sage 50 training the other day and they wanted to be able to see a Profit & Loss report for the last 5 years.  Amazingly this doesn't exist in Sage even though it does retain this information.  So I set out to produce one using the Sage Report Designer and here is the result.

If you are interested in purchasing this report, please contact us today.

Well of course I am going to say “because it is a great product!”  OK I am biased as I have been doing freelance work on Crystal Reports for a lot of years, more than I care to mention, but basically since version 8.0 and it is now on version 2016.

It does seem that in recent years the move has been towards SQL Server Report Designer SSRS as it is included with the SQL product so no additional costs are involved.  However, if you are not a programmer and don’t know how to write SQL queries then this is not really for you.

The most difficult thing about writing a Crystal Reports is understanding the database you are using.

What do I like about Crystal Reports?

• It’s a familiar product - It has the same buttons as Word & Excel so this helps to familiarise quickly with how to use it
• It’s extremely user friendly, you don’t have to be a programmer to use it
• Once a report is written, all you do is refresh it when you want it

What’s the hardest thing about writing Crystal Reports?
100% the database you are using it with!  This is always difficult unless you know the database, but once you have mastered that then you are there.

​Can I automate Crystal Reports?
You can purchase Crystal Reports Server to do this, but if you just want to run a few reports each day/week/month and have them emailed to you, then I would recommend Saberlogic Logicity as it does just that and is really simple to use and there is even a free version.

​Thinking about buying Crystal Reports?
So if you are thinking about buying Crystal Reports and this hasn’t convinced you then contact me and we can discuss it further.
 
“When I have finished a training session on Crystal, people are always enthused about the product and say how pleasantly surprised they were in how simple to use it was and how nervous they had been when starting the course as to whether they would be able to work with it”