Modifying the Crystal Reports Record Selection Formula

ReCrystallize Server supports changing the Record Selection Formula when viewing a Crystal Report. The Record Selection Formula is generally used to limit the set of data included in a report.

You may add condition(s) to the report’s existing Record Selection Formula using

appendRSF=

or replace the existing formula entirely using

replaceRSF=

As with parameters, these may be passed on the URL or POSTed to the viewreport.aspx page from a form.

!For modified Record Selection to take effect, the Allow Record Selection Formula setting must be enabled in Settings. Carefully consider any potential data security concerns when enabling this feature. It could allow end users to see more data or different data than the report was originally designed to include.

The replaceRSF option will completely replace the original Record Selection Formula. The appendRSF option will combine the value with the existing Record Selection Formula using a logical AND. In either case, the value provided must be valid Crystal Reports formula syntax in the context of the specific report. ReCrystallize Server does not perform any Record Selection Formula syntax checking. If an invalid formula value is provided, an error will result.

Record Selection Formula Examples

Consider a Crystal Report with a database field “author” where you wish to limit the report contents to those records where the author field is equal to “Shakespeare”. Using replaceRSF , the web address would be similar to

ViewReport.aspx?reportName=library.rpt&replaceRSF={author}=”Shakespeare”

In this example,

{author}=”Shakespeare”

is the complete Crystal Reports formula syntax for the Record Selection Formula to be applied. Please consult Crystal Reports documentation or the formula editor in the Crystal Reports designer to work out the correct formula syntax. ReCrystallize Server does not check for correct formula syntax.

Now assume that the report in the previous example had

{author}=”Orwell”

set as its default Record Selection Formula at design time using the Crystal Report designer. You could further limit data in the report by adding to the existing Record Selection Formula with appendRSF.

ViewReport.aspx?reportName=library.rpt&appendRSF={title}=”1984”

This would modify the effective Record Selection Formula to

{author}=”Orwell” AND {title}=”1984”

As with parameter values, the selection formula may be posted from a form rather than included in the link.

*In many cases, including a parameter value in the Record Selection Formula at design time and passing in that parameter value at runtime may be preferable to modifying the Record Selection Formula.

In the example above, an equivalent approach would be to create a parameter “authorname” in Crystal Reports and then set the Record Selection Formula to

{author}={?authorname}

When viewing the report with ReCrystallize Server, the author name could simply be passed as a parameter to control record selection:

ViewReport.aspx?reportName=library.rpt&authorname=Shakespeare

or

ViewReport.aspx?reportName=library.rpt&authorname=Orwell

!Use of the exportfmt option combined with appendRSF or replaceRSF is not supported and may have unpredictable results.

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