Crystal Reports

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paulgordon
Posts: 8
Joined: Tue Jun 08, 2010 1:56 pm

Crystal Reports

Post by paulgordon » Mon Jun 28, 2010 12:31 pm

Hello, has anyone used Crystal Reports with Open Dental? I have a trial version and want to play around.

Thanks

mowgli
Posts: 134
Joined: Fri Sep 14, 2007 1:42 pm

Re: Crystal Reports

Post by mowgli » Fri Jul 02, 2010 11:50 am

I've seen a post at the MySQL site saying that Crystal Reports can work with MySQL database version 5.0.27 or later. Open Dental uses version 5.0.22 or some even 4.1. For those, an ODBC connector is needed as a go-between. I used Crystal Reports long ago and liked it, but since the RDL report format meets our needs, connects directly to the database without ODBC, and is around $327 cheaper (that is, free), why bother with it.

enamelrod
Posts: 462
Joined: Tue Jul 24, 2007 9:51 am

Re: Crystal Reports

Post by enamelrod » Fri Jul 02, 2010 1:27 pm

what reports are you able to generate with RDL report format

fdscadmin
Posts: 59
Joined: Thu Aug 09, 2007 2:33 pm

Re: Crystal Reports

Post by fdscadmin » Tue Jul 06, 2010 11:19 am

Try iReports (download from sourceforge). I have written a *lot* of reports with iReports and it only gets better. I would be happy to help if needed.

mowgli
Posts: 134
Joined: Fri Sep 14, 2007 1:42 pm

Re: Crystal Reports

Post by mowgli » Tue Jul 06, 2010 12:01 pm

We have over 40 reports, from routing slips to referral reports to production/writeoff reports. The nice thing about RDL Designer in OD is that you can paste in a query and it creates a table or list based on the fields, with various layout and formatting options that aren't available in "user query." Formulas can also be applied to the results. Use "search" for "RDL" on the Open Dental website and you get 2 results, one with a nice sample report and one with rather over-complicated instructions and helpful links. It can connect thru the ODR.dll or directly to the database with a MySQL server connection string. It's not very user-friendly though and you have to know how to query the database and pull more human-readable results from the raw data.

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Rickliftig
Posts: 764
Joined: Thu Jul 10, 2008 4:50 pm
Location: West Hartford, CT
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Re: Crystal Reports

Post by Rickliftig » Tue Jul 06, 2010 12:47 pm

I've started posting some of my info sheets onto Google docs. Maybe there's a way to share the rdl files there. Then you can do some Youtube videos!
Another Happy Open Dental User!

Rick Liftig, DMD FAGD
University of CT 1979
West Hartford, CT 06110
srick@snet.net

enamelrod
Posts: 462
Joined: Tue Jul 24, 2007 9:51 am

Re: Crystal Reports

Post by enamelrod » Thu Jul 08, 2010 3:01 am

this goes back to a previous post of what third party programs are you using. if ireport does what you say this would be an area that OD users need guidance on and support on from OD team, since reporting is a weak link for od

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steveng
Posts: 49
Joined: Mon Jun 18, 2007 7:41 pm
Location: New York

Re: Crystal Reports

Post by steveng » Mon Jul 19, 2010 10:24 am

fdscadmin wrote:Try iReports (download from sourceforge). I have written a *lot* of reports with iReports and it only gets better. I would be happy to help if needed.
iReport is pretty good as stand-alone application but it is more for advanced users and is also java. Considering that most reports run by your staff... there is a potential of "staff whining" :cry: involved.

I wonder if it could be integrated in OD through plugin API http://opendental.com/manual/plugins.html?
Thanks,
Steven G.

djanash@mac.com
Posts: 59
Joined: Sat Mar 13, 2010 11:11 am

Re: Crystal Reports

Post by djanash@mac.com » Sat May 12, 2018 5:55 pm

mowgli wrote:We have over 40 reports, from routing slips to referral reports to production/writeoff reports. The nice thing about RDL Designer in OD is that you can paste in a query and it creates a table or list based on the fields, with various layout and formatting options that aren't available in "user query." Formulas can also be applied to the results. Use "search" for "RDL" on the Open Dental website and you get 2 results, one with a nice sample report and one with rather over-complicated instructions and helpful links. It can connect thru the ODR.dll or directly to the database with a MySQL server connection string. It's not very user-friendly though and you have to know how to query the database and pull more human-readable results from the raw data.

Id ove to hear more about how you were able to do this, especially the part about getting to be more user friendly and getting readable results. Can you please expand?

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