Create Reports with IBM Cloud Object Storage Data in SAP Crystal Reports

Crystal Reports has many options for offloading data processing to remote data; this enables real-time reporting. The CData ODBC Driver for IBM Cloud Object Storage brings this capability to Crystal Reports. This article shows how to create a report on IBM Cloud Object Storage data that refreshes when you run the report.

Refer to the given table for the tools and versions used for this article:

Connect to IBM Cloud Object Storage Data

If you have not already, specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

Register a New Instance of Cloud Object Storage

If you do not already have Cloud Object Storage in your IBM Cloud account, follow the procedure below to install an instance of SQL Query in your account:

1. Log in to your IBM Cloud account.
2. Navigate to the page, choose a name for your instance and click Create. You will be redirected to the instance of Cloud Object Storage you just created.

Connecting using OAuth Authentication

There are certain connection properties you need to set before you can connect. You can obtain these as follows:

API Key

To connect with IBM Cloud Object Storage, you need an API Key. You can obtain this as follows:

1. Log in to your IBM Cloud account.
2. Navigate to the Platform API Keys page.
3. On the middle-right corner click "Create an IBM Cloud API Key" to create a new API Key.
4. In the pop-up window, specify the API Key name and click "Create". Note the API Key as you can never access it again from the dashboard.

Cloud Object Storage CRN

If you have multiple accounts, you will need to specify the CloudObjectStorageCRN explicitly. To find the appropriate value, you can:

• Query the Services view. This will list your IBM Cloud Object Storage instances along with the CRN for each.
• Locate the CRN directly in IBM Cloud. To do so, navigate to your IBM Cloud Dashboard. In the Resource List, Under Storage, select your Cloud Object Storage resource to get its CRN.

Connecting to Data

You can now set the following to connect to data:

• InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to avoid repeating the OAuth exchange and manually setting the OAuthAccessToken.
• ApiKey: Set this to your API key which was noted during setup.
• CloudObjectStorageCRN (Optional): Set this to the cloud object storage CRN you want to work with. While the connector attempts to retrieve this automatically, specifying this explicitly is recommended if you have more than Cloud Object Storage account.

When you connect, the connector completes the OAuth process.

1. Extracts the access token and authenticates requests.
2. Saves OAuth values in OAuthSettingsLocation to be persisted across connections.

When configuring the DSN, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.

Design a Report in SAP Crystal Reports

Follow the procedure below to use the SAP Crystal Reports tool to create the IBM Cloud Object Storage connection and Design a Report.

1. File -> New -> Standard Report.
2. Expand the ODBC (RDO) node under Create New Connection and double-click on "Make a New Connection". Select CData IBM Cloud Object Storage Sys or any other source to prepare the report. Click on NEXT and FINISH.
3. Configure the data source by selecting the tables needed in the report and clicking NEXT.
4. You can also link tables from the IBM Cloud Object Storage data in SAP Crystal Reports. Click on NEXT after adding the links between tables.
5. After the tables are selected, select the fields you want displayed in the report from the selected table, followed by NEXT.
6. Select the "Group By" field to group the information on the report.
7. Sort the groups based on summarised totals and click on NEXT.

Create a Chart

After selecting a column to group by, the Standard Report Creation Wizard presents the option to create a chart. Follow the steps below to create a chart aggregating the Key column's values.

1. In the Standard Report Creation Wizard, select the Bar Chart option and select the column you grouped by in the "On change of" menu.
2. In the Show Summary menu, select the summary you created.
3. Select filters and a template, as needed, to finish the wizard.

Select a template for the report to preview the finished report and view the chart populated with your data.

The Final Report

You can now see that the report contains all the fields specified.

Working with Remote Data

To ensure that you see updates to data, click File and clear the "Save Data with Report" option. As you interact with the report, for example, drilling down to hidden details, Crystal Reports executes SQL queries to retrieve the data needed to display the report. To reload data you have already retrieved, refresh or rerun the report.

You can offload processing onto the driver by hiding details elements and enabling server-side grouping. To do this, you need to select a column to group by in the report creation wizard.

1. Click File -> Report Options and select the "Perform Grouping On Server" option.
2. Click Report -> Section Expert and select the Details section of your report. Select the "Hide (Drill-Down OK)" option.

When you preview your report with the hidden details, Crystal Reports executes a GROUP BY query. When you double-click a column in the chart to drill down to details, Crystal Reports executes a SELECT WHERE query that decreases load times by retrieving only the data needed.

At this point, you have created a SAP Crystal report built on top of live IBM Cloud Object Storage data using SAP Crystal Reports and CData ODBC Driver. Learn more about the CData ODBC Driver for IBM Cloud Object Storage and download a free trial from the CData ODBC Driver for IBM Cloud Object Storage page. Let our Support Team know if you have any questions.