Publish Reports with Redshift Data in Crystal Reports

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

Connect to Redshift Data

If you have not already, first 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.

To connect to Redshift, set the following:

• Server: Set this to the host name or IP address of the cluster hosting the Database you want to connect to.
• Port: Set this to the port of the cluster.
• Database: Set this to the name of the database. Or, leave this blank to use the default database of the authenticated user.
• User: Set this to the username you want to use to authenticate to the Server.
• Password: Set this to the password you want to use to authenticate to the Server.

You can obtain the Server and Port values in the AWS Management Console:

1. Open the Amazon Redshift console (http://console.aws.amazon.com/redshift).
2. On the Clusters page, click the name of the cluster.
3. On the Configuration tab for the cluster, copy the cluster URL from the connection strings displayed.

When you configure 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.

You can then follow the procedure below to use the Report Wizard to create the Redshift connection.

1. In a new report, click Create New Connection -> ODBC.

2. In the resulting wizard, click Select Data Source and select the DSN in the Data Source Name menu.

Design a Report

After adding a ODBC connection to Redshift, you can then use the Report Wizard to add Redshift data to your report.

1. Click File -> New -> Standard Report.
2. Expand the ODBC node under Create New Connection and double-click Make a New Connection.

3. Configure the data source by selecting the tables and fields needed in the report. This example uses the ShipName and ShipCity columns from the Orders table.

You can then configure grouping, sorting, and summaries. For example, this article groups on ShipName and summarizes on ShipCity. See the following section to use the aggregate and summary to create a chart.

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 that aggregates the values in the ShipName column.

1. In the Standard Report Creation Wizard, select the Bar Chart option and select the column you grouped by, ShipName in this example, 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.

Preview the finished report to view the chart, populated with your data. If you want to filter out null values, use a SelectionFormula.

Working with Remote Data

To ensure that you see updates to volatile 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 will need to have selected a column to group on 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.