Operation Manual

Report Alerts
Working with Report Alerts
21
Crystal Reports User’s Guide 413
2. Click New.
The Create Alert dialog box appears.
3. Enter a name for your new alert in the Name box.
4. Enter your alert message in the Message box.
The Message box lets you enter a message to be used as a default. If
you want the same message to appear every time your alert is triggered,
enter it in the Message box.
If, however, you want to use a formula so the message is customized with
data elements, see the next step.
5. If you want to use a formula to create an alert message, click the formula
button to the right of Message.
The Formula Workshop appears. For information on how to use the
editor, see “Working with the Formula Editor” on page 424.
6. Enter your alert message formula.
For example, if you want to see the message “Country is a star
performer” (where Country is the name of a specific country), you might
create the following formula:
({Customer.Country}) + " is a star performer"
Note:
• The result of an alert message formula must be a string.
• The DefaultAttribute function can be used to refer to a message
added in the Message box. For example, if the message in your
Message box is “ is a star performer,” your alert message formula
might be:
({Customer.Country}) + DefaultAttribute
This formula relies on the text you enter in the Message box; that text
becomes the DefaultAttribute.
• Message condition formulas can be created using either Crystal
Syntax or Basic Syntax.
7. Click Save and close to return to the Create Alert dialog box.
8. In the Create Alert dialog box, click Condition.
The Formula Workshop appears.
9. Enter your alert condition formula.
Alert formulas can be based on recurring records or on summary fields,
but cannot be based on print-time fields, such as running totals or print
time formulas. Alert formulas cannot have shared variables.