Operation Manual

Parameter Fields and Prompts
Best practices for prompting
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Crystal Reports User’s Guide 457
To maximize performance and scalability of unmanaged reports, you should
reuse list-of-value objects within a single report wherever possible. For
information about how to do this, see “Sharing common lists of values within a
report” on page 453.
Managed reports
Managed reports are reports that you store within BusinessObjects
Enterprise.
Lists of values used in managed reports have the following properties:
• They are always stored in the repository.
• They can be shared between reports.
• They are based on Business Views.
To maximize performance and manageability of your managed prompts, the
following practices are recommended:
• Define your list-of-values objects in Business View Manager, not Crystal
Reports.
• Build a separate Business View to provide lists of values for all of your
reports. The only fields that you need in this Business View are those that
you use for prompting. See the Business Views Administrator’s Guide for
information about how to create a Business View.
• Create managed list-of-values objects for each dynamic prompt that you
intend to use in your report. These objects are visible to Crystal Reports
users when they design parameters and prompts. If you need a list of
values for a Country > Region > City hierarchy, and a Country pick list,
you can satisfy both needs with a single list-of-values object.
Defining your list-of-values objects in Business View Manager has the
following benefits:
• You have control over the metadata that is used to define the prompting
list of values.
• You can apply row-level security (if desired) to the Business View that is
used for prompting.
• You can separate metadata design from report design. A metadata
designer can be responsible for authoring the list-of-values definitions,
and the report designer can be responsible for authoring the report.
• This method minimizes the number of metadata objects you need to
create to support prompting.