Professional-looking documents are one of the commonest reasons businesses gravitate towards Crystal Reports.

Raw data is the basis for the production of many files and getting trends and relationships highlighted is often necessary. Documents created from figures are great way to prove points during presentations, which draws attention to the fact that they need to be professionally produced before they are shared. Software already in existence can lead to the creation of comprehensive reports that are formed for meetings of this type.

Sharing data with Crystal Reports is the choice of many due to the ability to highlight statistical trends and pass this information on to others in different forms. In order to get started with the programme and highlight relationships among data, you need to know the location of the raw figures and tables. These are normally held in databases, such as those created via Excel and Access applications.

At this point you are likely to already know what it is that you wish to draw attention to and share with other colleagues or business partners. Within tables is the data that you will need to prove your point and transform it into eye-catching visual displays. For example, your firm may have introduced a new type of food range and you are keen to see if it is outselling the nearest competitor.

By drawing figures from the tables showing sales of the product, compared with income generated in the store by the rival, you are able to see which of the goods is garnering more popularity with consumers. Data like this can be juxtaposed on many different levels and the first step to generating a Crystal Report is knowing the purpose of it and the location of the information needed to support the presentation and documents. After you have taken these simple steps and found the relevant figures it is time to apply some formulas and backup your points.

Built within the programme are many ways that allow you to compare and contrast the information. For example, taking the previous scenario regarding a new foodstuff, you could see if it has boosted sales of other products that complement it better than the rival, leading to possible promotions between the goods that could entice customers to buy more of them. These statistical formulas make for great presentations as they are reflected in many different ways, from straightforward columns of information to aesthetically pleasing charts.

Links can be made using a variety of tools on offer via the application, with a commonly used one being the Shared Variables function. This tool allows you to create a variable and pull this up from the data to view the relationship between different tables. You may decide to have the food stuff and rival goods' sales connected by a day of the week to see if they are more popular at specific times over a seven-day period, which could pinpoint the days that are likely to benefit from promotions.

Another helpful aspect of the application, is that it is possible to use it regularly on databases that are growing and evolving. In this sense, the reports generated by the software are files reflective of the workings of your company on a day to day basis. Once you have set up the data you would like gathered, the actions completed by Crystal Reports can be repeated, meaning you have constant access to this information, which may then be shared with others.