Crystal Reports Web Elements - database write back question

Question

Hi,
I have a question about Web Elements. In description of them on SAP site it says they can provide "write-backs to the database". This is something I would really like to see. I have a scenario:
User sees a long report and sometimes she needs to add a quick note that should be saved into the database. That note can be entered into WETextArea I suppose and WESubmit button click can be an event  trigger for such a write back.
I would like to see example of such functionality on Crystal Report rpt file.
Please advise if anybody knows, I would highly appreciate your assistance.
Regards, Grettir

Answer 1

hello,
webelements can be used for the interface to database writebacks...they don't do the writebacks themselves but create the interface to make it easier for an end user to add annotations etc...these values are then passed to a second report or a subreport. using the default prompting interface makes this quite difficult.
here's where the database writebacks are done...since version 9 of crystal reports there have been command objects. command objects have the ability to use any database syntax that is compliant with the database connection. i.e. if the syntax can go through the odbc layer then you can do this in a command in crystal reports.
commands will honour database securities so you don't have to worry about someone dropping a table if rights have been properly assigned. a word of caution there to ensure that database rights have been done properly as you don't want all end users to have the ability to write a report that can do database updates.
commands are also database specific so you would have to check your database online help to see what syntax would be appropriate.
the workflow would be to have 2 reports, one that had the webelements user interface and one that did the writeback. this user interface report would have the text object and submit button and using open document syntax, the values would be passed to the 2nd report that had the command object. the command object would have a prompt that would take the values from the open document url and then use the values in the write back.
for example,
1) the user interface report has one text object called "t1" and one submit button.
2) the target command object report has a prompt called "t1".
3) the target report command object has syntax like
INSERT INTO yourtestable
VALUES    ('{?t1}')
SELECT     1
4) yourtesttable in this case has only one text field
5) the "SELECT 1" at the end of the command ensures that a dummy value is returned after running the update...to avoid a database error
6) this syntax would be for sql server
this is of course a very simplified example.
if you are at tech ed phoenix, please drop by the business objects test drive area & i will be there. i can show you a bunch of different webelements examples and write back reports etc. until you become quite bored
i hope that this helps,
jamie