Field Processing

Summary: What Are Fields?

Fields give you the ability to use dynamic values for file names, parameters and messages. Fields are indicated by {name of field}. You can use these in a file name, message subject, message body, parameter value, The first character after the bracket indicates what field type it is.

This makes Field Processing very efficient in terms of the processing inside the scheduler or burster.

Date Fields {*xxx}

Date Mask Fields {!xxx}

A Date Mask Field is used if you want the current date or time as part of the file or folder name. You can also use Date Fields in the subject or message of the emails sent from within CrystalKiwi Explorer.

Rather than give you a cryptic list of shorthand values, we let you use your existing familiarity with crystal reports date formatting. Use {!dd-MMM-yyyy} to display the current date time as 02-Mar-2012, or {!HHmm} to display as 1437 (assuming today is the 2nd or March, 2012 at 2:37pm).

All the standard date field formatting from the ToText function are supported. See the Crystal Reports documentation for details of the formatting masks available.

All Date Mask as at Today/Now. You can use other dates by using an Override date (see next item).

Date Mask Fields (with override date)
 {{*month start}xxx}

The replaces the now obsolete {" date mask option. There is a special option within the date mask to include an Override Date. You specify the date you want to use with a second curly bracket  and a Date Field from above.

Use {{*today-4}dd-MMM-yyyy} to show the date from 4 days ago in that day-month-year format.

Another example is to use {{*previousmonth end}yyyyMM} to see 201611 when you run the scheduled item in December 2016.

This field can be used in the output file name, message body or subject of any scheduled item.

Parameter Fields {?xxx}

Tag File Fields {$xxx}

Each schedule item can be allocated a tag file. This is a simple XML file with some xml tags and values. You can extract a field from that file using {$tag field name}, Tag Fields are specific to each file, so if a value isn't found, a blank is returned and applied to the field, Tag Files can be easily modified from within your report with formulas using the Schedule Management UFL.

If a scheduled item is part of a cluster of reports, the cluster can also be assigned a tag file.  In this case, the cluster tag file will be searched first and then the tag file assigned to the schedule item.

You can assign multiple tag files by entering several file names separated by a semi colon.  The files will be searched in the order given.

Domain Shortcut Fields {.xxx}

One of our early users was getting tired of typing in the full domain name each time he wanted to use a local email address. Another had an email address field in her database that didn't have enough space for clients with long domain names. This solves both their problems.

Create a domain shortcut using the menu item File/Settings/Domain Shortcuts. Each domain shortcut has a brief code and then a full description. The code is case sensitive and cannot contain embedded spaces. The full description can be any length. We've set out test site up to use {.ck} to refer to any address at crystalkiwi.com. The {. indicates a domain shortcut is to be used.

Think of domain shortcut as specialized tag file.

List Files {+xxx} and {&xxx}

There are times when you need to send several reports to a list of people, and the membership of this list can frequently change.  In this situation, create a text file of the email addresses, with one address on each line.  Use {+filename} as the Send To address, and each person on the list will receive the same report.  Change an address in the file, and the next time the report runs, the new address will be used.

You can also use this with your email message, where a standard clause needs to be added to the end of each message, or maybe a seasonal message depending on when the report runs.  Use {&filename} to include the contents of the text file in your message.  This should only be used for email messages, as multiline fields are not valid for use elsewhere.

Some of our users have upgraded from cViewSERVER and cViewMANAGER.Those applications have a similar feature of <listfilename>.So for backwards compatibility you can still use that format. But we recommend you upgrade to {+listfilename}.

Report Properties {=PropertyName}

You can include properties of the scheduled report in the email message or subject.  All of the properties of the schedule item are available.  Look at the schedule.xml file to see what properties are available.

If the report property includes any of the fields above, they will also be interpreted.

Report Viewing | Bursting | Scheduling | Product Activation | History | CrystalKiwi Home

Copyright © 2023 CrystalKiwi Ltd. All Rights Reserved.