Sensible Template ?

[Shosuro]

Hi all,

I would like (if possible) create some reports templates to help me creating reports (more than 200 ).

I work wih Crystal report XI R2 and Visual Studio 2005 in c# (no web! no html! no asp!).

My first idee is to create a template depending on the column type and the number of column.

If I have 1 column the template will be different if the column is a date, a number or a String. And I should have different template for the different number of column.

My most useful template will be 2 string columns and 1 numeric.

My problem is how to attach the format in the formula workshop to the fields I want to display.

I create the template using a formula field per column (can display null value) and I have an 8 tables "Format" database that give me the color, the font, the border type, etc....

In crystal report database expert I should link each column per format, that means a hudge amount of links if i have 26 collumns.

--> Is there a way to avoid that ? (Keep in mind that each field may have a different format per line)


The other Problem is to give the value to the formulaField in the report.
I 'm thinking of giving a DataSet with the data and the formatID. For that I need a schema
<DataSchema>
..<col1 xs:string ...>
..<col2 xs:string ...>
..<col3 xs:long. ...>
..<lineID xs:long ...>
</DataSchema>

<FormatSchema>
..<Format_col1 xs:int16 ...>
..<Format_col2 xs:int16 ...>
..<Format_col3 xs:int16 ...>
..<lineID xs:long ...>
</FormatSchema>



Is using such a schema sensible ?

Last problem I would like to be able to give the connexion string to the Format database to the report instead of using an hardcoded ODBC connexion.

Thanks for your help