Recently I was asked to provide some help to a client on something that is very simple and very easy to accomplish.  I have covered this same topic in a lot of my blogs posts but this very simple task is buried in with a lot of other detail, so I thought it would be a good time to just simply write about using  parameters in Crystal Reports to bring it out front and center for the reader to use. 

The set up for this post is you have a report that you want to choose whether or not to display certain information when the document is run.  In this instance we will use the detail section of the report.

There are two items that work together to make this happen, a parameter and a formula. 

The first step is to create the parameter because you need the name of the parameter for your formula. To add the parameter to your report open the Field Explorer, look for the label of Parameter fields in the tree control, right click and select "New" from the menu.  When the Edit Parameter dialog appears, Name the parameter "ViewDetails", select from the Type drop down list the value "Boolean", under the Value list in the center of the screen enter a description for the True value of "Yes" and a description of "No" for the "False" value.  Toward the bottom of the view you will see a list of Value Options, set the Prompt Text Setting to "Would you like to include the Details on this report?", set Prompt With Description Only setting to "True", and set the Default Value setting to "True".  Select OK and the Edit Parameter dialog will close.  
 
Now we can use this parameter in a formula to suppress the details section of the report.  To do this the report should be in design mode. If you look along the left hand side of the report you should see a gray area with items like Report Header, Group Header, or Detail listed.  These are the sections of the report. Right click on the Details section of the report and select Section Expert from the menu that appears, find the Suppress check box and select the formula button directly across from the field.  When the Formula Workshop opens add the following:
 

{?ViewDetails} = false

Save and close.  When you refresh the report it should ask you the question:

Would you like to include the Details on this report?

If you select "No" the Details section of your report will not display when the report is run. I will leave it to you to guess what happens when "Yes" is selected. 

The formula can be used on sections, like in the example, or individual fields.  For use on fields, right click on the targeted field and select "Format Field" from the list that appears, navigate to the "Common" tab, here you will find the Suppress Check box for the field, directly to the right of the check box you will see the formula button that launches the Formula Workshop.

I hope this helps with your reporting challenges.

Thanks for reading and have a great day

Geo