Tutorial 14-1. Adding a Map to your Report

Let’s walk through two tutorials of how to add a map to a new report. You’ll see that you can quickly create a map in just a few simple steps. We are going to create a map that shows Last Year Sales value for each country.

1. From the Start Page, create a new blank report using the Xtreme.mdb database and select the Customer table. Click the OK button to close the Database Expert and you should now be looking at a blank report in design view.
2. To add a map to the report, choose the menu options Insert > Map. Alternatively, you can click the Insert Map button.
3. When the Map Expert opens, you are going to leave the default options of placing the map in the report header and using the Advanced tab.
4. For the data fields, click on the field Customer.Country and move it to the section Geographic Field.
5. Also move the field Customer.Country to the section On Change Of.
6. For the summary value, move the field Customer.Last Years Sales to the section Map Values. This tells Crystal Reports to summarize last year’s sales amounts for each country, and it completes all the data needed for your map.
7. Click on the Type tab and make sure the Ranged type is selected. We’re not concerned about how the groups of ranges are calculated, so we’ll leave the default options alone and let Crystal Reports set the ranges.
8. Click on the Text tab and leave the Map Title blank.
9. For the Legend Title, click the Specify radio button and enter the text Last Year Sales by Country on the first line.
10. Click the OK button to close the Map Expert and preview the report. It should look similar to the following map.

Now that you’ve made this initial report, you can go back and play with the other options. You can change how the ranges are calculated, see what a Graduated map looks like, etc.

As you work with a map and tweak it to make it better, be aware that sometimes Crystal Reports will reset your settings. For example, you could be working with a Dot Density map of just US Cities and things are looking pretty good. Then you decide to change the value to summarize on. After making your change you preview the report and see that the map is now of the entire world. Not only that, but instead of Dot Density, it is now a Ranged map type. You have to go back and redo your settings. You should be aware of this quirk so that you don’t think you did something wrong.