XtraReports Screencast: Create a Cross-Tab Report
<Update May 20, 2008>Check out the online demo to see a live example of a cross-tab report.</Update>
Cross-Tab reports can be a great way to show summaries of data. What is a Cross-Tab report? As Oliver's says: "A cross table is basically the result of transposing some data and using one of the fields for a second dimension."
The Problem
Often you have sequential data like a list of orders. For example, orders that have dates and also a reference to a customer. In a linear report, you can group either by dates or by customers. And while you can also group by both, the result isn't what you want because you have to decide on the order of the grouping. So it would be great to have the dates in the row headers and the customers in column headers, or the other way round.
The Solution
Creating the SQL statement for a pivot table can be a headache. Why not simply drop a component on a form, point to your datasource and create the report using a designer? XtraReports makes it easy to create Cross-Tab reports. Check out this short 2 minute screencast which shows the simple drag-and-drop style to creating a complex Cross-Tab report.
You may also find the written version of this demo useful. If you want to read more about Cross-Tab in WinForms, then check out Oliver's blog post on this topic.