Chad Petrovay

Code Golf: Count formula

Time to play a little code golf, where we try to find the shortest possible source code to accomplish a given task. I’m going to be taking on a formula in Crystal Reports that changes a running total {#Count} into a text string to be used as a line label. The string should be formatted with an numeral followed by a period.

(more…)

May 27, 2016

Select Top 3 * From [Uses for Select]: Part 3

So far, we’ve examined how to use the SELECT statement in SQL to create SQL Views for use in Crystal Reports, and as List Views in TMS. Now we are going to use the SELECT statement to create an alert in TMS. (more…)

May 24, 2016

Select Top 3 * From [Uses for Select]: Part 2

In Part 1, we examined how to use the SELECT statement in SQL to create a SQL View that can be used in Crystal Reports for reporting. There are two additional uses for the SELECT statement, which make learning its syntax an invaluable tool for database administrators. (more…)

May 6, 2014

Select Top 3 * From [Uses for Select]: Part 1

People generally ask me about resources for learning SQL. SQL is a great language for any database administrator to learn, because it gives you full control of the data, without limiting you to an application’s graphic user interface (GUI). With SQL you can query for records, and add, edit or remove them. This post is not meant as a tutorial on the subject, because great resources, like SQLzoo or O’Reilly’s , already exist. Instead, in this series of posts, I want to highlight why the SELECT statement is the most important of these. (more…)

April 29, 2014

TMS for Researchers

Your collections database and your collections online footprint are important resources for researchers, but so is your library catalog or OPAC. This presentation will explore ways to promote synergy between and streamline workflow associated with these systems. I will also demonstrate ways to improve accessibility with 3rd party tools.