Continuing GoldMine Education

February 2011

GoldMine Data and Analysis

By Justin Hill
For
The Marks Group

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 A few notes:
For a complete and detailed table structure, please reference the GoldMine 9.0 Administrator’s
Manual, provided with your software. The schema information contained in this manual is not
all inclusive and is just enough “to get you going”.

GoldMine Version 9.01

Crystal 8.0

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 GoldMine Tables
Or… Can you relate, man?

How GoldMine Tables Relate

The GoldMine table structure has actually changed very little since the good old
Windows ’95 days. Some data types have been modified, some columns have been
added, but essentially it’s the same.

So let’s talk about the GoldMine tables. In this manual I will only be describing
the major tables and their relationships to each other. The “main” GoldMine tables are
thus:

- CONTACT1 : Primary company information

- CONTACT2 : Userdefined fields
- CONTHIST : Company history
- CAL : Calendar information

The first thing we must understand is that the “key” field in GoldMine is the
ACCOUNTNO. This is how the different tables link to one another. So, in each table we
will have an ACCOUNTNO field. There is more information on this in the “Crystal
Reports” section of the manual.

Pro Tip: A quick and easy way to “see” the columns available in a table (and learn their
true back-end names) is this:
- Go to the SQL Query Tool in GoldMine (Tools | SQL Query)
- Type in the following query : SELECT * FROM TABLENAME (where
TABLENAME is the name of a GoldMine table)
- Hit Query
- After the rows are returned you will be able to scroll left and right to navigate
through the columns available

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 The GoldMine Report Writer
Or… Easy, but simple

The GoldMine Report Writer

GoldMine comes with it’s own reporting engine, which can be accessed to run a
variety of “canned” reports. To view your Reports Center, go to Go To | Reports |
Reports.

Your reports are listed along the left hand side. Let us consider one of the most
popular reports, the History Wide Line, which is found under the “Contact Reports”
folder.

To run the report, simply double click on it, bringing up the Print Report window.
Then Hit Ok.

Pro Tip : Before modifying anything about a report, do yourself a favor and back it up
by right-clicking on the report and selecting “Clone”.

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 GoldMine reports
are easily printed
against the
“Current Contact”
or a Group/Filter.
Please note that
when Filter is
selected, the default
is ALL Contact
Records.
Print your report to
either the Window
or the Printer. If
you’re playing
around, I highly
suggest the Window
option.

Using Report Options

You may choose advanced reporting options by right-clicking on a report and

selecting “Properties”.

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The Profile tab allows you to provide notes about report usage and assign an “owner”.
This tab is typically left alone.

The Sort Orders tab allows you to (somewhat) change the way the report is
sorted. In this case, our History Wide Line report is sorted by USERID (GoldMine
Username). You may also use the “Start At” and “End At” text boxes to further “filter”
the data (much in the same way you use the Optimize tab within a filter).
Take care when changing the report sorts here! Some values will cause the report
to stop functioning. Always take care to make one change at a time.

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 The Options tab is where we really want to be.
This allows us to really define what’s being returned in our GoldMine report.

Use the History Data

checkboxes to control what
History Activity Types are Use the Calendar Data
returned by the report. checkboxes to control what
Calendar Activity Types
are returned by the report.

Further filter by Username

for either Calendar or
Further filter by Date
History.
Range for either Calendar
or History.

Further filter on “tertiary”

records. If you’re not sure,
leave them all checked.

***NOTE: When you change values in the Options tab, those values persist and
do NOT reset. Therefore, the next user running the same report should always go into the
Options tab and double check the values in use.

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Page 8 of 28
 Crystal Reports
…now we’re getting serious

The Case for Crystal

This next section of the manual covers (briefly) using Crystal Reports to access
GoldMine data. For those of you that have any serious reporting needs whatsoever, this is the
superior choice.

Crystal Reports : Database connections

…Adding your GoldMine tables
Adding your Data Source
The first thing we need to do is get our blank report connected to a data source. I
like to use ODBC Data Sources almost exclusively for one simple reason; they greatly
facilitate deployment and maintenance of developed reports.

For this reason, it is desirable that you have already added your ODBC Data
Source and have tested it. In secure network environments, you may not have the ability
to define these for yourself. In this case, it’s recommended that you consult with your
network administrator.

From the top-level menu, select Database | Add Database to Report to show the
Data Explorer.

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Navigating the Data Explorer
This is a Database. Click the
“plus sign” to see the tables
available inside.

As I’m usually reporting

against the same source again
and again, I like to use the
History folder. This shows a
running history of your
connections.

All of your available ODBC

Data Sources are listed here, in
the ODBC folder.

Adding Tables

Simply select the tables you

want in your report and click
the Add button.

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 Joining Tables
Knowing your Database

Relational Databases
Most data sources are relational, which means that your total customer data is
split between separate tables. Having a good understanding of how your database works
is paramount when developing your own reports. This information, typically called the
Database Schema, can usually be found in your software documentation.
Again, the examples used are specifically for GoldMine Premium Edition.

The Nutshell
This is the way it works: one table holds all your customer records. This would
include their names, phone numbers, addresses, etc. And each of these customer records
has many corresponding history records in a different table. The two tables, then, are
logically linked via a key. In GoldMine, that key is called ACCOUNTNO.
So each row in our customer table (CONTACT1) has an ACCOUNTNO. And
each row in our history table (CONTHIST) has one too. Our job now is to tell Crystal it
should link CONTACT1 and CONTHIST via the ACCOUNTNO.

The Visual Linking Expert

When adding multiple tables to a report, you’ll be presented with the Visual
Linking Expert, which is Crystal’s way of letting you define the relationships between
two tables.
ProTip: Crystal will automatically try to figure out what your database keys are
and “auto-link” your tables. This is almost always wrong. It may be necessary to “clear”
the Database Links before defining the correct ones.

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 We only want to link on
ACCOUNTNO. “Drag-and-
drop”
fields between tables to create

These are incorrect “auto-

links”, which should be
deleted before continuing.

Inserting fields
Putting your list together

A Note about “Sections”

Before we start adding fields to our Report Layout, we must understand where to
put them and why. Fields are inserted into sections. The section will determine how the
data is repeated, if at all. The different sections are briefly described below:

- Report Header/Footer : these sections are printed only once pre report, at the
beginning and ending, respectively
- Page Header/Footer : these sections are printed at the top and bottom of
every page, and are good places for the report title and page number
- Details : This section will create a single line on your report for each row of
data returned by the source. This is your “list”
- Group Header/Footer : These sections are not shown unless you are
grouping your data. These are printed once per “group”.

Using the Field Explorer

Almost all fields are added via the Field Explorer. From the top-level menu,
select Insert | Database Field. (In later versions of Crystal, this is under View | Field
Explorer).

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 Your database fields are
under each table, at the
top.

To insert any field,

drag it from the Field
Explorer and into a
report section.

In this example, we’ve dragged COMPANY, CONTACT, CITY and STATE

from our CONTACT1 table into the Details section. This information will be printed for
each record in CONTACT1. The result is a “customer list”.

Inserting a Text Field

One of the first things you’ll do is put the report title in the Report Header
Section. Crystal has a powerful text field for use under Insert | Text Object.

After selecting this, you will need to place the field somewhere on the report. To
type in text, simply double-click on the text field and enter your text.

You can then use the formatting tools on the toolbar to change he font size, style, etc.

The result:

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 Note: You will most likely need to resize your text object after changing the font
size. You can do this by dragging the edges of the text object.

Selecting Data
Getting what you want
The Selection Criteria

At the heart of every report is a Selection Criteria. That is to say, a statement that
defines what records the report should operate with. The statement involved here is a
conditional statement: a logical condition must be met for a record to be returned to the
report.

Some examples include:

All customers where STATE = ‘PA’

All histories between 12/01/2009 and 12/31/2009
All customers where STATE = ‘PA’ AND SOURCE = ‘Referral’

In every case, the expression consists of a FIELDNAME (State), an OPERATOR

(equals) and a CONDITION (‘PA’). You may compound expressions by using AND’s
and OR’s in a Boolean fashion.

Using the Selection Expert

To access the Selection Expert, select Report | Select Expert from the top level
menu.

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 If no selection criteria has been defined, Crystal will prompt you to select a field
to start with.

For our purposes, we’ll select STATE, as we will only be selecting records where
STATE equals ‘PA’.
You are now prompted with the Select Expert “wizard”. The first drop-down list
contains operators, such as “is equal to”, and “is greater than”. The second text box is for
the value we want to select. It’s important to type in the value exactly as it appears in
your database.

Hit Ok to proceed.

Note: Whenever the Selection Criteria changes, Crystal will prompt you to
Refresh the data, as shown here:

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Using Parameter Fields
Okay, so we know how to only select a certain state for our report. If we wanted
to re-run the report and choose a different state, we would need to modify the selection
criteria. This is unwieldy and can be, frankly, a pain.
Enter the Parameter field; a special user-defined field that prompts the user for
input each time the report is run. So instead of always changing the selection criteria, we
can simply enter in the value we want to select.

To create your parameter field, you need to go to the Field Explorer. Find the
“Parameter Fields” folder, right click on it, and select New.

Creating your Parameter

The name is how you will reference
the field within the Crystal Designer.
It’s a good idea to use something
short and without spaces.

The Prompting Text is

what the user will see.
This should be verbose
and descriptive.

The Value Type specifies

what kind of data the
parameter should be.
Examples include Date,
number and Currency. If the
data is simple text, then use
String.

Allow Multiple Values will

let you select a list of data
values to select.

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 Hit Ok to proceed.

Using the Parameter within the Selection Expert

Now we need to modify the selection criteria to use the new parameter field.
After bringing up the Select Expert, click on Del to delete the current selection
criteria.

Then choose State again, but this time, instead of typing in a value, drop the list
down and select your new parameter field. You’ll know which fields are parameters
because they all start with a question mark (?).

Now when the user refreshes the report, they are prompted to fill in the value for
the parameter field, as shown below.

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28
 Sorting and Grouping Data
First things first

Sorting your Report

Typically, you will want to sort your report based upon a data value. This will
make your report easier to read and help it to make more sense.

From the top level menu, select Report | Sort Records.

Choose the field(s) you want to sort on from the left hand side and click the Add
button. You can sort on many different fields at once by adding them to this list. You will
also note that each field can be sorted Ascending or Descending.

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Grouping Data on your report

Let’s suppose that the report is returning a few thousand records. In this case, you
may want to Group your data together, based upon a field. This can make the report
easier to read and also allows you to start using some of the summarization functions of
Crystal. This will also add Group Headers and Footers to your Report design.

From the top level menu, select Insert | Group.

As the group is
based on a field,
you must select it
using this drop-
down list.

You can choose to

sort your group in
ascending or
descending order

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 Summarizing Data
Analysis at last
Inserting a simple summary

Now that we’ve added a group, we can start to summarize some of our data. Let’s
assume that we want to display a simple count of the records in each state.

From the top level menu, select Insert | Summary.

The first drop down specifies

what kind of summary to
perform. The easiest is Count.

Here is where our groups really start to

shine. We specify into which group to
print the summary. This is an easy way to
generate totals and counts for all your
groups.

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 Click Ok to proceed. You’ll notice right away that Crystal has thoughtfully
inserted the Summary Field into your specified Group Footer.

ProTip:

Using a simple summary is convenient because you may simply drag the summary
field between Group Footers or Headers to change where the subtotal is calculated.

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 Exporting the Report
Sharing with friends

Your export options

To export your report for distribution, click on the little envelope button
on the upper left hand side of the Crystal Designer.

Drop down the Format list to see the available export options.

Note: Once exported, the report may not look exactly like it did in the designer. The
best export options are, in my opinion, Word for Windows and PDF.

The Destination drop-down lets you export to a Disk File or to the Application
itself. Example, if you choose Word for Windows and Application, Word will start up
and open the exported report. This is typically a good idea as you’ll want to inspect
how the report looks before distributing it.

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 Creating a Simple GoldMine Dashboard
Doing it for yourself

A Very Simple Dashboard

We in the industry are all very excited about the Dashboard capabilities in
GoldMine 9. It is something that is not only very useful, but incredibly flexible.
Therefore, we will only be covering a basic Dashboard in this manual, both a Data Grid
and Chart view. Once you get the hang of it, there is much more to explore.

The Parts of a Dashboard

When we think of a GoldMine dashboard, we must understand the constituent

parts:

- Dashboard : The highest level object, think of it as a blank page to put stuff
on. A Dashboard is nothing but a collection of Controls.
- Control : Controls are objects which are dragged onto the Dashboard, and
display data. An example of a Control would be a Chart or a List of records.
- Data Source : What underlies each Control, and provides data to the Control.

Designing Your Dashboard

To access your Dashboards in GoldMine, select Go To | Dashboards.

You’ll notice in the top left corner you can navigate through the “canned”
dashboards. These are actually quite useful and can give you a good idea of what is
possible.
To get into Design mode, click the New Dashboard button at the bottom of the
Dashboards list.

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 Adding a simple Grid

When working in the Dashboard designer, you drag Controls from the “Palette”
pane into your work area. Go ahead a drag a Table View into your workspace.

Now, each Control (like the Table View we just dragged into our Dashboard) has
a set of Properties, which are accessed from the “Properties” pane on the right.

You can change Use the Data

most of the Binding browse
cosmetic aspects button to bind
of how the data to this
Control is Control.
displayed.

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 However, before the Table View will show us any information, we must Bind it to a Data
Source. Click on the browse button next to “Data Binding”. This is where everything
happens; all the heavy lifting that a Dashboard does.

Select a Data You must add items

Category. In this to the Bound Fields
case we simply list to see them in
want a list of the Table View.
records.

Column Properties
are available for
each field. Most
useful is the
“Visible” checkbox,
which can hide
system columns not
relevant to the end
user.

At this point you can actually hit “Ok”, then click the “View” button to see your
Dashboard in action.

So, true to it’s name, the Table View gives you, well, a Table View.

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 Adding a simple Chart

Much in the same way we added our Table View, go ahead and drag a Chart
control onto your Dashboard. Just like you did for the Table View, click the Data Binding
browse button. Then go to the Details tab.
The data source must
be slightly different
from the Table View
source as we want
summarized values (in
this case a count).

Multiple series
are an advanced
As a Chart is a
function,
Summary, you
illustrating the
must select what
fact Dashboards
to summarize the
are quite flexible.
data by. In this
case we are using
SOURCE. We
also need to
specify the
Summarized
Values as the
Items_Count.

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 So this is the finished product. Looks a little rough around the edges, but
hopefully you get the idea.

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