Crystal Reports : Grouping records by the Date, ignoring time precision

Here is something very handy when you start to deal with databases that track both a date and time precision for records.

Let us imagine we are trying to group call records based on {CALLLOG.CREATEDATE}, but when we create a simple Crystal Group on this field, we end up with a bazillion little groups, like this; (may look different depending on your database back end)

01/01/2011 13:45:015
01/01/2011 13:47:001

...so on and so forth. What we are really after is "calls per day", so instead of Grouping on the raw database field, let us Group based upon a formula;

{@frmCreateDate}
DateValue({CALLLOG.CREATEDATE})

The DateValue function returns only the date portion of the field, so now you'll only have one group for each unique "day" in your database.

I've always been a huge fan of grouping on formulas, it allows you total control over what values are being "grouped on", essential when dealing with less than pristine data sources; here you could even choose to exclude certain values, or build in any logic you'd like. Try it.