In this month's article, we'll go into the components of the Web server itself, configuring your Domino server, and connecting to your data. We'll also test the Web server using a simple example. Of course, this article assumes the reader has some familiarity with Crystal Reports (creating reports with Reports Designer) and ODBC, and has a general knowledge of Domino Web administration.

Web server components
There are four basic pieces to the Crystal Web Reporting Server. They are:

• Seagate Web Component Server;
• Seagate Page Server;
• Report Viewers;
• Web Component Connector.

The first piece, the Web Component Server, is responsible for queuing any type of report request that's sent to it, as well as forwarding the request to the page server. It receives the request via the Web server (in our case, Domino/CGI). When running Crystal Web Reporting server with Domino via CGI (Common Gateway Interface), any report requests will be directed to the WCSCGI.EXE file, which resides in the Domino CGI directory on the Domino Server. The Web Component Server is installed as a Windows NT service by the install procedure.

The Page Server is in charge of generating EPF's (Encapsulated Page Formats) and caching the request to the server. It sends this information back to the Web Component Server. The Page Server is also installed as a Windows NT Service.

Report Viewers are designed to work in tandem with both your existing Web server (in our case, CGI) and the browser the end user or client will be using to view the reports. How data in the reports is displayed depends on which viewer is used to generate the report. The majority of the time, the viewers will display the report as is, exactly as it would appear if it were being generated in the Crystal Reports Designer. However, there are differences between each viewer. Crystal Reports ships with a variety of viewers. They are:

• Active X;
• Netscape Plug-In;
• Standard HTML with Frames;
• Standard HTML;
• Java with Java Plug-In;
• Java via Browser JVM.

You have the option of configuring the Web Components Server to determine which viewer to use during report generation, or you can specify it programmatically.