Naomi, if I understand your question correctly, here's a common routine I've used for years.

Let's say you build a CR report against a dataset (or an XML schema representation of a typed dataset), you can "push" the data into the CR report object.

I wrote a generate push method that would take any report object and any dataset - here were the 2 main functions:

      public ReportDocument PushReportData
              (DataSet DsReportData, ReportDocument oReport)
      {
      // Call when a report is generated
      //   Calls SetData for the main report object
      //   Also calls SetData for any subreport objects

         this.SetData(DsReportData,oReport);

         foreach(ReportDocument oSubReport in  oReport.Subreports) 
            this.SetData(DsReportData,oSubReport);
 
         return oReport;

      }

        private void SetData
                   (DataSet DsReportData, ReportDocument oReport)
        {
        // receives a DataSet and a report object (could be the 
                                       // main object, could be a subreport object)

        // loops through the report object's tables collection, 
        // matches up the table name with the corresponding table
        // name in the dataset, and sets the datasource accordingly

        // This function eliminates the need for a developer to 
        // know the specific table order in the report

            foreach (Table oTable in oReport.Database.Tables)
               oTable.SetDataSource
             (DsReportData.Tables[oTable.Name.ToString()]);

        } 

And then here's an example that would create an instance of a new report (e.g. a TimeSheet report), and then push a dataset called dsData into the report.

Obviously, dsData needs to have the same structure as the original dataset structure that was used when the report was created.

ccCrystalManager oCrystalManager = new ccCrystalManager();
RPT_TimeSheet oTimeSheetReport = new RPT_TimeSheet();

oTimeSheetReport = oCrystalManager.PushReportData(dsData, 
                                   oTimeSheetReport);

// and then use the report object to preview or print or export

Let me know if this helps...