regenerating summary result in text field

[Michael Lyons]

Hello,

I'm using a summary field that counts the number of customer ID numbers in a sub summary part. In turn I can find out the total number of invoices John Doe has in my db. But I can't sort or search in this summary field to find out who my most active customers are. Is there's a way to copy the value in a summary field and paste it into a text field where I can perform a search or is there another way I could be doing this altogether?

Thanks in Advance

Michael

FileMaker Version: 6

Platform: Mac OS X Panther

[Ender]

You can define a calc: GetSummary( summary field, break field )

After you sort by the break field, the summary results will be available in this calc even though you are not in preview mode. You can copy this calc, but you cannot sort by it because it becomes invalid if it's not sorted by the break field.

A better way to do what you want might be a calc using a Count() function to count the related invoices.

[Michael Lyons]

Thanks Ender for the feed back. Your GetSummary( summary field, break field ) works great but I still can't sort or search in the calculation or summery field. We have some 6000 records and we're trying to generate a report that will show us who our most active customers are by counting invoices with the same customer ID numbers. I figured there has got to be a way that FMP can count duplicate customer ID numbers then sort them by the great number but I seem to be at a loss on how to do this.

[-Queue-]

You can sort by a summary field, select the checkbox to 'Include summary fields' in the Sort records dialog.

[Michael Lyons]

The summary values are generated by the sort order. I can't re-sort calculation fields or summary fields or I'll lose the values altogether. Is there another way to generate the count of duplicate Customer ID numbers in a text field so that I can sort by those values? Can I do this in the Define fields: auto enter: specify calculate value area?