I am desighning a report for our marketing department, what I need is to break down how each person contacts us. In out file we have a drop down list that list Phone Call, Website, Search Engine ect...

How do I create a field that will summarize how many peaple reached us by Phone today, how many reached us by Email ect.

Look up Summary Reports or Sub-Summaries in the Layouts forum or the FM User manual for some ideas.

thanks

If you get stuck, let us know. Summary reports can be tricky when you are first learning them.

I read about the sunnary and sub summary reports, I must be missing something,

I can get it summarize all the calls but not break it down by value list choices,

I am so stuck

Can you post a screenshot or a sample file of with your summary layout? I can't tell where you are stuck.

I cant post a screen shot but will this help?

A subsummary works from the Sort Order. It's hierarchical, so whatever's sorted first is summed first, then each beneath.

In this case you want to see a summary for each "Type" (value list choice, only one choice allowed, or it gets messy). You want to see the result broken down for each day; so Date is the top level, then Type.

You need a field to count in each record, with a 1 in it. Often a Constant=1 calculation field is used.

Then a Summary type field, total of Constant, "Constant_SUM"

A Summary field will show the result for its Subsummary Part break field (sort field).

Layout:

Subsummary Part: Sorted by Date

Fields: Date, Constant_SUM

Subsummary Part: Sorted by Type

Fields: Type, Constant_SUM

Or, a more usual form, rather than having the summary in that first Date Subsummary Part, you create another Date Subsummary part, at the bottom of the above, with the Constant_SUM field; ie., showing the total below. You can have 2 Subsummary parts with the same break field, but then one is "above" and one "below." It'll ask you which when you create it.

For a final total put the Constant_SUM in a Trailing Subsummary Part at the bottom; only 1 allowed.

Fenton's "constant" field is not required in this case -- unless you don't have a single field that can be relied on to always have a value. See step 1 below.

1. Define a Summary field that is Count of Customer ID (or some field that will never be empty). Lets call this CustomerCount

2. Make a layout that is a list, and make a Subsummary part that is sorted by YourFieldName

(in future, tell us what your field name is, so we can avoid confusion)

3. Put YourFieldName and CustomerCount on the subsummary part

4. Go back to Browse or Preview and Sort by YourFieldName

5. You won't see your subsummary in Browse mode. You must Preview or Print to see it.

You could just create a new layout and use the wizard, have you tried that?