Sum/Caculate value list results

[troutstudio]

I feel a bit embarassed asking such experts - but I've used FM Pro for years and it's about time I REALLY used it (If you know what I mean) I want to get percentages from value lists - ie: how many times someone chose an item on a list. I can see the results from a find, but what calculation or formula should I be using? Thanks very much.

[Ender]

Welcome troutstudio!

Use a Summary field (Count of Record ID). To show the results you can put SomeField and the Count field on a list layout with a Sub-Summary by SomeField part. It will show the counts for each different value of SomeField when sorted by SomeField. Results will only show in Preview mode or when printed.

[sebastes]

I had a similar question! But i got a very different answer.

Here is the thread:

http://www.fmforums.com/threads/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/115490/an/0/page/0#115490

[Ender]

Often there is more than one way to do things in FMP. The best way depends on several things, including how the data is to be displayed.

I recommended sub-summary parts in this case because it looked like troutstudio was looking for results displayed in a list view, like in a report. For a more dynamic result, a count of related values is better.

Actually my solution was incomplete as it did not show percentage of each value but frequency. To get percentages requires a couple more fields.

[sebastes]

Ender,

I'm not sure what you mean by "Sub-Summary by SomeField part. "

Please clarify.

thanks

Ed

[Ender]

I'm not sure what you mean by "Sub-Summary by SomeField part. "

Please clarify.

Just like a layout can have a Header, Body, and Footer, a layout can also have Sub-Summaries. Each of these is called a layout Part.

Sub-Summary parts are defined by the field they are grouped by. 'Sub-Summary by SomeField' is a part that shows up once for each grouping of data in SomeField.

A simple example: You might have invoices for a bunch of sales people in a database, and you want to see the dollar totals for each sales person.

In this case using a Sub-Summary by Sale Person (and sorting by Sales Person), will give us a part that will show up once for each sales person. We can then put the Sales Person name and a summary Total of InvoiceDollars field on this part to show us our totals by Sales Person.

The FM manual has a basic introduction of Sub-Summaries too.