I am a band director and I have a simple database set up with my potential beginners. One of the fields I have made for each record is their instrument selection (what I have decided they can play) but I need to keep a running total of how many Flutes I have chosen. How do I define a field that will return the result of how many times I have the string "Flute" in the instrument selection field. I want to see this running total on each record.

Thanks!!!

There are quite a few ways. A simple one is to create a layout with a header, subsummary when sorted by instrument and a footer. Also create a new summary field defined as "Count of" the field Instrument. Place the fields "Instrument" and the new Summary field on the layout. Sort by instrument and enter preview mode.

Another approach use two files. One would hold the instrument type with a relationship based upon the field "Instrument" to your current file. A calculation field "Total" is created in this new file defined as "Count(Relationship::Instrument)".

-bd

Okay, I'm doing this too now (chose self-joing relationship), with different data, and I'm trying to display the tallies in a report, with the desired field and the count field. However, I want to get a layout where I'm not seeing the repetitions of the occurences of a particular piece of data in the field. Using the above example, I don't want it to say "Flute" 10 times and then "Tuba" 10 times, but just "Flute" "10". Any advice?

Thanks

Bevin

The key to not seeing the data repeated is 1) place the count summary field in a subsummary part (sorted by instrument) 2) sort by instrument and 3) enter preview mode (or print the report).

-bd

ah, brilliance. once i get my head wrapped around subsummaries, they can accomplish a lot! thanks