Hi, I have a drop down menu identifying a person classification: Student, parent, grandparent. I need to find out how I can create totals for each one election. My database has 70 records.

There are 3 ways you can handle this:

1) Produce a report that uses subsummaries (sort by "Person Classification") to break down your totals.

2) View the total for a classification when you are viewing a record of the particular classification.

3) View the totals for all 3 classifications on a given layout.

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To do any of the above, you first need to create a stored calculation field called "cRecCounter" that is = "1" and the calculation result is a number. This field will allow you to produce totals.

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1) To produce a report:

Create a summary field "sRecordCount" that is = Total of: cRecCounter

Create a layout with a subsummary that has a sort break by your "Person Classification" field.

Place the summary field "sRecordCount" on your subsummary part.

If you need grand totals, create a Trailing Grand Summary part and place the same summary

field on that as well.

Last, just make sure that you sort your records by "Person Classification" first, then you can

add additional sort criteria like: ssn, last name, first name, etc.

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2) If you want to just see what a total is for a particular classification when you are viewing a specific record:

Go into your define relationships, create a new relatinship called "PClass".

Select your "Person Classification" field.

Next when you go to locate the field/file for the relationship to point to, have your file choose itself as the destination of the relationship and selec the same "Person Classification" field.

Create an calculation field "cRecCount" following calculation: sum(Person Classification::cRecCounter).

(Because the calculation is using a relationship, it will become unstored as a result.)

Now just place this field on any layout. This will give you the current record count of a specific classification depending on which one you are viewing.

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3) To view totals for any of your predefined Person Classifications on a single layout:

I must first warn anyone using this particular idea, that it will only work well with systems where the definitions do not ever change.

Create an unstored calculation field for each of your Person Classifications that exist.

The content of these calculation fields should be a literal match to what you select in your "Person Classification" field.

Examples:

cLinkStudent = "Student"

cLinkParent = "Parent"

cLinkGrandParent = "Grand Parent".

Next create a self relationship for each of these.

Examples:

"LinkStudent" = cLinkStudent ---> FileName::Person Classification

"LinkParent" = cLinkParent ---> FileName::Person Classification

"LinkStudent" = cLinkGrandParent ---> FileName::Person Classification

Last, create calculation fields for each of these relationships that will allow you to get the sum of the related records.

Examples:

"cStuSumTotal" = sum(LinkStudent::cRecCounter)

"cParSumTotal" = sum(LinkParent::cRecCounter)

"cGParSumTotal" = sum(LinkGParent::cRecCounter)

Last just drop the above calculation fields on your layout of choice and you will have live totals of each category.

For this problem, if you had version 7, I would recommend -Queue-'s Summary Count method. This method uses a checkbox field; the totals (for the table) are displayed on each record.