how to calculate with multiple subtotals

[fireflyrsmr]

i have a bunch of items in a couple of groups. I'm measuring them and coming up with averages and standard deviations. i want to compare those subtotaled averages in a calculation but i can't find a way to store them. i'm resorting to looking at the calculations in a report layout and manually copy paste to a new file. is there a better way? this is my first database. i see things that look like they should help but can't seem to get them there - such as repeating variables. i did a search on the forum and it seems like you have to recreate some of the summary calculations so that you can get the field stored. yikes!

[tlsparker]

I can empathize, having used FileMaker to work with statistical formulas involving summations. A quick fix would be to export summarized data to a separate file. Depending on your needs, that might be sufficient.

You could also create a set of files that represents your data's hierarchy. For example, the lowest level of the hierarchy would be a file with one record per observation. The next level would be one record per group. And so on...

Once you have this structure, you can set up relationships among files and build almost any statistical function using Count, Sum, Total, StDev, ln, Average through the relationships. When on-the-fly calculations bog you down, you can use the re-lookup function to get a set of hard, indexed data in a file. FileMaker is not great for this sort of thing, but I have not found any function I could not create using this approach.

Tom Parker

[email protected]

http://www.tgparker.com/filemaker

[Vaughan]

Hmmm. Since FMP can share data through ODBC, a whizzo reporting tool like Crystal Reports or Cognos Powerplay or Impromptu can do the reporting. naturally somebody needs to set up the extracts or what ever, but once in the reporting tool there are no limitations imposed by FMP.

[fireflyrsmr]

thanks for the replys! when you're new to this level of working with databases it helps to know whether there is some obvious solution or if it truely a difficult issue. just for curiosity's sake - does anyone understand why they have this limitation build into filemaker?