Hi all, and thanks in advance yet again for answering another of my noob questions.

I'm trying to create a simple report that shows total time billed for each staff member. I created a layout with one sub-summary part containing the standard fields "Staff" and "Hours Worked". The sub-summary part is set to sort by "Staff".

What I get in preview mode however is a normal list view of each record for each staff member with the individual hours worked for each record. What I want is a single, cumulative line entry for each staff member that also totals the hours.

What happens now:

Joe Smith 10 hours

Joe Smith 5 hours

Joe Smith 10 hours

Joe Smith 10 hours

Jane Doe 4 Hours

Jane Doe 6 Hours

Jane Doe 4 Hours

Jane Doe 6 Hours

Jane Doe 10 Hours

Fred Brown 2 Hours

Fred Brown 3 Hours

Fred Brown 6 Hours

What I want:

Joe Smith 35 hours

Jane Doe 20 Hours

Fred Brown 11 Hours

I looked at the "Customer Report" layout in the Time Billing template database and it behaves correctly. The template does not use summary fields, just a single sub-summary part that produces a single entry for each customer value with a cumulative total for time. (It sorts by customer name, not staff name as mine does, but is otherwise identical.) When I try to duplicate the report in my database, I get the repeating behavior described above.

You need to create a summary field called TotalHours. It would be total of Hours Worked. Place this next to the Staff Name in sub-summary part. Then, DELETE the entire body. The body is simply to show the detail on how the total was derived and isn't necessary. You can't create a columnar list (with grouped data) without a body but you can remove it after the report is created.

You will end up with a report just showing the Staff Name and their TOTAL hours. :wink2:

My layout never had a body part.

I created the summary field "Total Hours Worked", but I still get individual listings for each record.

Now that I've added the summary field, as far as I can tell my layout is identical in design to the Customer Report layout in the Time Billing template, but I still get individual listings for each record.

For some reason it works it the template, but not in my own identical layout.

Edited March 27, 200619 yr by Guest

Can you post your file or at least a pdf shot of the report layout in layout mode?

Thanks LaRetta, I figured it out. I wasn't sorting by the Staff field before displaying the report in Preview Mode. I thought the sub-summary part setup dialog did the sorting for you, but now I realize it will only sub summarize if the found set is already sorted by the appropriate field.

Thanks for the help!