Summary Report

[Zimbo]

Hi Everyone,

I have to say once again, this is a cracking forum. I'm a newbie but with a fair bit of technology (MS) experience... so the whole FMP thing is new to me.

I'm progressing nicely with my solution - the client is happy with the data entry side of things, and we are now looking at the reporting side of things. I have the reports design so now need to implement them... here's my problem:

I need to put together a summary report which breaks down costs of a project according to type and category.

The information comes from 2 tables - expenseslines and timesheetlines, with each timesheet line or expense line allocated to a specific cost category (different ones for each type).

The summary report needs to show each cost category and the total cost allocated to that category. I don't need all the individual line items

So, here are my questions:

1. Can I show information from two tables on the same report? This information is related by belonging to the same project.

2. If I can, what is the best way to do it?

3. The categories may change so I therefore need a dynamic solution... any ideas.

I have been thinking of putting various totals on the timesheet table, but this is only an interim solution as it is static.

Any thoughts or tips, or possible resources I could look at would be hugely appreciated.

Many thanks.

George

[redleg]

George,

You may have solved your problem by now, but if not...

Yes, as long as the two tables are related, you can show fields from both of them on the same layout.

As to formating the reports themselves. I would suggest you read the section in the online manual dealing with sub-summary reports. That is what you are trying to do. It's pretty straightforward, and once you get the hang of it, easy to replicate from database to database.

There is even a wizard that will walk you through the process. My experience is that it never gets it exactly right, but it's usually close enough, and then you can make appropriate adjustments in Layout mode.

[Zimbo]

Hi,

Thanks for your reply. I ended up using a not so elegant approach - a specific table into which I brought all the information I needed after processing it all. (the sorting, filtering, combining and processing was the problem).

I will look at the resources you mentioned as I'm sure there is a better way of doing it.

Thanks again.

Cheers

George