speed up summaries

[ejpvi]

I have several thousand records that have to be summarized.... I noticed it takes a really long time to summarize it.

I have most of my calculations set to unstored.. because I am worried about conflicting data getting indexed if someone changes one of the global fields.

But I think this is slowing down the summary process.

Anyone know how to speed up the summarizing in Filemaker?

[Vaughan]

There is no easy way of doing it.

Most solutions work along the lines of performing the summary once, then saving the results somehow for multiple viewing. This assumes that the data doesn't change often otherwise there would be little benefit.

Implementing such a system depends on the database. It could be as simple as creating a pdf of the report and storing it.

[Søren Dyhr]

because I am worried about conflicting data getting indexed if someone changes one of the global fields

The real concern here is what??? Global fields are individual to each logged on user...

However, could some of the strain be taken off by taking the summary fields although being in the tables out of the layouts ... and wear the entire summing up on a script instead ... setting a handful of globals to the results in the end.

But you have to explain what the connection between the unstored calc'fields and the summary fields are, to rule out a perhaps lightly relational structured solution, carrying over mindsets from spreadsheets not quite catered for.

--sd

[bruceR]

It would be good to attach your file or a simplified example. Globals have nothing to do with summaries so it isn't at all clear what you're doing.

[ejpvi]

I might be mistaken... but I feel my solution could be fixed if I just indexed some of the calculations.

Here is my concern.. perhaps you could shed some light on it.... in the past I created a database which had a very simple calculation that would determine which operating system you were running...

this was to auto-correct the file path between mac and PC.... BTW, this wasn't a global field...

The problem...if both a mac user and a pc user were viewing the same calculation, the index would usually show the incorrect result...PC for Mac, vice versa, depending on who calculated it first, regardless of which OS... when I set it to unstored.. it fixed this issue, because it wasn't storing the incorrect value...

Would this behavior occur when using global fields? If not, then maybe I don't need to leave it as unstored....

thanks!

[bruceR]

It would be good to attach your file or a simplified example. Globals have nothing to do with summaries so it isn't at all clear what you're doing.

An unstored calc is completely different from a global. Though there is at least one connection, if the calc depends on the global the calc can only be unstored.