Alternative to summarizing reports?

[ohwolf]

Hello...

I have a database that is approaching 350,000 records. Once a month, I need to generate bills to my clients. Some of these clients bills can contain up to 2,000 records.

The problem I have is the time involved in waiting for my summary report, sorted by company name, to summarize the monthly totals for all companies!

I have heard there is another method to this madness that greatly reduces the time for summarizing and subsequently printing the report??

Did I hear correctly and can someone pass on this wisdom to me....

Thanks!

[Steven H. Blackwell]

Well for a starter you could reduce the found set to only those records for the current month, not the 350,000 total. Summaries and subsummaries work on the current found set. That will enhance your speed.

Also what are the precise configurations of your server and workstations? There may be some tweaking that can improve this.

Old Advance Man

[ohwolf]

Yes....I neglected to mention that I do in fact seach on the found set. The configuration we use is FM Server and 7 clients off that.

The found set usually will include about 8,000-10,000 records. Seems once I sort these by company name...and then try to print the resulting report, it takes forever to print out.

It is taking at least 10-20 min. to calculate the summary totals for each company and then print out.

Thanks

[Steven H. Blackwell]

Again, what are the memory and other settings both on FileMAker Server and on your workstations? THese may require tweaking to improve performance.

Old Advance Man

[Deckbuilder]

I have found that looking at data through a portal is much faster than other methods. I'd have to know more specifics to know if that might be viable.

R