Simple report help

[strudleman]

Forgive what is obviously very basic beginner stuff, but I can't figure out how to get started.

 

I have a fully populated database (FMP12), now I need to generate a report.  I have a table called "Sites" and a table called "Equipment".  They are linked by site_id.  I need to generate a list of all sites, and what equipment they have.  Kind of like this:

 

Site 1:

    Equip12

    Equip24

    Equip31

 

 

Site 2:

    Equip54

    Equip92

    Equip45

 

etc... The report itself gets a lot more complicated than that, but I'm hoping that if I can just get this first step out of the way I'll be able to figure the rest out.  Thanks for your help.  If this post is in the wrong forum area please let me know.  I tried to find the most appropriate place to put it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[David Jondreau]

You'll probably* want to base your report on the Equipment Table. Make the body short, just tall enough to show the field. View it in List View. See all the equipment listed? Now in Layout Mode add a sub-summary part above the body. Have that sort that by Site Name and add the site name field to that part. In Browse mode, sort the records by Site Name.

 

*Assuming a) All Sites have Equipment and all the info is coming from the Equipment or Sites table and not some other table you haven't mentioned yet.

[strudleman]

I was basing my report off of the Sites table so that was my first mistake, Thank you.  My second mistake I guess was oversimplifying my question. Let me add a bit more detail:

 

What I actually have are multiple equipment tables.  Tables for "Batteries", "Capacitors", and "UPS".  All tables linked by site_id, and all Sites may not have equipment in all of these tables.  So the report needs to be more like this:

 

 

Site 1:

    Battery1

    Battery2

    Capacitor1

    UPS1

    UPS2

etc...

 

Which table do I base the report off of in that case?

Eventually I'll need to bring in the cost of this equipment, and all costs for all types of equipment are stored in a "Costs" table.  Would that be the more appropriate table to base the report on?

 

[adyf]

The additional information you provided changes things. Could your structure be overly complicated? In that I mean do you need separate tables for different types of equipment, isn't equipment just equipment? Could you not just have one equipment table and then a field called Equipment Type and one called Equipment Cost and then set your summary report up as per David's suggestion?

[strudleman]

The additional information you provided changes things. Could your structure be overly complicated? In that I mean do you need separate tables for different types of equipment, isn't equipment just equipment? Could you not just have one equipment table and then a field called Equipment Type and one called Equipment Cost and then set your summary report up as per David's suggestion?

 

Yes, definitely. I was an Oracle DBA for years, and the structure of this data drives me crazy.  Unfortunately it was all given to me as a collection of very large excel spread sheets, and mandated that it was imported into FM as is.  There is little I can do about the structure itself.  I'm wondering if I can build a reference table of some kind that's populated with the data I need based on fields from other tables.