Constrain/Filter a Sub-summary Value?

[Rich S]

Greets, all:

 

I just need some guidance how to do this. (See attached. Sorry, but I'm not allowed to post the solution file due to privacy issues...though I did change the student's name in the attached.)

 

It's a simple sub-summary report as you can see, but what I want to do is extract only the courses and dates for a student that have a count greater than three; in the attached, that would mean that only PE- Individual/Team Sports--with its four dates--would appear for this student. 

 

I tried going the script route with a looping function that would find and constrain data but it got to be incredibly unwieldy, so I'm thinking there must be a better way.

 

TIA for your help!

Rich

 

 

[comment]

You cannot specify find criteria based on the results of the find. So there is no alternative but to loop and omit the undesired records. However, the loop can be made significantly more efficient using a method know as "Fast Summaries" - look for it here on the forums.

 

Note also that if you reorder the records by the summary count, descending, you can stop the loop when you reach the first group with less than 4 dates - all remaining records can be omitted.

[Rich S]

Thanks, that's what I figured (about looping) and I'm checking out fast summaries threads as I type.

 

Your suggestion about a descending order summary is a good one except that in our case, we want to find all the courses that a student is absent from more than three times, not just one, so unfortunately that idea won't work.

[comment]

Your suggestion about a descending order summary is a good one except that in our case, we want to find all the courses that a student is absent from more than three times, not just one

 

I fail to see the connection. Suppose a student has some absences in 10 courses, but only 2 courses with more than three. Without reordering the courses, your loop needs to make 10 iterations (if using Fast Summaries). OTOH, if the courses are reordered, the loop can exit at the third iteration.

 

Is your report produced for one student at a time, or does it include many students?

[Rich S]

Sorry for the delay in responding.

 

Both: The report can look for one student's attendance history or more than one depending on the search criteria (grade level, school name, etc.)

 

I'll look into reordering the courses; now that the kids are out of school I have some time to revisit this.