Basic Report Question - Newbie

[John Kostenbader]

I find that reports are one of the  most challanging things in Filemaker to understand (at least for me). I have basic projects table and all I want to do is print out the list of projects but grouped by the account they are associated with. I.E.

ABC Company
      Project 1
      Project 2
     Project 3

Ideally, I'd like a sum of the project value field. I'm confused about the report "parts". I've gone through the wizard like creation process and cannot get them "grouped" by Account name. Now Project Name is in a related table. The only thing in the projects table is the ID_Account. Can someone guide me what fields are supposed to be in what "parts" of the report. I would presume that "project value" should be in the subsummary part. Fields for the project details like status and category would be in the "body" part and the Account Name would be in the header but its not working for me. All I get is a list of projects (not grouped properly). 

Any insight or direction would be appreciated

John

[comment]

11 minutes ago, John Kostenbader said:

Now Project Name is in a related table.

This is where you lost me. I thought you had two tables: Accounts and Projects, related by ID_Account. Why would Project Name not be a field in the Projects table?

[John Kostenbader]

Yea...I screwed that up...my thinking and typing were not in synch and I was trying to put these thoughts down between meetings. Your presumption is correct. It should read "Account Name is in a related table". Sorry about the confusion

John

[comment]

Ok, then this should be quite simple. Your layout (based on the Projects table) needs to have these parts:

 

• The Header and Footer parts are optional and need not contain any fields;
• Place the Project Name and Project Value fields in the Body part;
• Place the Account Name field (and any other fields from the Accounts table you want), along with a summary field (defined in the Projects table) that totals the project value field in the Sub-summary part.

Now you just need to go to this layout, find the projects you want to include in your report and sort them by Accounts::Account Name and (optionally) by Projects::Project Name (all this can and should be scripted).

 

 

[John Kostenbader]

Wow...extremely helpful. Thank you so much for taking the time and providing some clear directions. I hope to expand on your example to do some others

Regards

 

John