Hi Kevin,
You are describing a sub-summary report, which is pretty easy to
build. The online help entry, which I've appended, should point you in
the right direction. Poke around in the help to learn more.
In your case, your sub-summary part would sort by state, and you'd
sort overall by state and perhaps last name/first name. The form will
actually work in list view/browse mode; you can also approximate it
with a new 11 feature in table view.
John Weinshel
Datagrace
Vashon Island, WA
Associate Member, Filemaker Business Alliance
Home > Using FileMaker Pro > Finding, sorting, and replacing data >
Sorting records > Sorting records by subsummary values
Sorting records by subsummary values
To properly display a report with grouped data and subtotals (also
known as a subsummary report), data must be sorted to display the
appropriate break fields. If you have a subsummary report, data in the
report is grouped and displayed by the category that produced the
totals. However, you can specify a subsummary value to sort on to
reorder data more logically in a report.
Suppose you create a report that subtotals sales by region. You can
sort data in the report by region (Example 1) or you can specify that
records in the report are sorted by subsummary values, which lists
data by total sales (Example 2).
In both examples, Total Sales is a summary field that shows regional
totals when sorted by Region.
Example 1: Report with grouped data and subtotals, not sorted by
subsummary values
Example 2: Report with grouped data and subtotals, sorted by
subsummary values
To sort records by subsummary values:
1.
Create a report with grouped data and subtotals. Include the field you
use to categorize the records (in this example, Region) and the
summary field (here, Total Sales) in the report.
For more information on creating a report with grouped data and
subtotals, see Creating a layout.
2.
In Browse mode, click Sort in the status toolbar, or choose Records
menu > Sort Records.
3.
Move the grouping field (Region) to the Sort Order list, or select it
if it is already there.
4.
Select Reorder based on summary field or click Specify.
5.
In the Specify Field dialog box, select a summary field (Total Sales)
and click OK.
6.
Select a sort order (in this example, Descending order).
7.
Click Sort.
8.
Click Table View or List View in the layout bar, go to Preview mode,
or print to see the sorted results.
Tip If data is already sorted by the grouping field, you don’t have
to re-sort when you add or remove a summary field in the sort order.
Specify the summary field in the Specify Field dialog box as described
above, then click OK.
Related topics
Defining summary fields
Changing summary fields
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On Apr 2, 2010, at 6:40 PM, Kevin Doyle wrote:
I don't think I even said that correctly. :-) I'm thinking this
should be easy, but I'm not able to frame the key words to make much
headway in help.
I have a databse with about 6,000 records from all 50 states. One
field is the state. Right now it's a flat field that displays this
way
state Last name First name
AL Smith Fred
AR Jones Tom
AR Brown Janet
What I would like to have display is like this (at least in preview
for printing)
AL
Smith Fred
AR
Jones Tom
Brown Janet
CA
Conan Tom
Lewis, Jeff
If anyone can point in the right direction, I would surely
appreciate it. And probably a good set of tutorials.
Thanks,
Kevin Doyle
(Using FM Pro 11 on a Mac if that makes a difference.)
