Groups allow you to group database information in a report. Defining groups allows you to add white space to your reports, avoid printing redundant data, perform conditional processing on variables that change, and print subtotals.
Use the Group Breaks dialog box to select the query fields that will become group breaks in your report. When you first access the dialog box, any group breaks you defined as you were creating your query will appear under Current Group. You can modify the group breaks as desired.
To select a query field to be a group break, you can:
To remove a group, click on the desired field and click Remove.
If you define multiple groups, you must arrange them in a hierarchy. For example, if your groups are geographical units, it is logical to arrange them according to size: first state, then city. If you wish to change the order of your group breaks, click on the desired group and click Move Up or Move Down.
When using multiple group levels, it is important to understand how the hierarchy affects the report output. When a break occurs at one level, it also forces breaks on variables with higher level qualifiers. For example, if state is defined as level 1 and city is defined as level 2, a break on state also means a break on city.
Each break has an associated Group Header and Group Summary. Immediately before a new break occurs, the contents of the Group Header print, and before the next break occurs, the contents of the Group Summary print. Use the Group Header to enter heading information that will print before each group, and use the Group Summary to enter summary information for the group.
For example, if you had a report that listed products sales for each customer, you could place an object for the Customer Name column in the Group Header for Name, give it a bold 14pt font, precede it with a text object that says "Product Sales for Customer", and place a horizontal line on top of the object. In this example, every time a break occurs on the Customer Name column, the Group Header will print a horizontal line followed by "Product Sales for Customer: xxxx."
To print a summary of the records for each group, you could place calculated fields in the Group Summary that calculate the number of sales, the total sale amount, and the average sale for each customer.
To specify how the groups you define will affect your report, click on the desired query field under Current Group and click Break Options.