Building a Summary Report

A summary report is a complex List view that organizes records into one or more summarizing groups and can include group and grand totals. Groupings are defined with sub-summary parts added to the layout which are assigned a sort field. When records are sorted by that field, they are treated as a group and a summarization part is inserted above or below them to display headings, divider lines, totals, and more. For example, a list of Contacts can be grouped by state and include a count of how many reside in each. A list of Products can be grouped by manufacture and include a count and total cost. The report can include as many group levels as needed. In this chapter, we will build a report of Invoice records that are summarized first by year and then, within each, by month. A total of invoice amounts will be included by month and year, with a grand total at the end.