Chapter 17: Designing a Report

Chapter 17: Designing a Report Transcript

IDEA is equipped with a powerful and easy to use tool for designing reports. To illustrate, I’m going to build a report based on the Sales Transactions database, so start by opening up file and ensure data is selected in the properties window. Then, on the File tab, click Print and then select Create Report. This is the Report Assistant. You’ll see you have lots of options for how to set up your report and the wizard will walk you through the process. So I’m going to start by creating a new report and I’m going to allow headings to span multiple lines. Then I will click Next.

And in this window you can edit how each of the field headers will look in the report. I'm gonna change some and leave others so you can see what they do. So I’ll start by changing INV_NO to actually typing out Invoice Number, and I’ll do the same thing for TRANS_DATE – replace that with Transaction Date. Now when that’s complete, I'll click Next.

This window allows me to define how and where my data will break. I want to break mine on Customer number and Transaction Date. So I start by selecting Customer Number and then Transaction Date, and Transaction Date I'm actually gonna order in descending. Now this I can format the breaks, so in this window, the report is breaking on Customer which means the data will be grouped and divided by customer. I’m opting to count records, to show a break line and to have three lines of spacing around that break. I’m going to total the transactions by amount, show shading and use a currency symbol. Remember that the currency symbol comes from your regional settings, so your report may not look exactly like mine. When that’s finished, click Next.

Then you have an option to select which field to total for grand totals. Select Amount and then click next.

And finally there are details you can add for a title page if you wish. Enter the report title, any comments, your name or department in the Prepared by field and any particular header or footer you want to see on the cover page. When this is complete, click Finish.

Then you can preview the report and let’s have a look at what some of these options do. Click Next page on the toolbar to see the first page of the report data. Have a look at the field headers: see invoice number written out, transaction date written out – a little more indicative of what the content is than the actual field names from the data set. At the bottom of each grouping, there is a line separating each customer group, and a subtotal per customer. And then once you’ve explored your report, have a look at what’s in it and when you’re finished, you can close it.