Combining fields to make a Group (Group Manipulation)

[omega1983]

Using crystal 8.0and 9.0, I am attempting to create a financial report. I have 3 issues. 1. Need to group acsending by gift effective date (gift_field.effective_date). 2. Keep account numbers(gift_field.account_number) together so I can summarize by account number and gift effective date. 3. Show pledge transaction first, then pledge payment(gift_field.gifttype). The common theme is that all three factors use the same field, namely the gift_field. Problem is if I create a group based on effective date then use the sort order button to group the pledge transaction first, I cannot summarize by account number. This is because a pledge can be made in one year and paid several years later. Essentially, the account numbers get broken up. Is there a way to combine the two fields (effective date and accout number) into one group using the gift_field as the basis.

 

[Madawc]

You should be able to create a formula field, something like {gift_field.account_number} & "/" & Totext({gift_field.effective_date}, "yyyy-MM-dd"). You could use this as the basis for grouping, and also have it within date or account or both.

But I'm not sure if this will get you all the totals you want. An alternative is to have a main report that groups them one way and a subreport in the header or footer that does it another way.

Subreports make a lot of work for computers, but save time for humans. You decide which is more important for your particular circumstances.

Where I work, we go to a lot of trouble to make our mainframe screens and reports run efficiently. We use Crystal mostly for investigations and management information, cases where it doesn't much matter if a job takes twice as long because the user can be doing something else in the meantime. For a big Crystal report that is run frequently, it would be worth going to some trouble to make it efficient. In other cases it makes sense to save programmer-time.

Madawc Williams (East Anglia, UK)