Group Summaries with Zero Records?

[dancar]

We have a report grouped and summarized by date. Detail is supressed, footer with Running Totals is displayed. The way Crystal Reports works, when no records come in for a particular date then no summary is printed for that date.

The boss wants to see ALL dates, regardless of whether there are any records for the date. The group total will be zero, but that's OK, he wants to see it.

What is the best way to do this?

 

[Madawc]

Are you able to get tables / datasets added to the database? If you got a table of DATE set up, this could be linked to the activity using LEFT OUTER and you'd still get a slot when there was no activity. (But note that any selection on the second table must do an IsNull test first, otherwise you'll not get the dates with no records, null value for the second record.)

If you can't add a table, you'll be stuck with creating a 'Mock Crosstab'. Crosstabs are fine if you don't mind the absence of rows or columns with no data, but you said you wanted empty slots to show.

A 'Mock Crosstab' is something that looks like a Crosstab, but in fact you define each column yourself, normally as a running total. This would need to go in the report footer, because running totals count as the reports 'run' and they will not be complete until then. Crystal should have included an example along with the Crosstabs.

You can save a little time by doing a paste to a dummy report, changing the name and then pasting back. In Crystal 11.5, you can also duplicate formula fields using the Field Explorer.

Each running total will count the record if it was within the criteria - in your case, date.

Dates can be derived from the Current Date using DateAdd.


Madawc Williams (East Anglia, UK). Using Crystal 11.5 with SQL and Windows XP