Using Groups Example

The following is a typical example of how you might use the report groups feature of the JADE Report Writer Designer application.

To utilize a group (based on a typical example)

  1. Manipulate header detail in your Group Header section.

    Group Field Alias and Group Field Name are automatically placed in your Group Header section when you create a group. In the customer report example, Group Field Alias is the literal Customer (see the previous image) and Group Field Name is the field that you selected for your grouping.

    Your first group header may appear as follows.

    These fields automatically provide header detail in your group header but use the default font and font size when created.

    Change the look of these fields by using the field properties and the layout commands. For details, see "Setting Field Properties" and "Using the Layout Commands", earlier in this chapter.

  2. Create footer detail in your Group Footer section. The Group Footer section is where you typically insert a summary field, which is usually a report subtotal for the group. In the Customer group example, this is a total of the sales against each customer.

    The summary field, created in advance, is available on the Summary sheet of the Catalog of Available Fields dialog, shown as totalPrice in the following image.

    For details about creating summary fields, see "Using the Summary Sheet" under "Using the Catalog of Available Fields Dialog", earlier in this chapter.

  3. Drag and drop the summary field into the appropriate group footer section of your report. For details about inserting fields, see "Inserting Report Fields", earlier in this chapter.

With your group header in place and your summary field in the group footer, the JADE Report Writer prints the group footer automatically, followed by the next group header when the group field name changes. In this example, the group field name changes when the customer name (that is, the database field Client::name) changes.

The JADE Report Writer Designer application automatically accumulates the summary field (that is, totalPrice, in this example).

If you have selected the option to reset When Group Changes when creating your summary field, the summary field is reset after the group footer is printed. In this example, totalPrice is set to zero (0) automatically after the group footer is printed, ready to accumulate sales for the next customer.