Changing a details report into a summary report
Sometimes it is not necessary to see all the details in a report and just the summary totals is all that is required. If a detailed report is available that could make a good summary report then use the following steps to change it from a details to a summary report.
The report used for this example was created in the lesson Create a report that shows product deliveries
This report is grouped by Product so the summary report will be based on the product sub totals.
Note: If you want to keep the original detailed report then you should make a copy of the report
Edit existing report
Locate the report that is to be altered and select the edit icon in the right hand list.
Go to the Columns tab
Remove redundant columns
Some columns in the detail report wlll no longer be needed as they are not used in the summary totals ( E.g. LicensePlate). These columns can be removed from the report by going to the Columns tab and selecting the Remove button next to each column. If a column is still needed for filtering then do not remove it.
Remove the following columns from the edited report.
- ClientName - Not needed.
- DateOut - Not needed.
- LicesensePlate - Not needed.
Note: We did not remove the TicketNumber column as it is used to show the number of tickets used in a group. We also did not remove the ProductStockUnit column as we still want to see the stock unit against each product in the report
Ticket Count column
Add an alias to the TicketNumber column
Hide the DateOut column
The DateOut columns is still needed for filterting so we just need to hide it from the report.
Change to the Sections tab
Show the ProductStockUnit in the sumary data
So that we can see the stock unit for a product we will set the Location for this column to Detail and above (has aggregate) with an aggregate of First. This will then show the first value of this column from the group which will be the same for each item in the detail.
Change to a summary report
To make the report a summary report just check the Summary Report option.
Save and view the report
- Save the report.
- View the report
View the changed report
The report can now be run with current data.
- Set the DateOut criteria to a period the report needs to be run for.
- Generate the report
- Results are now summarised for the filtered criteria