When you print a report, you usually want to organize the records in a particular order. For example, if you are printing a list of jobs, you might want to sort the records alphabetically by order number.

For many reports, sorting the records isn't enough. You may also want to divide them into groups. A group is a collection of records, along with any introductory and summary information displayed with the records, such as a header. A group consists of a group header, nested groups (if any), detail records, and a group footer.

Grouping allows you to separate groups of records visually and to display introductory and summary data for each group. For example, you may want to group jobs by job identification and then total the hours for all jobs within that group.

Note:  For grouping to work correctly in DMS Reports the correct sort order MUST be applied to the report.  For example, the Net Change by Job Identification report groups by the job identification and must be sorted by "Jobs by Job Identification".

To add a Group Header to a report, click on the Data Band  on the Designer Menu Bar and select the Group Header.  The Group Header will appear on the report along with the popup window shown below (you may need to drag and drop the Group Header to the correct location of your report, usually near the top of the report after the report title):

For each group you need to define:

 

1. Data Field  The data field used to o gather the group.  For example, you may want to gather on the Job Identification, or Part Number.
2. Expression  You can gather on an Expression such as a calculation, variables listed in the Variables tab, etc.  Expressions will display the following popup where you can enter the expression you want for the grouping:
   
   
3. Keep group together  Setting the Keep Group Together check box is important if you want to prevent having only a few records of a group appearing at the bottom of a page. When this option is selected, the entire group is analyzed before it is printed. If it can not fit on the rest of the page, then the remainder of the page is left blank and the group is started at the top of the next page.  This option is usually selected so that each group reported on is kept together and not orphaned.
4. Start new page  This option enables you to start a new page for each new group.
5. Show in outline  Selecting this option add each group to the report tree outline.
6. Drill-Down  Selecting the Drill-Down option creates an interactive report where the report group will only show the group header information and not the detail under the group.  If the user drills-down by clicking on group header, the details for the group will appear.
7. Reset Page Numbers  This option will reset the page number for each new group being printed.  If this option is selected, the Start new page option should be selected as well so that each new group starts on a new pages with the page number being reset.

Each group can have a Group Footer.  To add a Group Footer to a report, click on the Data Band  on the Designer Menu Bar and select the Group Footer.  The Group Footer can be used to total information for each group such as count how many jobs there are in each group, total the remaining hours of each group, etc.

For more information on grouping, see Report on Jobs using Group Header Tutorial.