Sorting, Grouping, and Totalling Overview

Sorting

Sorting by

record

Sorting, grouping, and totalling are the steps that turn disorganized data into useful information on a report. Following is an introduction to the concepts behind sorting, grouping, and totalling. Refer to the many Hands-On tutorials for detailed instructions for most of the things you want to be doing in these areas.

Sorting means putting values in some kind of order to help you find and/or evaluate them. For example, information in a phone book is sorted because it would have little usefulness if it was not sorted. Trying to find someone’s phone number in an unsorted book would entail a random search through tens of thousands of names, a true needle-in-a-haystack experience. With sorting, however, you can find the number you need in a hurry. For example, if you are looking for the phone number of a John J. Smith, you might use the following levels of sorting to find it.

●The data is sorted by last name so you know the name Smith is in the S section of the book and you turn there immediately.

●When you find the Smiths, (and there are a lot of them) you see that they are sorted by first name so that John Smith comes after Bob Smith. You turn to the John Smiths.

●Finally, when you find the John Smiths (and here again, there are several of them), you see that they are sorted by middle initial so the John J. Smiths come after the John D. Smiths. You turn to John J. Smith, find his phone number, and place the call.

Thanks to sorting you can find anybody’s listed phone number in seconds.

When you sort, the program asks you to select two things:

●the field you want your sort to be based on (sort field), and

●the sort direction.

Single field sorts

Multiple field sorts

●Ascending

Ascending order means smallest to largest, 1 to 9, A to Z, False to True. The program sorts the records in ascending order based on the values in the sort and group by field you select, and then it begins a new group whenever the value changes (from Adams to Brown, for example).

●Descending

Descending order means largest to smallest, 9 to 1, Z to A, True to False. The program sorts the records in descending order based on the values in the sort and group by field you select, and then it begins a new group whenever the value changes.

When you group data you have two more sort direction options:

●Original

Original order means the order the data was originally saved in the database. The program leaves the records in the order in which they appear in their originating database table, and it begins a new group whenever the value changes in the sort and group by field you select.

●Specified order

Specified order means a user-defined order. The program puts each record in the custom group you specify, and it leaves the records in each group in original order or it sorts them in ascending or descending order, depending on your instructions. See Creating custom groups, Page 277.

Single field sorts are sorts in which all the records used in the report are sorted based on the values in a single field. Sorting an inventory report by stock number or sorting a customer list by customer number are examples of single field sorts. See Results using different sorting and grouping operations, Page 275, and How to do a single field sort, Page 281.

In multiple field sorts, Seagate Crystal Reports first sorts the records based on the values in the first field selected, putting them in ascending or descending order as specified. When two or more records have the same field value in the first sort field, it then sorts those records only based on the value in the second sort field. For example, in a sort on last name and then first name (in ascending order), “Smith, Bob” would be returned before “Smith, John” no

Sorting and

grouping

Results using

different sorting and grouping operations

matter which way the fields are listed in the database. It follows a similar process for three field sorts, four field sorts, and so on. See

Results using different sorting and grouping operations, Page 275, and How to do a multiple field sort, Page 283.

Seagate Crystal Reports has the most powerful sorting and grouping capabilities of any Windows based report writer. When you select a grouping option, the program automatically sorts the data as part of the grouping operation. See Results using different sorting and grouping operations, Page 275.

The following chart shows the way data would appear after being manipulated using different sorting and grouping operations.

● Column 1

The data as it appears in the database table.