Progress
Report Builder
Tutorial


Specifying the Group Order

As seen in the prior sample reports, when you specify the sort order, Report Builder automatically assigns the same level settings for the group order. Before simply accepting the default group order, consider how the group order will affect the invoice.

The first consideration is that to create this invoice, you must display different information on different pages in a report. Normally Report Builder prints the page header on the top of every page, and the group header at the beginning of every group, so a page might contain both page and group headers. However, Report Builder allows you to choose to display the group header band instead of the page header band on the first page of each group. You can also display a group footer band in place of a page footer band on the last page of each new group. When you specify to display the group header instead of the page header, the group header becomes a swapped header. Similarly, a group footer that replaces a page footer is a swapped footer. Figure 9–1 illustrates how swapped headers and swapped footers work.

Figure 9–1: Swapped Headers and Swapped Footers

To replace the information in the page header band lines, the group header band must contain the same number of lines as the page header. The band lines must also have the same line heights. Both of these rules also apply to swapped footers.

For this invoice, you will use both a swapped header and a swapped footer. To display the customer address as well as the order information on the first page of the invoice, but list only the order information on all subsequent pages of the same invoice along with the page number, use a group header as a swapped header. To display a page total at the bottom of all the invoice pages except the last page, which displays the invoice total, use a swapped footer.

The second consideration is that because an invoice is for a single customer order, each new order should start a new invoice. This means that you must specify the reset page option for the Order–num group.

When Report Builder automatically sets the group order values with the same values as the sort order, it does not provide for any of these considerations. You have to modify the group order to specify that information.

Follow these steps to modify the group order:

  1. Choose Database Group Order. The Group Order dialog box appears.
  2. Select Order.Order–num from the selection list.
  3. Choose Edit. The Group Level dialog box appears:
  4. Activate the Swap Header toggle box.
  5. Activate the Reset Page toggle box.
  6. Activate the Swap Footer toggle box. The Group Level dialog box should look like this:
  7. Choose OK to return to the Group Order dialog box.
  8. Choose OK to return to the report layout.

Copyright © 2004 Progress Software Corporation
www.progress.com
Voice: (781) 280-4000
Fax: (781) 280-4095