In this Simulation we will create a report that shows client contact information and the projects done for each client. After you have chosen all the fields you need from the Clients and Project tables,
click the Next button to move to the next window of the wizard.
This window asks you how you'd like to group your data, and allows you to choose between the two tables from which you selected fields.
For this report it makes sense to group by the Clients table, because one client may have multiple projects.
This way you'll see the client information once, followed by all the projects for that client. Click Next to see the next window.
This window allows you to add headings to your report. For instance, if you wanted to group clients by state, you could select State as an additional grouping level.
For this report select Company as a grouping level. Although this will not group the data in the report differently, it will add a nice heading for each company, which will make the report easier to read.
Double-click the Company field to add it as a grouping level. Click Next to see the next window.
The right side of the window changes to indicate the new grouping of the report. Click Next to see the next window.
This window allows you to sort your report. The report will automatically be sorted by grouping fields -- so in this case, the report will be sorted by company name. However, you can choose how to sort the detail lines (the project lines).
Use the drop-down list on the first grouping field option and choose Due Date to sort project by due date.
Once you've chosen a field to sort by, the next sorting option becomes available so that you can choose a secondary sort field. In this case, one is not needed.
Notice the AZ button to the right of the Sort Field option--this allows you to choose ascending or descending sort order. Also on this window is the Summary Options button.
This button displays a dialog box where you can choose how to summarize the data in the report. Click the Summary Options button to see the options for calculations for this report.
The fields that are selected for summarizing depend on the fields and grouping selected for the report. The two fields that Access has chosen here are Yes/No fields,
since Yes is stored as a 1 and No is stored as a 0 (zero), Access can perform calculations with those values.
However, they won't produce useful results for this report. The Show box enables you to choose whether to show all your data, or just the summary calculations.
The Summary Options dialog box can be a very powerful tool for creating calculations in your report when you are reporting numerical data and this report contains mainly text data.
Click OK to return to the sorting window of the wizard.
Click the Next button to see the next window.
This window allows you to choose a layout for your report. Click the Outline 1 layout for this report. The sample report on the left will change to reflect the new layout.
Click the Next button to accept the other settings on this window and move to the next window.
Nearly done, honest! This window asks you to choose a style for the report, and shows a sample of the style on the left. My favorite, Compact, is already selected. Click Next to see the final window.
The final window of the wizard asks you the usual things, notably what you'd like to name the object that the report has selected.
Type the name Projects by Client as the name of the report. Then click the Finish button to see the report created by the wizard.
You can only see a portion of the report here, but Access has created a nice report with the company name in a larger font, the company contact information under that, and then,
in tabular format, the project information from the Projects table. Because you chose to sort by Due Date, the Due date is the first field displayed in that section.
