I've never used summaries before and am struggling to get them working.

The project is a quotation database.

The database has 2 tables:
- one table has the quotation "headers", ie quote number, author,
date, customer, title
- one table has the quotation lines

The two are related by quotation number

There are 2 layouts, one for me to author the quote with my costings etc
The other layout for a customer view

Bith these ayouts show data from the "header" table, and the lie items
are in a portal.... this seemed the Right Way to do it.

So far so good, nothing difficult and it all works.

The problem is, how do I get a grand total of the all the line totals
for a particular quote?

I want a total of the line totals, the line total is in the "Quotation
Lines" table, so I have defined a "Total sell price" field in this
table, which is of type "summary".

So how to place it on a layout?

I guess it goes in a trailing grand summary field.

But, whether I place the related summary field on the summary part, or
put it in a portal, nothing shows up. Yes, I am checking in "preview" mode.


I am a little worried that I am trying to summarise a protal - is this
legal? But I can't see how else to present the data I have.

I'd be grateful for any pointers as to what I am doing wrong.

Thanks

did ja try creating a summary field(s)... one to count records others to
total based upon a sort (place into a Summary Part).

Guy

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"Luke Siemaszko" <no.spam.for.me (AT) please (DOT) com> wrote

You don't say what version you're on. Assuming you are in FM7 or 8:

You have your Line Items portal on the Headers layout. In Line Items,
define a summary field that is the total of the SellPrice field. Back
on your Headers layout, just place the LineItems::SellPriceSummary field
in the header, body or footer. That's it. If you change a line item in
the portal, the total may or may not update automatically without a
Refresh Window [Flush cache results] script step.

This won't work in FM6, so please let us know if you are using one of
those earlier version of FileMaker.


Luke Siemaszko wrote:
--
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Howard Schlossberg (818) 883-2846
FM Professional Solutions, Inc. Los Angeles

FileMaker 8 Certified Developer
Associate Member, FileMaker Solutions Alliance

Thank you. Sorted pretty well - thanks for your help.
FYI this is FMP 8 (server) on OS X 10.3.9

One problem remains..... Now that I've got summaries working, I've also
used them to create calculations for gross margin pounds and percent.
But, when I move between diffferent (header) records I have to change
something in the portal to force it to recalculate the
summary......otherwise it just keeps the value from the last time it
calculated (the previous record). Flushing cache and sorting the portal
records don't seem to force a recalculation, is there any way to do this?

thanks



Howard Schlossberg wrote:

Ignore that....... it seems to have suddenly started behaving itself for
no particular reason. As my FM server is some way away over a WAN, I
suspect WAN-related issues.



BaldingAndMiddleAged wrote: