Hello good people!

I would like to create a report that slides left based on the amount
of companies I have working on a project. I would like this to slide
dynamically based on how many companies I have working for me. Is
there a way to do this? I believe if portals were horizontal I might
be able to do this, but because they are not (or I do not know how to
make them) and because it is a report, I can not seem to display the
companies correctly.

an example:

I have 10 projects, and 3 companies working for me. Some times
multiple companies work on the same project.

I have made a report based on the projects (so projects are horizontal/
rows).

I also have two fields I track per company (companies being vertical).


What I would like to do is be able to add a new company to my data,
and not have to manually enter the new company fields into the
report. I would like the report to realize there are 4 companies, and
make the columns accordingly.

Does anyone have any suggestions for me?

dvfx

On 2011-04-21 00:34:19 -0700, dvfx <damienvfx (AT) gmail (DOT) com> said:

Yep, virtual lists will do what you want.

See these blog posts that explain the technique:
http://fmlayoutmode.com/wp/?p=1640
http://fmlayoutmode.com/wp/?p=1799

Basically, you format several columns of fields in a reporting table.
Each one is a calc that extracts a numbered value from a list in that
variable. Then you make a lot of records , and serialize them. The
serial value governs which value is shown.

Then you build your variables by finding the projects you want to
report on, looping through, and setting the variable values, listing
the companies and the fields you're tracking on those companies. You
can have as many columns as you care to create fields for.

Please note if you want to summarize this data, you can put in summary
fields, but it's much faster to calculate by substituting the returns
in the variable for plus signs and using Evaluate on the resulting text.

I used this technique to create a cross-tab report with up to 12 months
of data, but it can flexibly display, and total both across and down,
for any number of months between 1 and 12. It runs lightning fast, as
calculations done in variables are all in RAM and don't impact speed
the way calcs or summaries done in fields do.
--
Lynn Allen
--
www.semiotics.com
Member FBA
FM 10 Certified Developer