Reporting Problem

[John Baker]

I am developing a series of reports based on data from a problem management system. Each report is based on a crosstab query that groups incidents by a dimension (e.g. analyst, product type, problem type) and tabulates the number of incidents for each member of the group by problem status (open, updated, closed).

Example:

analyst open updated closed
Analyst 1 2 12 20
Analyst 2 1 15 28
Analyst 3 4 11 21

My problem is this - each report is designed to report on each status (open, updated, closed). However, depending on the date range that is selected, there may not be any incidents for each of the statuses. Consequently, an error is generated when the report is run since the data field does not exist in the crosstab query.

Any suggestions on how I may resolve this problem?

Many thanks in advance,
John

 

[Pat Hartman]

Use the column headings property to list all the columns you want in the order you want them to appear.

Note that this method works well for lists that are fixed like the 7 days of the week or the 12 months of the year because it is quite unlikely that these things will change in the near future. For lists that might change, you'll need to remember to modify the column headings or you won't see the new items because the property fixes the width to whatever is in the list - no more, no less.

 

[John Baker]

Reporting Problem Solved

Thanks so much, Pat. This provided the perfect solution. Since there can only be 3 possible statuses, the columns property solved the problem.

Thanks again!
John