A Sharp Report, Part 2:  Sections

November 2003

Scott Holmes
ACT! Certified Consultant
Cornerstone Solutions, Inc.

In our last episode, this one being the sequel (in case the “Part 2” in the title didn’t give it away), I talked about the basic structure of an ACT! Report Template and how to create and position controls (Labels, Field boxes, and so on). I also discussed the very important concept of sections. It is sections more than anything else that give you the ability to control how your report arranges its information, so it’s critical that you understand what they are and how to use them.

Sections: A Brief Review

Every Report Template is divided into sections. Each section is identified by a section title located (for reasons I have yet to understand) at the bottom left of the section itself. Each section’s width and height represent, in a very real way, the amount of space the contents of the section will occupy on the printed page (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. How sections relate to the printed page.

The Header section, for example, will print at the top of every page in the report. If the section is 1" high (2.54 cm if you are from anywhere other than the U.S.), then one inch at the top of every page (inside the margin) will be taken up by the content of the Header. The Contact section will be repeated as many times as possible on the page, but each iteration will take the exact height of the contact section on the template.

If Header, Footer, and Contact sections were all ACT! reports had to offer, we could stop right here, but it would severely limit your reporting options. Fortunately, there are other section types, and each gives you a bit more control over your final output.

Section Types

Header and Footer sections are primarily used for formatting your report. That is, they’re used to provide the same information on each page of the report and not to display contact or group fields information. The only useful contact information in a Header or Footer comes from your “My Record.”

Contact and Group sections are “data” sections. They compile information from the Contact and Group tables and display them in a clearly defined way on the page.

Summary sections are used to summarize information in data sections or control the grouping and/or the sorting of the data on your report.

Subsections are used to display lists of related information in a subordinate table. For example, the Contact section can have a Notes History subsection added to it that displays the notes and histories that belong to each contact the report prints. There’s an Activities section that works in a similar fashion, but with Activities.

Some sections are dependent on the presence of other sections:

• You can’t add a Notes History section unless you have either a Contact or a Group section in your report.

• You can’t add a Contact subsection to a Contact section (that would be redundant and repetitious and superfluous), but you can add one to a Group section.

At first glance, the number and variety of sections seem daunting, but in truth, each has a simple purpose, so relax. Let’s take a quick look at each choice.

• Title Header — Prints only once, on the first page of the report to the exclusion of the Header section (assuming you have one). Use a Title Header when you want the Header on the first page of your report to be different from the remaining pages.

• Header — Prints at the top of each page in the report. Place information from your “My Record,” page numbers, the date, or any information you want to be displayed on each page.

• Group — This is the “Group” equivalent of the Contact section. Use a Group section in place of the Contact section to print data from group records.

• Contact — Displays data from the Contact table. While the height of the section is literal, the contents will repeat as many times as can fit on the page.

• Notes/History — Contains Notes and History data. This is a “dependent section” in that it can only be used in conjunction with a Group or Contact section.

• Activities — Contains data from the Activities table and requires a connection to either a Group or Contact section.

• Sales — Contains data from the Sales table and can be connected to a Contact or Group section, or used alone. When connected to a Contact or Group section, it’s treated as a subsection and lists only sales for the current contact or group.

• Group subsection — Used to add a listing of the groups to a data section. For example, a Group subsection could be used below the Contact section to list all the groups each contact is a member of. Place the Group subsection under a Group section to list subgroups.

• Contact subsection — Commonly used in a “Group” report, to list contacts that are members of each group.

• Summary sorted by — I’m going to save the discussion on Summary sections for later. This type of section is very useful and requires some additional explanation.

• Summary — Now, what did I just say!

• Footer — Data included in the Footer prints at the bottom of each page; the size is literal, just like with the Header.

• Title Footer — The content of the Title Footer will print at the bottom of the first report page only, to the exclusion of the regular Footer. Use this section when you want the Footer on the first page to be different from that of the remaining report pages.

Summary Sections

I had a real problem understanding this section type. In retrospect, it wasn’t because Summary sections are confusing; rather, I think it was because the name confused me. Summary sections are used to display summary information for a data section. Summary sorted by sections can be used to display summary information as well, but they also control how the report is sorted and how the data is grouped. Not all sections can be summarized (for example, you can’t summarize the page footer). You can add a Summary section above or below the section you wish to summarize. Simple Summary sections summarize an entire data or subsection and cannot break that section up into logical groups, like Summary sorted by sections.

Let’s say you want to produce a Contact report and list your contacts by City. Creating a Summary sorted by City section will cause the report to sort its contacts by City first (regardless of your sort in ACT!) and provide space at the top or bottom of each City section for summary calculations and data. The Summary sorted by section itself often contains column headings and data from the field you sorted by. In our example, you might place the name of the city, so it appears only once at the top of each city’s contacts instead of on every line (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. The effect of Summary sorted by.

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