The Report Designer

A report is built visually as a set of bands.

Bands

Page header and footer — repeat on every physical page. This is where a title, logo, "week commencing" line, or page numbers go.

Root band — the main body. It can be a flat list, one row per record, or grouped.

Groups — a report can group its rows by a column, each group with its own header and footer. A group header might carry the teacher's name and address; a group footer might carry a totals or summary line for that teacher.

Groups can nest. A report can group by Teacher, then by Contract inside each teacher's section, then list the individual sessions inside each contract.

Fields

Each piece of content on the page — a label, a data value, a running total, a line, an image, a page number — is placed and sized individually within a band.

Summary fields are a total, average, or count scoped to whichever band they sit in. The same summary placed in the root band gives a whole-report total; placed in a group footer, it gives the total for just that group.

Formula fields are a simple calculated value derived from the query's own columns — converting minutes to hours, for example. A formula field can be used anywhere a data field can go.