Integrating multi-level groups within reports.

Often within reports, a natural hierarchy reveals itself that if grouped properly, provides the user an efficient means for viewing large numbers of records while avoiding repeating values.

To illustrate this feature, I’ll begin with an average report illustrating a company’s store demographics.

As you can see, the first two columns may be grouped where duplicate values exists to avoid repeating their values and provide a cleaner looking report for the user.

I’ll create the first group by selecting the detail row and insert a new group.

I’ll configure the group to use the CountryRegion field and select to repeat the group header.

Next, I’ll drag the CountryRegion field into the group’s header.

Executing the report now shows the Country Region values no longer duplicate, but are displayed once per group of records sharing the same values for that field.

To create a second, nested group I’ll repeat the process used to create the first group which provides a multi-level grouping in the designer.

Executing the report will show multi-level grouping within the report, records sharing the same Country and State are now grouped together.

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