The Group Dialog Wizard helps you to create a new group or to change or remove an existing group. A group is a field which manages other (database- or formula-) fields by bringing their instances into a specific order. Associated with a group field is a "group field label" which provides the printed name for the group field. The group field label may be one of the following:

• empty, in this case the name comes from the grouped field itself,
• a formula field, in this case the formula field's formula provides the printed name or
• another database field name

Each group can be marked to keep its managed instances together for each group instance and each group can be set to repeat the group header of the current group instance on each page.

A third property of a group is that it may or may not have a back-link to its parent group to create a group-tree. You can set the back-link to the parent node of the tree and the x indentation for each new level as the tree grows from the left to the right.

To add a new group, open the "Insert" menu and click on the group entry. The Group Dialog appears.

In this dialog you can choose the field i-net Clear Reports should base the grouping on, the data from the database and the sort order: ascending, descending, "original order" (i.e., the order in which the data appears in your database), specified, by summary .

See the group specified sort order dialog or by summary sort order for details.

There are two original sort order types available. The "Original order" leaves the records in the order in which they appear in your database, and begins a new group whenever the value changes in the group field you select. The "Original order collect values" shows data also in the original order, but this keeps the groups with equal values together.

Also you can define sort order direction over formula. This formula should return a positive integer value. Allowed values: 0 for ascending, 1 for descending and 2 for original (also you can use the constants "ascending", "descending" and "original" instead of integer values). All of other formula will be ignored. There are only fields in this formula permitted, which are constant for the whole report (e.g. database fields are not allowed).

If you want a different printed label for the group, you can check the "Customize Groupname" in the "Group Properties" tab and enter the field or the formula in order to provide the printed label in the report.

To make the group keep all its managed fields together, select the "Keep Together" checkbox. If you want to specify the number of records, which ahould be kept together at least select the checkbox below and specify the amount in the spinbox. To repeat the group header of the current group instance, select the "Repeat Group Header on Each Page" checkbox.

To create a tree-like group structure, for example to list all employees belonging to a specific group and the group belonging to a specific project, select the "Sort Data Hierarchically" checkbox. Then provide a back-link field, for instance the belongs-to field in this example.

To emphasize the hierarchical order you can specify a group indent ranged from 0 ("no indent") to half of the page width.

If you have several nested groups you specify their order by using the up and down buttons. For instance, you can have two groups, an outer group "sales per year" and an inner group "division".

If you want to delete a group, click on the group you want to delete and click on the delete button. The group will be removed from the groups list. To add a new group, click on the add button.

The changes are applied to your report design when you click on the OK button.

• Sorting Constants