Sometimes you do not want to see the details of a report at first. A summary report can be easily created from a detail report. In order to be able to create a summary report, you must first have at least one group defined on your report, as well as a summary field. Then, you need to hide the Details section so you only see the group information.
When you create a summary report, you can choose to enable users to drill down on summary information to access the underlying data. Drill-down is the capability to double-click a summary field and open a new window tab to show the behind-the-scenes data that makes up that summary. From the Section Expert you have the choice to Hide or Suppress a Details section.
Viewing the Details from a Summary Report
When you view a summary report in the Preview window, the cursor changes to a magnifying glass whenever it moves across a part of the report that represents a summary.
When you double-click with the magnifying glass, a new preview tab opens and the details behind that summary are displayed.
You can double-click as many summaries as you need (on the main report), and each one opens its own preview tab. You can close any of these drill-down tabs at any time by viewing that tab, and then clicking the close tab button (X).
Hint
After you hide the Details section to create a summary report, you may want to format the report so that the column headings labeling detailed information are displayed in the drill-down tab rather than in the Preview tab. To do so:
Move the Group Name field from the Group Header section into the Group Footer section.
Move the column headings from the Page Header section into the Group Header section.
Hide the Group Header section.