Foxfire! Support Notes

Why Can't I Create a Cross-tab on a numeric field?

One of our partners approached me with a troubling question. Their application table made us of a numeric field for the Major Version # field. When they wanted to break this information into a cross-tab report, the Major Version # field did not show up in the list of available fields for the cross-tab column axis, where they wanted to put it.

The reason is based on Foxfire!'s initial assumptions when it sets up the database.

In the data dictionary, you will see that Major Ver is NOT defined as allowing an X-Tab Axis. As a result, you cannot create a cross-tab with it.

If you check this option, you can.

This is caused by the incorrect setup of your data dictionary. Was Majorver set up to do subtotals? It would be by default (because it is numeric).

Likewise, Foxfire! assumes that numeric fields would be used for summary reports - this assumption was made years ago. When a developer sets up a a database and wants a numeric field to be used as an actual content field (such as an attribute like MajorVer is used), then it should be set up differently.

In a future version, when we go through a better analysis of the data (to allow for smarter joins, etc), this may be something we want to look at but in the meantime, just go to the Data Dictionary and set it to allow for X-Tab axis and you should be able to create a cross-tab report using this field as a column or row value.

If you CANNOT set it for X-Tab axis, make sure there is a SORT expression. You must have one to create a cross-tab.

posted by Andrew MacNeill @ 6/30/2006 12:42:00 PM