Graphing Time Data

Question

I have a report that pulls data from a phone system database.  Each record has the amount of time spent talking, waiting, holding and ringing for each person as numeric fields showing the total number of seconds for a block of calls.  I've been able to create the report and write formulas that convert the seconds for each field into a time field.  But of course it converts it to a specific date which is not what I really want.  If they run the report for a large time period like a month, then there will likely be more than 24 hours in the hour position which the function trucates to a single day.
As a work-around I've been able to use formulas to calculate the number of hours/minutes/seconds and then create more formulas to calculate the summary and grand totals for each person.  Not the best solution, but it works.  My problem is that now they would like to add a graph to the report showing the average total time spent on the phone for each person.
Of course I can't graph my calculated time since the formulas result in a String value.  And it doesn't seem to want to let me sum a time field so I can graph a true time value either.  I thought maybe I could convert my finished average time per person into a time value at the group level since that wouldn't be over 24 hours, but that didn't work either.
Was hoping someone would have some experience in working with time data.  Any suggestions would be helpful.

Answer 1

Hi Jay,
Thanks for the response, but I don't think I explained my problem clearly.  Here's how my data is stored (sorry about the lack of columns, so I separated them with "|"):
Phone Rep ||   Day   ||   Talk Time ||   Hold Time  ||  Total Time
John Doe   ||    1-1-09 ||  5,000 sec||   1,200 sec   ||  6,200 sec
John Doe   ||    1-2-09 ||  6,000 sec ||  2,000 sec  ||   8,000 sec
Total          ||             11,000 sec ||  3,200 sec  ||  14,200 sec
The read out on the report should read:
Phone Rep   ||   Total Talk Time  ||   Total Hold Time  ||  Grand Total Time
John Doe      ||     3:03:20       ||          0:53:20       ||        3:56:40
Avg/day        ||     1:31:40         ||        0:26:40          ||     1:58:20
When I convert the time in seconds to a time variable with TimeSerial(hh,mm,ss) it gives me the time in the correct format, but it's listed as simply a time of day.  If the report runs for many days, then the time values could require the hours to go over 24 such as 155:35:26 to reflect a month's worth of calls.  My formulas that calculate the read out as shown above can do this with no problem.  The problem occurs when I try to graph the average at the bottom.  I can't seem to find a way to chart the average time per day.
I've tried summing the total time in a group and then find a way to format the y axis to show the time format.  I've tried creating a formula to convert the individual record into a time format and then summing that for the graph, but it doesn't give me the option to sum, only to count or other non-numeric options.  I've also tried creating a formula to convert the finished average calculation into a field that can be graphed by itself, but when I insert the chart it doesn't list my formula in the available fields to graph.
I would even be willing to create the chart in a sub report that somehow pulls in just the total average and then tries to graph that, or use the Microsoft OLE chart object to try and push the data to that and insert the finished chart, but having never done either of these, I was hoping for an easier solution.
Thanks
Edited by: Ken Skinner on Jan 25, 2009 8:55 PM
Edited by: Ken Skinner on Jan 25, 2009 8:59 PM