How do I show all Groups including Groups with Zero Sums

Question

Post Author: mchallinor
CA Forum: Formula
This is such a basic question I'm annoyed that I can't work out the answer myself!The report is very basic:"Total Sales"Grouped on Weeks of the Year. Data Report Range 01-01-2006 to 31-12-2006.The Group Summary Totals appear for all weeks where there is at least 1 sale within that Week.  But if there are NO sales for a week this does not appear as a Group Summary Total. Eg:Total Sales ReportWEEK 1Group Sum Total =      £3,004WEEK 2  Group Sum Total =      £9,000WEEK 3Group Sum Total =     £1,030WEEK 5Group Sum Total =      £900Report Grand Total =  £13,934There were no sales during WEEK 4 so no Group Sum appears. I need the report to look like the following:Total Sales Report  WEEK 1
Group Sum Total =      £3,004
WEEK 2 
Group Sum Total =      £9,000
WEEK 3
Group Sum Total =     £1,030WEEK 4
Group Sum Total =     £0
WEEK 5
Group Sum Total =      £900Report Grand Total =  £13,934How do I get the Group Sum to show for all groups even if the group sum is zero.Look forward to any suggestions.

Answer 1

Post Author: bettername
CA Forum: Formula
Agreed - about the best way to overcome this is to have a 'dates' table in your db which has a simple structure of one column named 'date', filled from some date in the past to xxx years in the future, incrementing by a day at a time.  Ask your DB guys to add this in - it's a simple task (SQL code underneath)
If you then use this as your 'starting point' table (and link your sales data to it on the date), and group by dates.date (or use it in your formula for grouping), you'll get the 'empty' groups.
SQL CODE TO CREATE A SIMPLE DATES TABLE (-5 years from today to +5 years from today):
create table crystal_dates (mydate datetime)
declare @start datetimedeclare @end datetimedeclare @now datetimeset @start = dateadd(yy,-5,CONVERT(DATETIME,FLOOR(CONVERT(FLOAT, getdate()))))set @end = dateadd(yy,5,@start)set @now = @start
while @now <=@endbegininsert into crystal_dates values (@now)set @now = dateadd(dd,1,@now)end