How To: Group Your Report by Building and Location with Accurate Pricing

This walkthrough shows you how to restructure the Report Designer so your output groups by Building, nests Location under each Building, and shows accurate pricing at every tier. You will replace the default Data Member, add two Group Headers, and write two grouped-sum expressions.

• Confirm you have permission to edit reports inside INNERGY.

• Open the proposal report you want to modify in the Report Designer.

• Have a real proposal number on hand so you can preview your changes against live data.

The Data Member is the field that tells the Detail Report what data set to lay out. The default Scope of Work only exposes Location. To group by Building, you need Budget Data.

1. In the Report Designer, click the Detail Report band so its properties appear.

2. Find the Data Member property.

3. Change the value from Scope of Work to Budget Data.

Group Headers are the bands that introduce each new grouping level. The first one we add will represent Building.

4. Right-click the Detail Report band and choose Insert Band > Group Header.

5. Select the new Group Header. In its properties, expand Group Fields and click the + symbol.

6. Set the field to Building.

7. Drop a text label inside the header (for example, “Building”) and bind it to the Building field. If the bound expression reads Budget Data.Building, simplify it to just Building the report already knows the parent Data Member.

This is the step that trips most people up. You cannot drop in the standard Grand Total Price field it returns the entire proposal’s total, not the Building total. Instead, you write a small expression that sums Grand Total Price across the rows that share the same Building.

8. Copy the Building label and place a second text box on the right side of the Group Header.

9. Open the new text box’s expression editor.

10. Enter the following expression exactly:

[[sumGroup([Building], [GrandTotalPrice])]]

The double square brackets are the wrapper that tells INNERGY this is a grouped expression. The inner reference [Building] names the group to sum over. [GrandTotalPrice] is the value being totaled.

The second Group Header nests inside the first. It groups by Location and lives one level deeper than Building.

11. Right-click the existing Group Header (or the Detail band) and insert another Group Header.

12. Increase the new band’s Level so it sits below Building and above the Detail Report.

13. In Group Fields, click the + symbol and set the grouping field to Location.

14. Drop a text label inside the band and bind it to the Location field.

The Location total uses the same pattern as the Building total, but the expression names both grouping levels so the sum scopes correctly.

15. Place a new text box on the right side of the Location Group Header.

16. Open the expression editor and enter:

[[sumGroup([Building], [Location], [GrandTotalPrice])]]

INNERGY will return the sum of Grand Total Price for each Location, scoped to the Building it sits inside.

Scope Notes are stored in a different dataset than Budget Data. If you leave them inside your new grouped layout, INNERGY will attempt to render them in a context they do not belong in, and you will get extra rows or layout breaks.

17. Locate the Scope Notes element inside the Detail Report.

18. Move it outside the grouped bands below the Detail Report or into its own section.

19. Tidy up any extra spacing or stray lines left behind.

20. Click Preview in the Report Designer.

21. Enter a real proposal number when prompted.

22. Confirm the output: each Building should appear with its own total; each Location should nest beneath its Building with its own total; the proposal’s Grand Total should reconcile.

• Each Building heading shows a price that reflects only that Building’s line items.

• Each Location nests under its parent Building and shows a price that totals only that Location’s lines.

• The proposal’s overall Grand Total still matches what you see in the bid.

• Scope Notes render cleanly, outside the grouped section.

• Copy and paste the Building Group Header to start the Location header it preserves your formatting and saves time.

• Keep your group expressions on a single line. Line breaks inside the double square brackets can confuse the parser.

• Use a consistent font weight for grouped totals so the visual hierarchy reads cleanly: bolder for Building, regular for Location.

The Building total shows the same number on every row

You used plain [GrandTotalPrice] instead of the grouped expression. Re-open the text box, replace the bound field with the full [[sumGroup([Building], [GrandTotalPrice])]] expression, and save.

The Location total equals the Building total

The Location expression is missing the [Location] reference. Update the expression to [[sumGroup([Building], [Location], [GrandTotalPrice])]] so the sum scopes to the inner group.

Building field shows no value or shows “Budget Data”

The bound expression is pointing at the parent Data Member, not the field. Change the binding to [Building] only the report already knows the parent data set.

Layout shifts or extra rows appear after grouping

Scope Notes are still inside the grouped section. Move the Scope Notes element out of the Detail Report band.

Related Topics

• Editing the Report Designer: the basics of bands, fields, and properties.

• Budget Data vs. Scope of Work: when to use each data source.

• Expression Reference: grouped sums, conditional totals, and formatted price fields.