Totalling

Totalling is a facility for automatically maintaining derived field values. When a field is updated as a result of totalling it will be updated on screen automatically provided that the QA Build compiler can determine the appropriate map and field number to use.

You can total from a source field into a target field using one of three methods:

• Update totalling

  Update totalling adds the change in the value of the field to the target. Typically, it might be used to maintain the total transaction value as the sum of the value of transaction lines.
  
  

• Downdate totalling

  Downdate totalling subtracts the change from the target. Typically it might be used to maintain a stock table as items are sold.
  
  

• Report totalling

  Report totalling adds the final value of the field to the target.

Update and downdate totalling work appropriately to maintain the total correctly depending on how records are being processed: for example the initial value is always 0 for a new record (so the change is simply the final value), and when a record is deleted update totalling subtracts the initial value from the total rather than adding the changed value.

You may wish to set up local variables for displaying totalling results (such as subtotals). If you use a local field, initialise the value in an earlier procedure before the field is used for totalling.

There are various items that you may specify for the processing of a totalling field:

• Condition to total

  A condition to total allows you only to perform totalling conditionally. For example, you might wish to total a transaction line value into one of several fields depending on the item sold. You could do this by specifying several parts of totalling for the same source field using mutually exclusive conditions to total

• Condition on total

  A condition on total is used to check that the target value is within a specified range

  If the condition on total is not satisfied, the procedure will abort. Wherever possible, set up validation for the target field in an earlier part of the procedure

• Occurs

  This is only used when totalling a field into a target field with more occurrences and is used to specify the occurrence number to start totalling into (usually 1)

Using Totalling for a field

1. On the Field Editing screen add the required source field to the list of fields to be processed
2. Select the Totalling option for the source field
3. Select the type of totalling, and name the target field
4. Add any conditions for the totalling field