Quickbase is capable of collecting enormous amounts of data. It's one of the reasons why Quickbase is so successful. Initially, a user can understand the information in a table using just a "List All" report.

Traditionally, as systems input more and more records, users need to build filtered reports to interpret the data. Eventually, a user can't understand the information in an app effectively.

On the other hand, Quickbase "Summary Reports" allow users to manipulate large data sets. As a result, users can better understand their app’s information.

Summary Reports group and total a table’s records by fields selected by the report builder. To better understand how Summary Reports can help users, read the example section below.

Summary Report – Example

Imagine a simple invoicing app that tracks invoice date, customer, and invoice amount.

At first, it is easy to view all invoices and find what you need as a user. As more invoices are entered, filtering by month or customer is sufficient. Eventually, though, there are too many invoices to be able to understand trends by using table reports.

Let’s build a Summary Report to help our users.

Summary Report – Navigation

Navigate to the table home page
Click on the ‘Reports and Charts’ dropdown arrow
Click ‘New’
Choose ‘Summary’ and then click ‘Create’

By default, Quickbase summarizes the # of invoices.

a computer screen with the words summaze data and an image of an envelope

These choices will display a report that looks like this:

Knowing the number of invoices by customer is great. However, it would be useful to know the total amount per customer.

To accomplish this, in the Summarize Data section, add Invoice Amount.

a screen shot of the invoice amount page

Next, you might want to see how the number of invoices and total invoice amount changes month to month. Simply add Invoice Month to the Grouping and crosstabs section.

a computer screen with a keyboard and mouse on it

a table that shows the number of invoices

The above displays the necessary information. However, it is not easy to read as the months are repeated for each customer.

In this scenario, crosstabs are useful.

We can make Invoice Month the ‘crosstabs’ to better view the information. Now, months are displayed as columns and each customer is displayed in its own row and the data is much easier to read. Months and customers can be reversed if you would prefer customers as column headings.

a table that has a number of items on it

Any numeric field a user wants to total or average, take the minimum, maximum, or standard deviation can be added to the Summarize data section.

Also, any field can be used to group the data. Like other report types, in Summary Reports, filters can be added to remove unnecessary information. You can also add Dynamic filters to parse the data so it fits your needs.

EDITORS NOTE: Summary reports are limited to 25 calculations in the Summarize data section.

EDITORS NOTE: Each row in a Summary Report can be clicked to view the Drill down report of that row’s data. Initially, the information is presented based on the default table setting. However, a user can change the drill-down report at the bottom of the Summary report’s ‘customize this report’ page.

If you want to learn more about filtering reports, check out the article, Updating the Default Table Home Page and Default Report Columns.