Parameter Selection Technique

Creative use of report parameters can be an excellent way to mine your data for information.

For example, any report that offers the Zip Code as a specification can be used to obtain data on a county-by-county basis. To run a report that lists all the companies that are located in a particular county, begin in the Companies folder, click the Reports List button (or press F2) and select the FM Demographic List report.

On the report-specification screen, select the values that will generate the type of report you want (or just accept the default values, if appropriate). Then click in the Zip Code field at the bottom of the Specifications list and choose Select from List from the drop-down menu to display the search screen.

In one of the rows of the Data Select Area, use the drop-down menu in the first column to select "County;" the operator in the second column will automatically default to "Like." In the third column, type the name of the county whose Company information you want. Unless you know for a fact that the county name you are specifying is unique, you may want to add a second line to search on the desired state, (i.e., State Like ME).

Now click on the Search button (Alt+S). Click on the Retrieve button if it is active or use the Alt+R key combination (repeatedly, if necessary) until the button dims and all the results are displayed. This is a very important step; only search results that have been retrieved will be used in the report specification.

Next, click on the Add All button (in the upper right corner of the search window) to display all of the zip codes in the Return Values section. Finally, click on the OK button to insert the zip codes into the Value field on the specification screen. The report that you run using these zip code values will display data that are specific to the selected county, even though that fact will not be displayed anywhere on the report itself.