Group Header and Footer Bands

The Group Header and Group Footer bands are shown above and below each group. See Change or Apply Data Sorting to a Report for additional information.

Group Header bands may be used for grouping by multiple data fields in one of the following ways:

1. Add several Group Header bands. Specify one group field for each of these bands. This results in nested grouping of the report's data.

   

2. Specify several group fields for the Group Fields property of the Group Header band. The data will be grouped by certain combinations of field values.

   

   The Group Footer band is unnecessary without the corresponding Group Header band. When present, it allows customization by providing a set of properties similar to those of the Group Header.

   In the Property Grid, the properties of these bands are divided into the following groups.

Appearance

• Background Color

  Specifies the background colour for the controls contained within the band. This option is also available on the Formatting Toolbar ().

• Borders, Border Color and Border Width

  Specifies border settings for the controls contained within the band.

• Font

  Specifies the font settings for the controls contained within the band. Some of these settings are available on the Formatting Toolbar.

• Foreground Color

  Specifies the text colour for the controls contained within the band. This option is also available on the Formatting Toolbar ().

• Formatting Rules

  Displays the Formatting Rules Editor which enables users to choose which rules should be applied to the band during report generation, and define the precedence of the applied rules. for further information, refer to Conditionally Change a Control's Appearance.

  

• Padding

  Specifies indent values which are used to render the contents of the controls contained within the bands.

• Style Priority

  Used to define the priority of various style elements (such as background colour, border colour, ). for further information on style inheritance, refer to Styles Concepts.

• Styles

  This property is used to define odd and even styles for the controls contained within the bands, as well as to assign an existing style to them (or a newly created one). for further information on style inheritance, refer to Styles Concepts.

• Text Alignment

  Used to change the text alignment of the controls contained within the bands. This option is also available on the Formatting Toolbar.

Behavior

• Group Fields

  This property is available for the Group Header band only. It displays the Group Field Collection Editor, enabling users to add and remove grouping fields, define a data field to be used as a grouping criteria and the grouping order (ascending or descending).

  

  This property is also accessible via the band's Smart Tag.

• Group Union

  Determines whether group rows can be printed on different pages (in this case both Group Union and Group Footer Band.Group Union are set to None), or the entire group will be printed on a single page (if Reporting 324).

  Also, if a group can be split across pages, but if Group Headers are not to be printed on a page if there is no data row below it (in case a group starts at the bottom of the page and there is enough room for only a Group Header), set the Group Union to With First Detail property. In this case, if a Group Header is alone on a page, it will be moved to the beginning of the next page.

  The same option can be applied to Group Footers. To prevent them being printed alone on a page, set the Group Union to With Last Detail property. The last group row from the previous page will be moved to the next page to be printed together with a Group Footer.

  This property is also accessible via the band's Smart Tag.

• Keep Together

  When this option is on, Reporting attempts to fit the band contents entirely on one page, not allowing it to split across several pages. In general, if the contents are too large to fit on a single page, then the band is started on a new page, and continues on the following page.

• Level

  Specifies thevel of a group band. The lower the level number, the closer the group band is to the Detail band. The lowest setting is zero. This is the parameter that identifies the Group Header / Group Footer band pairs.

  This property is also accessible via the band's Smart Tag.

• Page Break

  Use this property if the current report design requires that the band's section should be separated from previous sections or follow-ups. Specify the Before the Band or After the Band values to insert a page break before or after the current band. In many cases, this property may be used instead of the Page Break control.

• Print at Bottom

  This property is available for the Group Footer band only. It determines whether the band should be printed at the bottom of a page, or immediately after the last group's details.

  If a report contains several Group Footers with their Print at Bottom properties set to different values, then the outer Group Footer has the highest priority.

  This feature is helpful when the Page Break property of the Group Header band is set to After the Band. In this instance each group starts a new page, and the Group Footer has two distinct places to reside - after the last row, or at the bottom of the page.

• Repeat Every Page

  This property improves the readability of reports with group contents that are several pages long. Without a repeated group header at the top of the page, the report may be difficult to read.

  This property is also accessible via the band's Smart Tag.

• Scripts

  This property contains events, which can be handled with the required scripts. for further information on scripting, refer to Handle Events via Scripts.

• Visible

  Specifies whether the band should be visible when the report is previewed.

Data

• Tag

  This property is used to add additional information to the band; for example its Id, by which it can then be accessible by scripts.

Design

• (Name)

  Determines a band's name, by which it can be accessed in the Report Explorer, Property Grid or via scripts

Layout

• Height

  Specifies the band's height, in report units.