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Example 2: Charting summary data

This example is based on the membership database of a fictitious travel firm, The Corporate Travelers Club. Use the FileMaker Pro tutorial sample file, Sample.fp7, to create this chart. The sample file is located in:

FileMaker Pro 11/English Extras/Tutorial

or

FileMaker Pro 11 Advanced/English Extras/Tutorial

About the chart

In this example, you will create a pie chart that displays the number of travel club members employed by each of the three companies in the sample database. The pie chart shows the percentage of total members held by each company.

Save a copy of the sample file

1.	Locate the tutorial sample file (Sample.fp7), copy it, and save it in another folder on your hard disk.

2.	Open your copy of the sample file.

You see the sample file’s Data Entry layout. It displays one record in Form View.

3.	Click View As in the layout bar to switch to Table View.

You see all 29 records in the Corporate Travelers Club database.

4.	Scan the data to familiarize yourself with it.

Sort and group data and add a summary field

To create this pie chart, you need to sort and group data by company and define a summary field that calculates the total number of all members in each company.

1.	Right-click the Company column heading and choose Sort Ascending to sort the data in alphabetical order by company name.

2.	Right-click the Company column heading and choose Add Trailing Group by Company in the shortcut menu.

You have grouped records by company.

3.	Right-click the Company heading, choose Trailing Subtotals and select Count in the shortcut menu.

You have added a subsummary field to the database that contains the number of members in each Company group as well as the total number of all members in the database.

Create a layout to display the pie chart

1.	Choose View menu > Layout Mode to switch to layout mode.

2.	Click New Layout/Report in the status toolbar.

3.	For Layout Name, type Membership Chart.

4.	Select Blank layout, then click Finish.

You see a new empty layout. It has three layout parts: a header part, a body part, and a footer part.

Create the pie chart

1.	Click the Chart tool in the status toolbar, then click in the body layout part and drag a large rectangle where you want the chart to appear.

2.	Enter the following settings in the Chart Setup dialog box:

 

For:	Do This:
Chart Type	Choose Pie. The chart type changes in the preview pane on the right side of the dialog box. Note  The chart preview updates when you make formatting changes to chart settings. However, the chart does not show data from your database until you view the chart in Browse, Find, or Preview modes.
Chart Title	Type Membership by Company Note  FileMaker Pro encloses your title text in quotation marks when you click outside the Chart Title field.
Label Data	Click , choose Specify Field Name, choose Current Table (Members), choose Company in the list, then click OK. The data values in the Company field will appear as labels for each slice of the pie chart. This is the data you are comparing.
Value Data	Click , choose Specify Field Name, choose Current Table (Members), choose Company Count in the list, then click OK. The data values in the summary field Company Count will be displayed as percentages of the whole pie. This is the data you are measuring.
Use Data From	Choose Current Found Set and select Show data points for groups of records when sorted. When you select Show data points for groups of records when sorted and sort by the Label Data field, FileMaker Pro charts summary data based on the Label Data series.

3.	Click OK to close the dialog box.

You see placeholder data in the chart on your layout. You must switch to Browse mode to chart data from the sample database.

Verify the chart in Browse mode

•	Click Save Layout, then Exit Layout in the layout bar.

You see the finished chart. In pie charts, FileMaker Pro calculates and displays percentages for each portion of the whole.

Important  In FileMaker Pro, charts update dynamically as data changes. This chart will remain accurate as long as you maintain the sort order and grouping you set up for this chart. If you change the sort order or grouping, the chart will no longer show your data comparison.

Notes

•	If your chart is hard to read (for example, the pie chart is very small), return to Layout mode, select the chart, and drag the handles to make the chart larger. Then return to Browse mode to verify the chart.

•	You can double-click a chart in Layout mode to open the Chart Setup dialog box and make changes.

Related topics 

About charts

Planning a chart

Creating and editing charts

Charting summary data

Formatting charts

Example 3: Charting delimited data

Example 4: Charting related records