The Summary Group Options screen which you access from the Query Wizard allows you to set specific behaviour for each group field you have added to the Group by box in the Query Wizard.

Setting these options is useful for a number of different things.

Firstly it allows you to transform you date fields from the original source date into a year, month, week or quarter. This can be useful for allow you to get summary totals by year, month, week or quarter.

Secondly it allows you to use Top N options to focus in on areas that are of most interest. Top N allows you to select the top (or bottom) number of records from the summary totals that have been calculated. So for example your best customers or products or your worst customers or products.

Thirdly it allows to identify trends in your data. So for example you might want to see which customers have seen the greatest growth in revenue over a particular period or which products have seen the greatest variability in volume month to month over the last few years

The screen will be displayed with the Field you selected in the Query Wizard in the Group by list displayed at the top along with it's data type.

The screen displays differently depending on the data Types for the select group column.

For more details on what you can set f each data type please refer to the individual topics for Date Options, Group Options and Trend Options.

Once you have finished your changes you can click the OK button to apply the changes or click the Cancel button to discard them.