The Difference Between Queries and Reports

A query is a question you define and send to the data source to retrieve the data.

A report is an organized and formatted view of the data the query retrieved.

The report does not have to include all of the data items you specify in the query. You indicate which query data items you want to appear in the report by selecting the items and clicking the Mark for Insertion button (Query dialog box, Report menu).

For example, you create a query that includes the data items Product, Product Price, Product Margin, and Total Sales Amount. You create a report that only shows Product, Product Price, and Product Margin by hiding the Total Sales Amount column. You then create a report for your manager that shows only Product and Total Sales Amount by hiding the Product Price and Product Margin columns. You saved time because you only had to run the query once to retrieve all the data items.

When you first add data items to the query, this icon  indicates they will appear in the report.

After you run the query, data items in the query have this icon  whether or not they are included in the report.

In the graphic below click the Mark for Insertion button, to specify whether you want the selected data item to appear in the report.

Select all the data items and group, sort, and filter in the Query dialog box before you run the query. This reduces the amount of data retrieved from the database, the amount of processing that takes place locally, and the number of times Impromptu queries the database  .

Notes

• If you are using the Blank template, none of the data items in the query appear in the report until you add a frame to the report and mark the data items for insertion into the frame.

• If you are using any template other than the Blank template, all of the data items in the query appear in the report by default. The data items are added to the primary frame, which by default is a form frame, unless you select a frame.