Summary Report that counts occurences of multiselect items

Question

In addition to [type] and [category] we have [key terms] attached to [cases]
Key Terms are not a relationship but are a tag applied,
Key Terms are held in a seperate table {key terms}
The [key terms] field is a multi-select text field which draws it data from the {key terms} table
Some Cases will have 4 key terms eg
[Case 1]: (topic a) (topic b) (event 1)
[Case 2]: (topic a)
[Case 3]: (topic b) (event 1)

The Case records shows these as a list in the field but a summary report (with date parameters and based on combining equal values in the Key Terms field) sees these as different.

I want a report that counts key terms that have occurred so the output from above would be

Topic a = 2
Topic b = 2
Event 1 = 2

rather than seeing each set of terms as distinct. Do you think this is possible? bearing in mind that we will have around 50 new terms created per year and anyone could feature at any time

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Owen Morgan
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MarkShnierYou · Answer

Actually, I think that you need to pause and reconsider instead using a child table. One reason is this.

Multi-select Text fields

Multi-select Text fields can contain a maximum of 100 choices. Each choice can contain a maximum of 60 characters.

When using a multi-select field, you can select a maximum of 20 choices.

https://help.quickbase.com/user-assistance/quickbase_limits.html

So, you will soon run into a dead end and exceed the limit of 100 choices. by using a child table, you still will be able to make a Combined Text Summary field to roll up the Tags. In order to allow the users to quickly select the Tags without the slowness of the typical Add Child user experience there is a method to allow users to launch off a parent record and be presented with a list of Tags on a typical Quick Base table report with full access to the Dynamic filters and filter box at the top of the report. The user will click click click to select as many tags as they like (with dups prevented and a quite fade away pop up saying "Tag Added"), and then click to return to the parent record (Case) and observe that their tags have all been added. I call this the Quick Select method.

Contact me directly if you would like help getting this working. It usually takes under 1 hour to get this working.

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Mark Shnier (YQC)
Quick Base Solution Provider
Your Quick Base Coach
http://QuickBaseCoach.com
mark.shnier@gmail.com
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