Problems with Chart in Report #name? in header

[Nathan Plemons]

A little background.. I am working with an access database (duh) that has a table named "call log" which tracks data from our customer service desk. The table is linked to sharepoint, but I don't really believe that part is relavent.

The call log contains a good deal of data, I am trying to use some queries and reports to parse that data out. First I have a query named "issues query." Basically it just removes all the extra data and returns the following fields items "product type," "quantity," "date," and "title"

Based off of this query I run additional queries such which is a little more complicated. It parses it further so that for a certain product type, it looks at any issues that occur at least once, and counts the number of duplications of said issue within a specific date range. I accomplish the date range as follows:

Field: Date
Table: Issues Query
Total: Where
Sort:
Show: No


Criteria: Between [Start Date] And [End Date]

This works beautifully, the result is the data is further parsed down to only 2 columns, "NumberOfDups" and "Title." When I run the query, it simply asks for a start date and an end date.

To make it pretty I run a report on this querey. In the report header I put display the start and end dates. I have a label that simply says "beginning" and the corresponding txt box contains "=[Start Date]". Ending works the same way with the End Date. When I run the report it calls the query and asks me for the start and end dates. I enter the dates one time and it returns the txt data it gets from the query and places the appropriate start and end dates in the header. Works great, no problem.

The trouble is that I want to make another report that put the data in chart form rather than txt. I created a blank report, in the detail section I put in the graph and told it to pull its data from the query. This works just fine. When I run the report it asks me for the Start Date and End Date, and it works perfectly. The trouble I am running into is that I also want to display the start and end dates in the header. I set them up exactly the same way I do in the text report and they ALWAYS display #name? instead of the start date. Something about the txt box does not seem to be recognizing anything correctly. What I mean by that is as follows:

In the TXT report, if I change the txt box from "=[Start Date]" to "=[somerandomthing]", when I run the report it still prompts for start date, end date, and then it also prompts for "somerandomthing." Any value I put in this box displays on the report as it should.

On the chart report if I make the same change and run the report it prompts for the start and end dates but it does NOT prompt me for "somerandomthing" and simply displays #Name?

Can somebody please help me figure out what's going on with this? I'm fairly familiar with Office in general but Access is by far my weakest field. I'm stumbling blindly here and its driving me crazy. Any help would be appreciated!

For what it's worth, I can put the chart in the TXT report, but when I do that it asks me for start and end dates TWICE, once for the chart, once for the header. How can I either link these up or make the separate report work?

[June7]

Use a form to input criteria into textboxes. Have report refer to the form controls for input parameters.

I never use query input parameter prompts because can't validate the entry and value not available for other processes.