your suggestions on scenario #1 did the trick. it is working now. THANKS!!! for scenario #2 - i want to create a pie chart that shows the total number of each value for cases_priority (those are P1, P2, etc). i have used the following setup -- key expression -- $F{cases_priority} ==> this works and shows the various categories available within the database EXcEPT for categories where there are 0 records matching that category value expression -- this is where i am stuck -- i just want the chart to use the total count of each category as the value here BUT i cannot get the expression to evaluate correctly. i have an individual count for each category separately (for example 65 occurances of P1) but no way to have it select a category and then count the occurances of that value. i need a way to express a count of each cases_priority and sort by the value of cases_priority (ie. P1, P2, P3, etc).