I have a report that is currently separated into two reports, and I'd like to merge them.
Basically it boils down to this:
I ask the user if they want to have a page break for each Property, if they answer yes, I sort/group by Property and then I sort by X
If the user answers no, I want to just sort/group by X
I've tried suppressing the initial Grouping if the user answers No, but it still sorts accordingly (not how I want it to).
How can I do this without keeping it in two reports?
Instead of suppressing the grouping field, try setting it to an empty string "". I was just working on a report last week that was very similar. Even if 'no grouping' was selected, the report was still being grouped by some unknown default. In the formula grouping field, I found that if 'no grouping' was selected the field was not getting set at all. Once I changed it to set the field to an empty string, the report generated as expected.
Are you grouping or sorting? If you do not use the group header/footer it is basically the same as sorting and you should simply use the record sort.
In general, to conditionally group fields you would use formulas. For this to work the fields in question need to be returned as the same type: number, string, date, etc. In your case it sounds like the first grouping formula would be like this...
//{?break_by_property} would be the parameter value to control the page break
if {?break_by_property) then
{the_property_field}
else
"" //any static value of the same type as {the_property_field}
now go the "new page before" formula for that group header and enter this boolean formula (groupnumber is a special keyword)...
{?break_by_property} and groupnumber > 1
then add a record sort for X.