Grand Totals with Nested Sub Totals

[Brenda from Michigan]

User has Excel 2002 (10.6834.6830) SP3

We have applied patch KB892097 and have done a Registry fix that this patch
appears to require.

Problem: Before this patch was done to correct the way Sub Totals work, the
client would do 5-nested sub totals and Excel would put 5-Grand Total rows at
the bottom, all with the same number. Since the patch, there is only one
Grand Totals row at the bottom. Is this working as designed? Why the change?

Thank you for any responses.

 

[Tyro]

A Grand Total is just that. One total for the numbers above it. That's why
it's called a "Grand Total". As in: 5, 3 Subtotal 8. 4, 7 Subtotal 11. Grand
Total 19
Why would you want to see: 5, 3 Subtotal 8. 4, 7 Subtotal 11. Grand Total
19. Grand Total 19

Tyro

 

[Dave Peterson]

Maybe...

Multilevel subtotals are in the wrong position in Excel 2002 and in Excel 2003
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;831824

 

[Brenda from Michigan]

Personally, I happen to agree. However, the fact is that before applying the
patch, I saw the evidence that a separate Grand Total was created for each
separate sub-total that was run. The user wants to know why that is
different after the patch.

My intuition tells me it was incorrect the way it originally worked and it
was 'fixed' with the patch. The user wants me to find out why it was changed
if possible.

Thank you for your input.

 

[Tyro]

"Grand Totals" should occur only once in the totaling process. That is why
they are called "Grand Totals" - i.e. summation of all lower minor and
intermediate totals.

Tyro

 

[Tyro]

The patch corrected the appearance of multiple "Grand Totals". As I said,
"Grand Totals" appear only once. Having them appear multiple times serves no
purpose

Tyro

 

[Tyro]

Think of it like spending money. In week one, you spend x dollars on 20
items which you itemize in 20 rows. Then you put a total for week one. You
repeat the process for weeks 2 through 52. So you have 52 weekly totals. At
the end you have one "Grand Total" that sums the 52 weekly totals to tell
you how much you spent in the 52 weeks.

Tyro

 

[Brenda from Michigan]

The user asked me to pass along a message to you. The reason she liked
having separate Grand Totals is that it confirmed for her none of the numbers
had changed. When I "speculated" that having those multiple Grand Totals was
really an error that Microsoft had corrected with the patch answered her
question as to why it now looks different.

Dave's link gave us the option of a registry hack which caused the
sub-totals feature to revert back to Excel 97/2000 functionality. She does
not want to go backwards so declined that option.

Thanks again to Dave and Tyro for your helpful input.