Introduction

In its most common use, a query process allows you to select which records are to appear in a report, and to specify the sequence of data in the report. For example, you may have a report that contains information about your customers. You may want to include all customers in one version of the report, and limit the next report to customers in a particular region. You control this factor by specifying different selection criteria when you run the report. In addition, you may want the report sorted by customer name for one purpose and, on another occasion, sorted by region. An APPX query process allows you to run the same report twice, specifying a different sequence each time.

You can also use a query in conjunction with an update process to select and/or sort a set of records that are to be used or updated. Although the examples in this section are limited to queries that are used with an output process, the information applies to any queries, regardless of the type of process they are used with.