---
id: accum
title: accum Search Operator
sidebar_label: accum
description: Use the accum operator to calculate the cumulative sum of a numeric field in your search results.
slug: /help/docs/search/search-query-language/search-operators/accum/
canonical: https://www.sumologic.com/help/docs/search/search-query-language/search-operators/accum/
---

import useBaseUrl from '@docusaurus/useBaseUrl';

The `accum` operator calculates the cumulative sum of a field. It can be used to find a count by a specific time interval and can be used to find a total running count across all intervals.

## Syntax

`accum <field> [as <field>] [by <field1>, <field2>, ...]`

## Rules

* An alias for accum is optional. When an alias is not provided, `_accum` is the default alias.
* Specified fields must contain numeric values.
* If a row contains non-numeric values, that row will be skipped.
* To add a query that includes an accum operator to a Dashboard, you
    must add a group by function before the accum operator.

## Examples

### Requests by running total
With the accum operator, we can find the number of requests by a user as a running total. Running a query similar to:

```sumo
_sourceCategory=IIS/Access (Wyatt OR Luke)
| parse "* * * * * * * * " as date, time, csmethod, cs_uri_stem, cs_uri_query, s_port, c_ip, cs_username
| timeslice by 1m
| count as requests by _timeslice,cs_username
| sort by _timeslice asc,cs_username
| accum requests as running_total
```

produces results of a running total of all requests, similar to:

<img src={useBaseUrl('img/search/searchquerylanguage/search-operators/Accum.png')} alt="Accum" style={{border: '1px solid gray'}} width="500" />

### Running total by user name

Another option is to find a running
total for each user's requests. Running a query similar to:

```sumo
_sourceCategory=IIS/Access (Wyatt OR Luke)
| parse "* * * * * * * * " as date, time, csmethod, cs_uri_stem, cs_uri_query, s_port, c_ip, cs_username
| timeslice by 1m
| count as requests by _timeslice,cs_username
| sort by _timeslice asc,cs_username
| accum requests as running_total by cs_username
```

produces results of a running total for each user's requests, similar to:

<img src={useBaseUrl('img/search/searchquerylanguage/search-operators/AccumByUser.png')} alt="Accum by user" style={{border: '1px solid gray'}} width="500" />