In Microsoft Access I am trying to create a form to enter expense reports by their type of expense (i.e. Airfare, Meal). These expense reports often have multiple charges for each type of expense that I would normally have to add up each expense from each type before entering the total number for that type into the form. Of course this, while doable, is tedious as each type could have upwards of 20 charges.
What I want to do, and am wonder if it is at all possible, is enter all entries into one single form field that sums them all in order to be displayed.
If it helps this is what i'm imagining:
(10,15,30,5) all get entered into one field in a form
then 60 is shown because 10+15+30+5=60
I am wonder if this is at all possible and if it was, how would I be able to do it?
It is doable - read "10,15,30,5" as a string, convert it to an array using Split, then sum the elements of this array as numbers to obtain the sum.
However, this would be even more tedious and also error prone than doing it the right way from the beginning. Too smart shortcuts seldom pay off.
Related
I am an extreme newbie to COGNOS (5 days give or take a few hrs) and have been thrown in the deep end.
I have a data package i am working with and the only date field I can use has the property of timestamp. I have looked through other questions that are similar and i have used the "CAST" function to turn the field into a date so this has worked.
cast ( [TR_Logical Layer].[Fact Event].[Period Datetime],DATE) - so I was happy with that.
However now when I am building the graph, I am getting repeated dates - and I can only think that this is because somehow it is still holding onto the timestamp portion of the field.
Please how can i get all of my many dates for say the 21st Jul to be one?
Possible issue: Repeating is probably due to how it is grouped (down to the time which would have the day repeating)
Suggested solution: Add a determinant to control granularity and grouping
Here are the steps
https://www.ibm.com/docs/en/cognos-analytics/11.1.0?topic=determinants-specifying
Click the query subject you want, and click Actions, Edit Definition.
Click the Determinants tab.
Click Add under the Determinants box.
The entry New Determinant displays in the box. To give this entry a meaningful name, right-click it, and click Rename.
To define a key, right-click a query item in the Available items box and click Add as Key. Tip: You can also drag query items to the Key box.
To identify which query items should be associated with this determinant, right-click query items in the Available items box, and click Add as Attributes.
Tip: You can also drag query items to the Attributes box.
You can have a determinant with no attributes defined for it. Framework Manager uses this type of determinant to indicate which query items are indexed.
To specify that the selected determinant should be used as the unique identifier, select the Uniquely Identified check box.
Do this only if the data in this item is unique for every row in the underlying data source. You can specify more than one unique determinant if they are truly unique. At query time, the relationship being used will determine which unique determinant to use.
Select the Group By check box to indicate that when keys or attributes associated with that determinant are repeated in the data, IBM® Cognos® Analytics should apply aggregate functions and grouping to avoid double-counting.
If you want to change the order of the determinants, use the arrow buttons.
Determinants are processed in the order in which they are specified in the model.
Click OK
I am using Microsoft Access 2016. I am trying to find out how many years exist from the current year until a future year. I have a column that is end_date. I am trying to create a calculated field that is essentially YEAR(end_date) - YEAR(current_year). I tried to use YEAR(DATE()) but DATE() is not allowed to be used in a calculated field apparently.
Is there no way to do a calculation like this?
Nope. Calculated fields are cached and static, so are NEVER allowed to contain ANY information that will change over time, due to system settings, or anything else that is not directly entered in that row.
However, you should not be using calculated fields anyway. See http://allenbrowne.com/casu-14.html, among many posts advocating for not using calculated fields.
Instead, use queries to do calculations. That way, you won't have any trouble using the current date, and won't have to deal with the possible errors and portability issues calculated fields come with.
I changed my thinking to calculate this in a form. It does not seem good practice to have a field in a DB that changes everyday.
In a form, you can use this expression as controlsource for a textbox:
=DateDiff("yyyy",Date(),[EndDate])
However, that return the difference in calendar years. To find the count of full years, use a function like AgeSimple and this expression:
=AgeSimple([EndDate])
I have a calculation and it outputs multiple values. Then I am creating a table on those values. For example, in below data my formula is
if data is 1 then calculation is `one`
if data is 2 then calculation is `two`
if data is 3 then calculation is `three`
as three doesn't really appear in the output, when I create a table, three is not displayed. Is there any way to display it?
I tried table layout >> show empty rows and columns and it didn't work
data calculation
1 one
2 two
Tableau discovers the possible values for a dimension field dynamically from the query results.
If ‘three’ does not appear in your data, then how do you expect Tableau to know to make a column header for that non existent, but potential, value? It can’t read your mind.
This situation does occur often though - perhaps you want row or column headers to remain stable, even when you change filters in a way that causes some to no longer appear in the query results.
There are a few ways you can force Tableau to pad ** or **complete a domain:
one solution is to pad your data to make sure each value for your dimension field appears in at least one data row.
You can often do this easily by using a union to append some extra rows to your original data. You can often add padding rows that don’t impact any results by leaving all your Measure columns null since nulls are ignored by aggregation functions
Another common solution that is a bit more effort is to make what is known as scaffolding data source that is not much more than a list of your dimension members. You can then use that data source as a primary data source with data blending, making your original data source secondary.
There are two situations where Tableau can detect the absence of data and leave space for it in the visualization automatically
for numeric types, you can create a bin field that will automatically pad for missing bins
similarly, date fields can show missing values because, like bins, Tableau can tell when a month doesn’t appear in the data and leave room for it in the view
I'm trying to get a formula that will break down the amount of times a user enters a contest each day.
I'm pretty new to this whole thing, basically putting it together using google to figure out the code I need to use/modify. Explaining why something works would be greatly appreciated so I can use it elsewhere!
Here's a dummy of the form I'm banging my head against.
I would like the form to be reusable, so on the Sorted form I have a date key that automatically fills out the week when you choose the first day. Because of this, I would like each formula to refer to this date key, instead of manually typing the google equivalent of 'February 1st, 2015' into the formula.
I've tried to use the SUMIFS formula, and I've run in to a few errors.
Apparently both pages have to be the same amount of rows, otherwise I get an 'Array arguments to SUMIFS are of different size'. I didn't want my 'sorted' sheet to be 1761 rows long, since all of the duplicate names will have been condensed and I wanted it prettier. Nuts to that! Guess I can hide the rows? Is there any other solution?
It looks like this works:
=SUMIFS(Entered!E3:E1000, Sorted!E3:E1000, Sorted!$E3, Entered!A3:A1000, date(Sorted!$C7))
Where entered!E: is the number of entries, sortedE: is the list of usernames, and E3 is the specific one I'm looking for. Then EnteredA3 is the list of dates and time, and Sorted!C7 is the specific date I'm looking for. I don't get any results!
If I click on my C7 and sorted!A, the little calender pops up, which means they are dates (I think?). One includes the hours:minutes:seconds and the other doesn't, which I think is my problem. I would like to have sorted!C7 be the entire day, and filter out all of those entries.
This is taking information entered via a google form which I won't have control of, so I can't really change the H:M:S additions to the date column.
Thinking ahead to day 2 and onwards, will the same formula work when sorted!C10 is C$7$+1? Is it not a date anymore?
I would also like to add up the amount of daily entries, in sorted!S7 and below. I've tried wrapping both the column of dates and the date from my day key in the date() thing, but it doesn't seem to work either.
=SUMIF(date(Entered!A3:A),date(Sorted!C7),Entered!E3:E)
It gives me a '1', and I have no idea where that comes from.
I haven't been able to find much about the google SUMIFS function, mostly how to replicate it from before it was a thing.
And for even MORE complexity:
I was wondering if it is possible to have UNIQUE find the IDs in entered!C, and return all the associated usernames. That pesky angelo changed their username to 'pants' midway through the contest, and I'd like to be able to see both names and add up both 'angelo' and 'pants' entries in the same line in my formulas.
I feel like I'll need a few hidden columns that have the UNIQUE ID number and the associated usernames that I pull into my Sorted!Username column, but I don't know how to search the IDs to find the different usernames.
I tried to google that, but I have no idea what I'm googling.
Whewph! That is a lot of questions, thanks for any help!
Too long for my taste, but you might try:
=sumifs(Entered!E:E,Entered!A:A,">="&$C$7,Entered!A:A,"<"&$C$7+1,Entered!B:B,$E3)
in Sorted!F3 and copied down to suit.
Oh my goodness, you are a hero!
My final code wound up being:
=IF(ISBLANK(Sorted!$E3)=TRUE, "", sumifs('Entered'!$E:$E,'Entered'!$A:$A,">="&$C$7,'Entered'!$A:$A,"<"&$C$7+1,'Entered'!$B:$B,$E3))
I changed the start and end points by making $C$7 into $C$7+1, and the ending one into +2. (In case anyone else is looking at this answer.)
I'm super pleased that it worked!
Using this I managed to add up each of the daily entries, just by adding up the columns they were in.
I gave up on the UNIQUE idea, if someone changes their username during the contest, then they can add up the two rows themselves.
Thanks again! I'd upvote you, but I can't yet.
OK I have a Master Table of shipments, and a separate Charges table. There are millions of records in each, and it's come into Filemaker from a legacy system, so all the fields are defined as Text even though they may be Date, Number, etc.
There's a date field in the charges table. I want to create a number field to represent just the year. I can use the Middle function to parse the field and get just the year in a Calculation field. But wouldn't it be faster to have the year as a literal number field, especially since I'm going to be filtering and sorting? So how do I turn this calculation into its value? I've tried just changing the Calculation field to Number, but it just renders blanks.
There's something wrong with your calculation, it should not turn blank just because field type is different. I.e.:
Middle("10-12-2010", 7, 4)
should suffice, provided the calc result is set to Number. You may also wrap it into GetAsNumber(...), but, really, there's no difference as long as field type is right.
If you have FM Advanced, try to set up your calc in the Data Viewer (Tools -> Data Viewer) rather than in Define Fields, this would be faster and, once you like the result, you can transfer it into a field or make a replace. But, from the searching/sorting standpoint there's no difference between a (stored) calculation and a regular field, so replacing is pointless and, actually, more dangerous, as there's no way to undo a wrong replace.
Here's what i was looking for, from
http://help.filemaker.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/3366/~/converting-unstored-calculation-fields-to-store-data
:
Basically, instead of using a
Calculation field, you create am EMPTY
Number, date or text field and use
Replace Field Contents from the Records menu, and put
your calculation (or reference, or
both) there.
Not dissing FileMaker at all, but millions of records means FileMaker is probably the wrong choice here. Your system will be slow, slow, slow. FileMaker is great for workgroups and there is no way to develop a database app faster. But one thing FileMaker is not good at is handling huge numbers of records.
BTW, Mikhail Edoshin is exactly right.