Help with Formula Fields Basics

  • Thread starter Thread starter Carol Steinel
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Carol Steinel

I am still plugging away at learning how to work with Formula Fields. Have
purchased Jumpstart for Admin, etc., and am working my way through it, but
can't seem to find any really basic discussion of the basic syntax for
formula fields in forms. The VBA programming part of the book is beyond my
ken at this point, though I aspire to learn it all someday :-).

I'm trying to get a grip on the basic use of the formulas available in
fields, how to write them, etc., but can't find any really BASIC
information -- all the stuff I turn up on searches is beyond the basic ABCs
of it, assuming that I know what datediff does or does not do. I could just
cut and paste stuff from searches, but I want to understand what I'm doing
and why it works (or doesn't) so that I can apply concepts to other
projects.

Can anyone point me to something extremely basic about JUST the formulas
(and their syntax) available in forms -- I'm not ready to tackle VBA just
yet, and suspect the things I want to do are available with simple formula
fields. Reading about the syntax in VBA has not really illuminated me -- it
looks very different from the syntax in the formulas. I recognize that this
may just be my ignorance, and if so, direct me back to the book. I will
read dilligently.

I have searched MS Help, googled extensively, slipstick, etc., but can't
seem to find a basic primer on formulas in form fields. Like, what
operators work or do not work, with what. Does this information exist
somewhere?

Thanks for any help at all, even if to tell me to go back and read it all
again.

Carol Steinel

ps to Sue Mosher -- your much-appreciated help on my previous post did lead
me to a solution, although it took me forever reading through various stuff
to realize that I had to use: <>"None", rather than <>""-- that's the kind
of stuff I'm talking about. Didn't realize Outlook would be looking at the
actual entry in the field rather than just the fact that I'd left it empty.

Thanks!
 
On my page at http://www.slipstick.com/dev/forms.htm#key, there are links to three little articles I wrote a while back all about formulas. They explain the difference between formula fields and validation formulas, which is where I think a lot of people get stuck. In the book, you'll need to skip ahead to pp. 348-9 and 354-6.

The best way to see what syntax is supported is to play around with the little formula editor -- click Edit -- that lets you see the different functions available. As with everything involved with Outlook development, it pays to experiement on your own and see what results you get when you try a function you're not familiar with. Most of the functions are also supported in VBA, so you can type them into a VBA code window, highlight the function, then press F1 to get the related Help topic that explains, for example, what DateDiff() does and what kind of data each argument takes.

That said, there are still gotchas galore that you just have to deal with as you come to them. That's what these newsgroups are for. Don't hesitate to ask, "Can I make a formula that does XX?" A lot of us learn best by working out practical problems. ANd those are more fun than studying formula theory anyway.

--
Sue Mosher, Outlook MVP
Outlook and Exchange solutions at http://www.slipstick.com
Author of
Microsoft Outlook Programming: Jumpstart
for Administrators, Power Users, and Developers
 
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