Tag: formulas

SharePoint Calculated Column Formulas & Functions – The Essential Guide

Written by Keith Tuomi on . Posted in Lists, Office 365, SharePoint 2010, SharePoint Online. 137 Comments


  • SharePoint uses pretty much the same engine as Excel for it’s calculated columns and field validation stuff. There are some exceptions, such as NETWORKDAYS and some other functions not being included. Try prototyping your formulas in Excel first and then applying them to SharePoint.

    The goal of this page is to become the definitive list of formulas and operations used in SharePoint Calculated Columns. I try to answer all formula requests but i’d rather see you learn the fundamentals than get a quick fix, so please read all references carefully before submitting a scenario via the comments.

    In terms of “programming is hard” – there’s not a whole lot to this stuff as it is very well defined and encapsulated. Once you master it, you will be the new Office rockstar- careers have been built on this.

    Did I miss one? Please drop a note in the comments and i’ll get it added!

    Type Explanation Output
    NUMBERS  0
    Profit Shows the percentage profit on a sale (tick “Show as percentage”) 10%
    ([Price]-[Cost])/[Cost]
    Markup Gives a price from a cost and a percentage markup $120.00
    [Cost]*(1+[Markup])
    Commission Gives the commission due on a sale (based on a commission %) $25.00
    [Sale]*[Commission]
    Formatting Formatted with $ curency, comma thousand seperator and 2 decimal places $1234.56
    TEXT([Sales],”$#,###.00″);
    Negative numbers in brackets (95.99)
    TEXT([Sales],”#,###.00;(#,###.00)”);
    OPERATORS
    & Concatanate (put two text values or fields together)
    4 & “3”     		43
    ^ Power (e.g. [Field]^2 = Squared)
    4^3    		 64
    /, +, -, * Divide, Add, Subtract, Multiply
    RELATIONAL OPERATORS
    = (Equal to) > (Greater than) >= (Greater than or equal to)
    <> Not equal to) < (Less than) <= (Less than or equal to)
    DATE AND TIME
    Time only TEXT([DateTimeField],”hh:mm:ss”) 01:21:51
    Weekday TEXT([DateField],”dddd”) Wednesday
    TEXT([DateField],”ddd”) Wed
    Month TEXT([DateField],”mmmm”) October
    TEXT([DateField],”mmm”) Oct
    Year TEXT([DateField],”yyyy”) 2012
    TEXT([DateField],”yy”) 12
    Combinations TEXT([DateField],”mmmm dd, yyyy” October 17, 2012
    Fiscal Year Shows which fiscal year a date falls in (1st October)
    FY & IF(DATE(YEAR([Date]), 10, 1)>[Date], YEAR([Date]), YEAR([Date])+1) FY 2012
    Season Shows which season a date falls in. Takes into account one month offset from quarter.
    CHOOSE(INT((MOD(MONTH(When)+1,12)/4))+
    1,”Winter”,”Spring”,”Summer”,”Autumn”)    		 Spring
    Quarter Shows which quarter a date falls in
    Q & INT((MONTH([Date])-1)/3)+1 Q1
    Q & INT((MONTH([Date])-1)/3)+1 & “-” & YEAR([Date]) Q1-2012
    Week Number Shows the week number (US style)
    ROUNDDOWN(([Date]-DATE(YEAR([Date]),1,1)+
    WEEKDAY(DATE(YEAR([Date]),1,1))-WEEKDAY([Date])+1)/7,0)+1    		 5
    Week Commencing Shows the date of the first day of the week (useful for grouping by week)
    [Date]-WEEKDAY([Date])+1 3/4/2012
    Day/Night Shows whether time is day or night
    IF(AND(HOUR([Time])>6,HOUR([Time])<18),”Day”,”Night”) Day
    AM/PM Shows whether a time is AM or PM
    IF(HOUR([Time]) < 12,”AM”,”PM”) PM
    OTHER
    Modified Shows whether an item has been modified since creation
    IF([Modified] > [Created], “Changed”, “Original”) Changed
    Marks out of ten Gives general comments on a mark out of ten
    CHOOSE(INT([Marks]/3),”Bad”,”Poor”,”Good”,”Great”) Great
    Random String Chooses a string at random, based on the time (in seconds)
    CHOOSE(MOD(TEXT(Created,”s”),2)+1,”String A”,”String B”, “String C”) String C
    TEXT
    TEXT (Value, Format) Converts Value to a Text value, using Format 2012|04
    TEXT([Created], “yyyy|mm”)
    REPT (Text, Number) Repeats Text the given Number of times HelloHelloHello
    REPT(“Hello”,3)
    FIXED (Num, Dec, NoCommas) Returns Number with the given number of decimals as text (commas optional)
    FIXED(2044.23,1,TRUE) 2044.23
    FIXED(2044.23,0,FALSE) 2,044
    LEN (Text) The length of Text 4
    LEN(“Hola”)
    LEFT (Text, Number) Return X characters from the left
    LEFT(“The Quick Brown Fox”, 5) The Q
    RIGHT (Text, Number) Return X characters from the right
    RIGHT(“The Quick Brown Fox”, 5) n Fox
    MID (Text, Num1, Num2) Returns Number2 characters from the middle of Text, starting at Number1
    MID(“The Quick Brown Fox”, 4, 15) Quick Brown
    SEARCH (Text1, Text2, Num) Returns the index of Text1 within Text2,starting the search at index Number
    SEARCH(“Banana”, “Banana Banana”, 4) 8
    LOWER (Text) Text in lower case
    LOWER(“Hello”) hello
    UPPER (Text) Text in upper case
    UPPER(“Hello”) HELLO
    PROPER (Text) Capitalize first letter of each word
    PROPER(“good morning”) Good Morning
    TRIM (Text) Removes spaces from the start and end
    TRIM(” Hello “) Hello
    CLEAN (Text) Returns Text without non-printable characters added by clipboard or similar
    CLEAN(“String1? String2??”) String1 String2
    REPLACE (T1, N1, N2, T2) Replaces Number2 characters starting at Number1 from Text1 with Text2
    REPLACE(“Hello”,2,4,”i”) Hi
    CONCATENATE (T1, T2, …) Combines the string values together into one string
    CONCATENATE(“A”,” Fine “,”Morning”) A Fine Morning
    DOLLAR (Number, Decimals) Converts number to currency text, with the given number of decimals
    DOLLAR(11.267,2) $11.27
    EXACT (Text1, Text2) Checks if two text values are identical, returns boolean
    EXACT(“Hello”,”hello”) False
    MATH
    SUM (Number1, Number2, …) Returns the total of all Numbers and number-like values
    SUM(0, 2, “26”, 100, TRUE) 128
    MINA (Number1, Number2, …) Gets the smallest of the numbers, including non-number values
    MINA(0, 2, “26”, 100, “MyString”, TRUE) 0
    MIN (Number1, Number2, …) Gets the smallest of the numbers, including Text fields containing numbers
    MIN(0, 1, “26”, 100) 0
    MAXA (Number1, Number2, …) Gets the largest of the numbers, including on-number values
    MAXA(0, 2, “26”, 100, “MyString”, TRUE) 100
    COUNTA (Value1, Value2, …) Counts all values, including empty text (“”), ignoring empty columns
    COUNTA(5, 0,TRUE) 3
    COUNT (Num1, Num2, …) Averages the Numbers, ignoring non-Number values
    COUNT(5, 0,TRUE) 2
    AVERAGEA (Num1, Num2, …) Averages the Numbers, non-Number values are interpreted
    AVERAGEA(5,0, TRUE) 2
    AVERAGE (Num1, Num2, …) Averages the Numbers, ignoring non-Number values
    AVERAGE(10, 0, “”, “0”) 5
    VALUE (Text) Converts Text to a Number, Date or Time, according to its format
    VALUE(“00:05”) 00:05
    TRUNC (Number) Returns Number with decimals removed
    TRUNC(14.999999) 14
    SQRT (Number) Returns the square root
    SQRT(25) 5
    SIGN (Number) Returns -1 for negative numbers, 1 for positive, and 0 when 0
    SIGN(-5.2786) -1
    ROUNDUP (Num1, Num2) Rounds Number1 to Number2 decimals, always rounding up
    ROUNDUP(22.0001, 0) 23
    ROUNDDOWN (Num1, Num2) Rounds Number1 to Number2 decimals, always rounding down
    ROUNDDOWN(122.492, 1) 122.4
    ROUND (Number1, Number2) Rounds Number1 to Number2 decimals
    ROUND(221.298, 1) 221.6
    PI () Returns Pi to 15 decimal places
    PI() 3.14159265358979
    ODD (Number) Rounds Number up to the nearest odd number
    ODD(1.5) 3
    MOD (Number1, Number2) Returns the remainder of Number1 divided by Number2
    MOD(5, 4) 1
    EVEN (Number) Rounds Number up to the nearest even number
    EVEN(0.5) 2
    ABS (Number) Makes a number positive if it is negative
    ABS(-1) 1
    LOGICAL
    AND (Condition1, Condition2) Returns True if both conditions are True
    AND(4>=3,3>2) True
    OR (Condition1, Condition2) Returns True if either condition is True
    OR(4>=3, 3<2) True
    NOT (Condition1) Returns the opposite to the condition
    NOT(1=1) False
    CHOOSE(Num, Val1, Val2, …) Returns the value corresponding to the number. Up to 29 values can be used.
    CHOOSE(2, “A”, “B”, “C”, “D”) B
    IF(Condition, Val1, Val2) If Conditon is true, return Value1, otherwise return Value2
    IF([Modified] > [Created], “Changed”, Original) Changed
    ERROR & TYPE CHECKING
    ISTEXT (Value) Returns True if Value is Text
    ISTEXT(99) False
    ISNUMBER (Value) Returns True if Value is a Number, oherwise False
    ISNUMBER(99) { True
    ISNONTEXT (Value) Returns True if Value is not text or is empty, False otherwise
    ISNONTEXT(99) True
    ISNA (Value) Returns True if Value returns error #N/A, otherwise False
    ISERR(#N/A) True
    ISLOGICAL (Value) Returns True if Value returns a logical value (True or False), False otherwise
    ISLOGICAL(FALSE) True
    ISERR (Value) Returns True if Value returns an error (except #N/A), otherwise False
    ISERR(#REF!) True
    ISBLANK (Value) Returns True if Value is empty, otherwise False
    IF(ISBLANK([Attendee]) Needs Attendee
    FORBIDDEN COLUMNS
    Lookup columns Not supported
    [ID] Only works on column addition/update, will not work from then on
    [Today] and [Me] Only available in default columns

    AND function

    Returns the logical value TRUE if all of the arguments are TRUE; returns FALSE if one or more arguments is FALSE.

    Syntax

    AND(logical1,logical2,…)

    Logical1, logical2, … are 1 to 30 conditions you want to test that can be either TRUE or FALSE.

    Remarks

    • The arguments must evaluate to logical values such as TRUE or FALSE, or the arguments must be column references that contain logical values.
    • If a column reference argument contains text, AND returns the #VALUE! error value; if it is empty, it returns FALSE.
    • If the arguments contain no logical values, AND returns the #VALUE! error value.

    Example 1

    Formula Description (Result)
    =AND(TRUE, TRUE) All arguments are TRUE (Yes)
    =AND(TRUE, FALSE) One argument is FALSE (No)
    =AND(2+2=4, 2+3=5) All arguments evaluate to TRUE (Yes)

    Example 2

    Col1 Col2 Formula Description (Result)
    50 104 =AND(1<[Col1], [Col1]<100) Because 50 is between 1 and 100 (Yes)
    50 104 =IF(AND(1<[Col2], [Col2]<100), [Col2], “The value is out of range.”) Displays the second number, if it is between 1 and 100, otherwise displays a message (The value is out of range.)
    50 104 =IF(AND(1<[Col1], [Col1]<100), [Col1], “The value is out of range.”) Displays the first number, if it is between 1 and 100, otherwise displays a message (50)

    OR function

    Description

    Returns TRUE if any argument is TRUE; returns FALSE if all arguments are FALSE.

    Syntax

    OR(logical1, [logical2], ...)

    The OR function syntax has the following arguments (argument: A value that provides information to an action, an event, a method, a property, a function, or a procedure.):

    • Logical1, logical2, … Logical1 is required, subsequent logical values are optional. 1 to 255 conditions you want to test that can be either TRUE or FALSE.

    Remarks

  • Common Date & Time Formulas

    Get Week of the year =DATE(YEAR([Start Time]),MONTH([Start Time]),DAY([Start Time]))+0.5-WEEKDAY(DATE(YEAR([Start Time]),MONTH([Start Time]),DAY([Start Time])),2)+1

    First day of the week for a given date: =[Start Date]-WEEKDAY([Start Date])+1

    Last day of the week for a given date: =[End Date]+7-WEEKDAY([End Date])

    First day of the month for a given date: =DATEVALUE(“1/”&MONTH([Start Date])&”/”&YEAR([Start Date]))

    Last day of the month for a given year (does not handle Feb 29). Result is in date format: =DATEVALUE (CHOOSE(MONTH([End Date]),31,28,31,30,31,30,31,31,30,31,30,31) &”/” & MONTH([End Date])&”/”&YEAR([End Date])) Day Name of the week : e.g Monday, Mon =TEXT(WEEKDAY([Start Date]), “dddd”) =TEXT(WEEKDAY([Start Date]), “ddd”)

    The name of the month for a given date – numbered for sorting – e.g. 01. January: =CHOOSE(MONTH([Date Created]),”01. January”, “02. February”, “03. March”, “04. April”, “05. May” , “06. June” , “07. July” , “08. August” , “09. September” , “10. October” , “11. November” , “12. December”)

    Get Hours difference between two Date-Time : =IF(NOT(ISBLANK([End Time])),([End Time]-[Start Time])*24,0)

    Date Difference in days – Hours – Min format : e.g 4days 5hours 10min : =YEAR(Today)-YEAR(Created)-IF(OR(MONTH(Today)<MONTH(Created),AND(MONTH(Today)=MONTH(Created), DAY(Today)<DAY(Created))),1,0)&” years, “&MONTH(Today)-MONTH(Created)+IF(AND(MONTH(Today) < =MONTH(Created),DAY(Today)<DAY(Created)),11,IF(AND(MONTH(Today)<MONTH(Created),DAY(Today) > =DAY(Created)),12,IF(AND(MONTH(Today)>MONTH(Created),DAY(Today)<DAY(Created)),-1)))&” months, “&Today-DATE(YEAR(Today),MONTH(Today)-IF(DAY(Today)<DAY(Created),1,0),DAY(Created))&” days”

    Display SharePoint List Items Age: Create a SharePoint Calculated Column to Display a List Item as “X” Days Old
    =YEAR(Today)-YEAR(Created)-IF(OR(MONTH(Today)<MONTH(Created),AND(MONTH(Today)=MONTH(Created),
    DAY(Today)<DAY(Created))),1,0)&” years, “&MONTH(Today)-MONTH(Created)+IF(AND(MONTH(Today)
    <=MONTH(Created),DAY(Today)<DAY(Created)),11,IF(AND(MONTH(Today)<MONTH(Created),DAY(Today)
    >=DAY(Created)),12,IF(AND(MONTH(Today)>MONTH(Created),DAY(Today)<DAY(Created)),-1)))&” months,
    “&Today-DATE(YEAR(Today),MONTH(Today)-IF(DAY(Today)<DAY(Created),1,0),DAY(Created))&” days”

    Workdays Logic

    Here’s a basic approach for Calculated Columns workdays logic: Working Days, Weekdays and Holidays in SharePoint Calculated Columns: http://blog.pentalogic.net/2008/11/working-days-weekdays-holidays-sharepoint-calculated-columns/

    This shows how to combine an approach like that into Workflow logic: Limiting SharePoint Workflow Due Dates to Business Days: http://dlairman.wordpress.com/2010/10/14/limiting-sharepoint-workflow-due-dates-to-business-days/”>http://dlairman.wordpress.com/2010/10/14/limiting-sharepoint-workflow-due-dates-to-business-days/</a

    Calculate work days excluding holidays in InfoPath 2010 using SharePoint 2010 and Excel Services: http://www.bizsupportonline.net/blog/2011/02/calculate-work-days-exclude-holidays-infopath-2010-sharepoint-2010-excel-services/

    A blanket warning about anything to do with time & date programming and specific ranges like work days – always keep in mind that there’s: – Your Application logic’s concept of work week – SharePoint’s regional time and date, locale & work week settings – The Users desktop/profile settings such as region, timezone, personal variations such as different work days

  • DON’T FORGET – if you really can’t seem to come up with a formula that suits your needs based on what’s available in Excel/SharePoint formulas and functions, chances are you can achieve what you need with either:

    Option A – (SharePoint 2013 only) Use JSLink to do your calculations in JavaScript on the client side. Here’s an article on the basics of implementing JSLink in SharePoint 2013. After that, you have the whole JavaScript language at your disposal to do calculations on the fly. There are plenty of JS/Jquery libraries such as this one that can handle the heavy lifting for you.

    Option B – (SharePoint 2010/2007 only) Whip up some custom XSLT as described here and make your own custom columns that play by the rules you define there.


  • If you are still stumped after reading the information on this page, feel free to drop your question in the comments section at the bottom of the page and i’ll do my best, time-permitting, to help you out. This stuff takes stubbornness more than brains so chances are, if you stick it out, you can solve the scenario on your own and learn for next time. Please give it a go on your own first before posing a question here!

    The hardest part of Calculated columns for most people is figuring out how to combine multiple functions and values together into one formula- the following article is great for explaining that part:
    http://searchengineland.com/a-foolproof-approach-to-writing-complex-excel-formulas-146641

    Make sure your formula is not capping out on one of the following limits:
    Formula length: 1024 characters
    Calculation length: 2048 characters
    Filter length: 256 characters

    You can avoid broken formulas by adhering to this basic Excel guidance (only SharePoint-related sections listed below):