Computed field - a virtual field that contains data from other fields for quick coping to outside of EPIM / extra 'combined' columns / simple calculations.
- epim_contacts_computed_field1.png (5.23 KiB) Viewed 1381 times
- epim_contacts_computed_field2.png (16.07 KiB) Viewed 1381 times
In the examples below I'm going to use something similar to foobar2000 syntax for custom columns. I think it's simple enough to understand and at the same time quite a powerful way of configuring virtual fields. But the syntax itself isn't important, here it's just a way to demonstrate what I'm talking about.
Let's assume we have a contact with fields + data:
First Name: John
Last Name: Smith
Birthday: 30.01.1956
then in the Computed Field:
%First Name% will be replaced with John.
%First Name% %Last Name% will be replaced with John Smith.
%Last Name%, %First Name% will be replaced with Smith, John.
[%Last Name%, ]%First Name% will be replaced with Smith, John. But if the field Last Name is empty, it'll return just John without the comma and space before it (everything inside the square brackets is returned only if the variable there isn't empty).
'['%First Name%']' will return [John] (special characters are escaped by closing them in ').
First Name: %First Name
Last Name: %Last Name%
has a new line in it, so the result will be:
First Name: John
Last Name: Smith.
$cut(%First Name%,1). %Last Name% - $cut(str,len) returns first len characters from the left of the string str, so the result here is J. Smith.
$upper(%First Name% %Last Name%) will be replaced with JOHN SMITH.
$formatdate($sub($date(today),%Birtday%),YYYY years, MM days, DD days) - subtracts from today's date the date of birthday and returns the result (age) in the format years + months + days: 65 years 4 months 3 days.
$formatdate($sub($date(today),%Birtday%),YYYY years, DD days) - subtracts from today's date the date of birthday and returns the result in the format years + days: 65 years 123 days.
$if(conditon,then) - I just leave it here too, this one has a lot of power.
That's just some examples. The magic of computed fields is that once you have the data in your contact, you can configure how you want this data to be additionally displayed (or copied). The computed field can be useful for:
1. Quick copy/paste of predefined template with data from fields to some outside messengers/email clients/...
2. Combining columns for quick sorting by several parameters.
3. CSV-export with data already arranged and pre-formated the way you need it, thus speeding things up and avoiding extra tampering in spreedsheets and such.
4. Avoiding duplicating data in several fields of the contact, which can lead to mistakes during editing (when only some fields end up with updated data).
5. If it gets some pre-build variables (i.e. today's date) and some simple maths functions, some nice additional colums can be configured, like 'Age', 'Days left to birthday', 'Time gone since the date in a custom Date field' and so on.
I'm aware that the mail module has some 'Insert Field' functionality for newsletters/envelopes. But I don't use this module. And I think having this in the Contacts module is more universal anyway (a lot of different things people store there, not always only contacts).
I hope other users are interested in having some sort of this functionality in EPIM and will vote for it being implemented. But if not... well, at least I put it out there.
Regards
