Label Expressions Slow?

[#1]

Hello all,

I am trying to optimize the performance of my sytstem by trying various things. Latest finding:

I have Pivot Table with 2 columns. The column header calculates based on the selection in field "Variante":

=if(GetSelectedCount(Variante)=0,'-',Variante)

I found that when I replace that formula by a constant literal, the table calculates significantly faster. Can it be? It is just 1 calculation per column more .. and not even a complex one ... [*-)]

Any experience/ thoughts on this one ... or is it just my imagination? 😉

Thank you,
Thilo

[#2]

Couldn't you replace that expression with:

=GetFieldSelections(Variante)

If nothing is selected, it would return Null (-) otherwise it should be the equivilent of what you have.

I wouldn't be surprised if an if statement with a function call took a little bit of time. You can check the CalcTime to see if there is a significant difference. Go to the Objects tab under Sheet Properties and you should see CalcTime there. Check that value with your dynamic header and without. You may have to try it a few times with each as that CalcTime can vary between reloads.

[johnw]

I can't imagine that it would add any noticeable time, but maybe there's an issue with it. As NMiller says, you can verify it by checking the CalcTimes. If you see a difference outside of the standard deviation of the CalcTimes, I'd frankly turn it in as a "bug". When you can run IF statements against millions of rows in less than a second, a single IF statement once per chart should never register on the CalcTime, even when it's something complicated like getting the values for a field.

[#4]

Hi,

thanks for the hints.
I checked the CalcTime ... the "if" doubles+ the times.

With a literal I achieve an average CalcTime of 15, with the "if" it gets 30-40.
Sure, this is not slooooow, but the difference is significant as with with the literal it "just calculates", while with the "if" I see the progress bar in the chart.
This worries me, as currently I am 'alone' on my machine (dual core, 2GB RAM, and just 3 tables).
I imagine that these small deviations become more significant when more users connect to the dashboard.

So, thank you for your help ... I think I will try to avoid formulas in the column header labels.
Best regards,
Thilo