Selecting Rounded Numbers

[rwunderlich]

I'm working with investment data. I have a number metrics such as "Cost" that are represented as millions of dollars. Internally the numbers have enough decimal places to represent a single dollar. The QV display format is "0.0". All of the following values would be displayed as "1.1"

1.05567

1.09967

1.085567

I must retain the full values for correct aggregation.

If I display them in a listbox or multibox, using the format "0.0", I will show "1.1" three times which is not a good user experience.  One solution is to use a calculated value in the multi box of:

  =round(Cost, 0.1)

This provides the correct result from the user view. Select "1.1" just once and get the bunch. However...I have many fields with many values. Using round() on all the fields slows response of the multibox to an unacceptable level.

Another approach I've considered if creating a rounded copy of the field for selection. What I don't like about that is the current selection box shows the "rounded field name". I've thought about using a trick of making my rounded field just have a space at the end of the source field "[Cost ]" but that's a trick that can cause confusion in charts.

Any other ideas? Anyone tackle this issue and do something different?

Thanks,

Rob

[ramoncova06]

the only thing that occurs to me is by using an left after changing the value to a string, though I would assume you will probably end with the same performance issue

=left(text(num(value,'0.0')),3)

[MarcoWedel]

Hi Rob,

maybe you could try with a field event trigger on the precalculated rounded cost field having a select in field action that selects the corresponding values in the original cost field.

By this you probably could avoid performance issues with calculated list boxes while showing original field selections in the current selections box.

hope this helps

regards

Marco

[Gysbert_Wassenaar]

Do the users need to see the field names of the unrounded measures? If not, simply give the field with the rounded values the user-friendly name and the field with the unrounded values another name. Perhaps a name indicating it contains the unrounded values).

Or perhaps Current Selection box can be replaced with a nicely formatted text object that shows the currect selections. That obviously can't be used to clear selections, but maybe that's an acceptable loss.

[Colin-Albert]

Could you use a dual field, with the rounded value as the text part and the actual value as the numeric?

This would avoid the need to have two separate fields but still allow selection of each part if required.

[Gysbert_Wassenaar]

The dual field would still result in three values 1.1 in the listbox instead of only one.

[Colin-Albert]

Would showing the text part of the dual field in a listbox give any better performance than using round() in the listbox?

[Gysbert_Wassenaar]

Yes, but who cares really. In that case you end up with three 1.1 values instead of one 1.1 value in the listbox.

[Colin-Albert]

Hi Gysbert,

I did not explain my thoughts clearly,

If the listbox uses the expression text(dual_field) you will only get one value not three 1.1 values.

If the listbox just uses dual_field, without using the text function, then you will see the same text value 3 times

Would using text(dual_field) change the performance compared to using round(original_field, 0.1)

[rwunderlich]

It's an interesting idea Albert. It works on a small scale. I'll test it on my big app and see it improves performance.

-Rob