Fun with Conditional Rules: Simplifying Data Reporting
Hey there, I'm Dave Parrish, back with another installment of our series on conditional rules. If you've been following along, you know how these rules can be a game-changer, allowing us to automate processes and avoid errors in data reporting. Today, I'll dive into a couple of practical examples that showcase just how versatile and impactful conditional rules can be.
Automating Fiscal Year Reporting
One of the projects I'm currently involved in focuses on helping farmers in Africa gain new skills, funded by a government initiative. As you can imagine, reporting for such projects is stringent and requires precise formatting, like reporting fiscal years as FY 19 or FY 20.
Instead of letting users manually select fiscal years, which could lead to errors across 500 farmers, we've automated this process using a conditional rule. Here’s how it works: based on the completion date of each project, we've set up rules that determine the fiscal year automatically. For instance, if a project finishes between certain dates, it automatically gets labeled as FY 19 or FY 20, depending on the range. This not only ensures accuracy but also streamlines the reporting process significantly.
Simplifying Sector Reporting
Another challenge we tackled involves reporting the sector of occupation of volunteers in a concise format required by the government. Volunteers select their occupation from a list of options, but for reporting purposes, these need to be represented as single letters (e.g., C for Cooperatives, F for Individual Private Farmer).
To achieve this, we implemented another set of conditional rules. Using a multiple-choice field where volunteers select their occupation, we mapped each choice to its corresponding single letter. So, whether a volunteer identifies as part of a cooperative or an individual private farmer, the system automatically assigns the correct letter code. This ensures that when we upload data to the government reporting system, everything is in the required format without manual intervention.
Conclusion
These examples illustrate just a fraction of what conditional rules can do to enhance efficiency and accuracy in data management. By automating repetitive tasks and standardizing data formats, we not only reduce the risk of errors but also free up valuable time for more strategic endeavors.
I hope these insights into our project have been helpful. If you're managing similar reporting challenges or simply interested in maximizing efficiency through technology, stay tuned for more tips and tricks in future episodes. Don't forget to like and subscribe to our channel for more updates. Until next time, thanks for watching!
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Full Transcript
hello folks I'm back Dave parish and
act builders if you like these videos please
like it on YouTube
subscribe to the channel if you can
but here's today's topic I'm doing
another one of these series I have fun
with conditional rules I just love these
things and there's so many use cases you
can get so creative with these and solve
all kinds of problems or just make
things easier so here's today's
topic let me get this out of the way
close this this is a
project I'm doing for this organization
that's funded by the government
they get Farmers to volunteer I brought
this one up before in Africa
and help farmers in Africa learn more
skills but since it's from the government
they have to report
all kinds of stuff and it's got to be in
a very specific way what I'm dealing
with here is fiscal year they have to
report it as FY 19. and
we didn't want the users selecting
fiscal year because it's actually based
on some other date because if they they
could select the year but there's there
do a lot of them there's 500 right now
uh someone's gonna make an error it's
going to screw stuff up uh that's solved
by a conditional Rule and I'll be right
back and show you how to do it bye
okay let's go for it uh fun with conditional
rules second installment
how to get fiscal year
to get in this format automatically
based on some other field
and these by the way these fun with
conditionals these are going to be
pretty short just trying to give ideas
on how to use these so let's let's go
see how we do this
here's assignment
here's fiscal year okay
now again we didn't want them selecting
fiscal year themselves because it's if
it can be automated it's better there's
not gonna there's gonna be less mistakes
but here's the deal and by the way this
project has a duration of six years
so what we didn't do is just and it's
what it's based on is when they finished
the project they sign a date to it the
actual completed date and that's what
determines what the fiscal year is so
all we did
is we did the range of
of what these are
based on the date and if it was this
18 through 19. it's FY 19 this is just
this value here is a it's it's I
think it's just a simple
text formula or a text field
so each of the six years we said okay
this is the date range and if the actual
completion date
Falls between these dates
that's what it is in terms of the
fiscal year so that puts it in the
format we want I'm going to give you one
more since I'm here also here
I scroll over but I said before they have to
I think they upload this stuff into
some some sort of reporting terminal for
the government
sector of occupation this is there's a
code for what the volunteer is when the
volunteer signs up they select
what they are but we can't have them
select F or P or t they don't know what
that is and we have to have in this
format so this other field
let's look at that
let's let's find that
no I Gotta Go a different
gotta go to the volunteer
and go to sector
sector of occupation this is a multiple
choice this is what
they've choose from
so they can read and understand what it
is but we have to report it as one of
these single letters
so I made another
multiple choice Fields I believe
and it has all the single letters but
then it just has a conditional world
there's nine selections there's gonna be
nine rules if the sector occupation is cooperatives
and associations it's going to be C
if the sector of occupation is
an individual private farmer that's
going to be F and do that nine times
we're able to get
the letter so we can report it how we
got to report it
there it is so
that's all I got
hope to see you guys soon thanks
thank you
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