Fun with Conditional Rules #2 in Knack apps

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