Count only Workdays in a Knack App

Solving Workday Calculations: A Quick Guide

Hey there! It's Dave Parrish from Knack Builders, checking in on another functionality challenge I encountered recently. If you follow my videos, you know I'm currently at a work retreat in Mexico City, soaking in the vibes from a rooftop co-working space. Today, I want to delve into a handy solution that came up during a client project: calculating workdays between two dates.

Client Challenge: Counting Workdays

During a recent project, a client needed to measure the duration of a task, excluding weekends. Initially, we used a straightforward date subtraction formula to determine the span between the start and finish dates. However, they later requested to exclude weekends from this calculation.

Community Collaboration: A Swift Solution

Rather than grappling with this alone, I turned to a community forum for advice. Within minutes, Steve Palmer from Knack came through with a simple yet effective solution.

Using the NETWORKDAYS Function

Steve pointed me to the NETWORKDAYS function used with numeric equations, a gem hidden in Knack's arsenal of calculations. See Knack's guide on using all of these functions. This function allows you to specify a start date and an end date, and it automatically computes the number of workdays (excluding weekends) between them. Here's how you can use it:

1. Syntax: NETWORKDAYS(start_date, end_date)

2. Result: Returns the number of workdays between start_date and end_date, excluding weekends.

Real-World Application

Let me show you a practical example. In our client’s case, they were auditing medical records, and they wanted to know the workdays between the assignment and completion dates. Using NETWORKDAYS, we could easily calculate this without including weekends, which was crucial for their reporting.

Considerations

While NETWORKDAYS is great for excluding weekends, it doesn't automatically exclude holidays. If your project spans holidays, you might need to adjust your approach or check if your software accommodates local holidays.

Conclusion

In conclusion, if you find yourself needing to count workdays for project management or reporting purposes, NETWORKDAYS is a straightforward and powerful tool. It’s easily accessible in Excel and can save you a lot of manual calculation time.

I'm grateful to Steve and the supportive community for their swift assistance. This experience underscores the value of community forums in problem-solving, where fellow builders can share insights and solutions.

I hope this guide helps streamline your workday calculations as much as it did for me. Stay tuned for more tips and tricks from my retreat in Mexico City. Adiós for now!

You can check out my Knack database services here:  https://www.knackbuilders.com/knack-database-consulting

Interested? Book an intro call: https://calendly.com/daveparrish/callwithdave