What's Wrong With This Expression?

[t0mato]

Thank you! I think I found it. Both are set to Default.

Hi,

Once you have dropped the calculated item into your list, select the list column for the item, and open the Properties pane on the right (it is toggled using the Properties button on the app bar). You should see one property called Detail Aggregation, and another called Summary Aggregation. Can you tell us how both of these are set currently?

MF.

[MFGF]

Thank you! I think I found it. Both are set to Default.

Hi,

This might be your issue. Set them to Total and see if the report runs.

MF.

[t0mato]

Hi and thanks for the response.

I've set them both to total but the report still fails to run and gives the same error. It seems like such a simple ask... If the Days in Step value is greater than 7, simply count it... Is there a problem with an expression calculating based on another one?

Days in Step is not a pre-packaged data item. It is calculated by using a data item called [Step Date] (which is the date in which the employee was put in a particular step) and subtracting that date from today's date. The expression is as follows:

current_date - [Step Date] - which gives a value of how many days the employee has been in the step.

The expression we're trying to implement is supposed to look at how many days each employee has been in a step (Days in Step) and if the value is greater than 7, count it. But whenever I run the report with this expression added to the report, it fails to run...

Hi,

This might be your issue. Set them to Total and see if the report runs.

MF.

[MFGF]

Hi and thanks for the response.

I've set them both to total but the report still fails to run and gives the same error. It seems like such a simple ask... If the Days in Step value is greater than 7, simply count it... Is there a problem with an expression calculating based on another one?

Days in Step is not a pre-packaged data item. It is calculated by using a data item called [Step Date] (which is the date in which the employee was put in a particular step) and subtracting that date from today's date. The expression is as follows:

current_date - [Step Date] - which gives a value of how many days the employee has been in the step.

The expression we're trying to implement is supposed to look at how many days each employee has been in a step (Days in Step) and if the value is greater than 7, count it. But whenever I run the report with this expression added to the report, it fails to run...

Hi,

Yikes! The expression current_date - [Step Date] isn't the right thing to do here. There is a function called _days_between() to return the number of days like this:

https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SSEP7J_11.0.0/com.ibm.swg.ba.cognos.ca_mdlg.doc/c_btf_days_between.html

Try replacing this with _days_between(current_date, [Step Date])

Cheers!

MF.

[t0mato]

That works! The report now runs. Thank you for all of your help here. Very much appreciated and great learning experience.

Hi,

Yikes! The expression current_date - [Step Date] isn't the right thing to do here. There is a function called _days_between() to return the number of days like this:

https://www.ibm.com/support/knowledgecenter/en/SSEP7J_11.0.0/com.ibm.swg.ba.cognos.ca_mdlg.doc/c_btf_days_between.html

Try replacing this with _days_between(current_date, [Step Date])

Cheers!

MF.

[MFGF]

That works! The report now runs. Thank you for all of your help here. Very much appreciated and great learning experience.

That's great news! It's definitely worth asking your Administrator to tweak the settings to allow you to see error messages - if you have issues in future, you can then see what the report is complaining about rather than us having to guess as we did here.

Good luck and happy reporting!

MF.