Building Formula Fields
The Zoho CRM formula fields enable you to define fields that can populate dynamically calculated data based on the values returned from other standard or custom fields. For instance, an insurance company may need to determine, if the provided date of birth (by policy holders), confirms their eligibility to own a policy based on their present age.
A formula field is made up of three elements: Functions, Arguments and Operators.
A Function expresses the dependence between two quantities, one of which is input and the other which is output. In other words, function performs a specific operation on values that you specify and generates a new value. To compose a function, you need to type the function name, followed by a set of parentheses, which contains information to perform the function. The values within the parenthesis are called arguments.
Examples: Abs(); Ceil(); Timepart()
An Argument is a piece of information within a function that commands the values to act or produce. Arguments appear within the parentheses and are separated by comma (argument 1, argument 2, etc.). The types of argument(s) in a function can be either texts, numbers, field references or even another function.
Examples: Abs(-27.05); Max(12,6,10)
An Operator is a special symbol such as "+" or "%", that acts upon the arguments (literals, numbers, fields references) in the formula and returns a new value.
Examples: Abs(+27.50); (32*25)
- Formula fields can be mass updated only if one of the participating field's data is updated.
- The newly added formula field will render computed values only for the new records created after you have added the formula field.
- For existing records in the same layout, the record detail page will display the new field, but will carry no values. To initiate computation and render results, there should happen some form of edits to the records—either manually or automatically, to include the participating fields in the formula to the computation.