Plan requirement
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| Access | Admin |
A calculation shows nothing at all. Five causes, in the order that finds the culprit fastest.
Symptoms
- The column is empty.
- Some rows have values and others do not.
- It worked and then stopped.
One: no else clause
Everything the conditions do not match becomes blank. This is the cause most of the time, and adding a catch-all category proves it immediately.
Two: comparing a label instead of a value
Field values and their display labels are not always the same. A comparison against the label matches nothing and reports no error.
Check the actual stored values in the dataset.
Three: the field is empty on those tickets
An optional field is blank on most tickets, so a calculation depending on it is blank there too. That is not a fault in the formula; it is the fill rate.
Count how many tickets have the field at all.
Four: dividing by zero
A ratio where the denominator is zero for some groups. Those rows come back empty, which looks like a formula error and is arithmetic.
Five: the field changed
A drop-down value was renamed, or a field was replaced. The formula still refers to what used to be there, which matches nothing from that date onwards.
This is the one behind "it worked and then stopped".
How to isolate it
Cut the formula back to its first condition and see whether anything appears. Then add the next. Ten minutes, and it identifies the failing part precisely.
Then check a known ticket
Take one ticket that should produce a value and follow the formula by hand against its actual field values.
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