Best way to report the counts of selections from a multi-select field | Community
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Jared_Mauch
Jared_Mauch
Level 6
July 9, 2026
Solved

Best way to report the counts of selections from a multi-select field

  • July 9, 2026
  • 7 replies
  • 201 views

I’m trying to figure out the best way to report on the counts of selections made on a multi-select field for projects. There is currently a calculated field on the project form to capture choices, but that created entries on the report like “Choice 1, Choice 2”, “Choice 1, Choice 3, Choice 4” etc. Stakeholders are asking to segment them out individually. It sounds like I might have to make individual calculated fields for each of the 15 choices on the multi-select field. Am I on the right path to try and capture this data?

Best answer by Lyndsy-Denk

Yup, you need a calculated field to count each instance of the selection. See attached for a screenshot of one of mine that counts the number of times a country was selected in the form. Reminder (because I’ve forgotten and had to redo work): Your calculated field must be a Format of Number to do the math. Additionally, the CONTAINS formula looks for the choice value, not the name. In the example below, the choice value (not shown) is “Taiwan” but the value is “TW”.

Because these calculations can become numerous and unwieldy, I’ve created a separate admin/reporting form that most users can’t see. That way it works in the background without cluttering what users see.

IF(CONTAINS("TW",{DE:Target country | Asia-Pacific})="true",1,0)

 

7 replies

Lyndsy-Denk
Community Advisor
Lyndsy-DenkCommunity AdvisorAccepted solution
Community Advisor
July 10, 2026

Yup, you need a calculated field to count each instance of the selection. See attached for a screenshot of one of mine that counts the number of times a country was selected in the form. Reminder (because I’ve forgotten and had to redo work): Your calculated field must be a Format of Number to do the math. Additionally, the CONTAINS formula looks for the choice value, not the name. In the example below, the choice value (not shown) is “Taiwan” but the value is “TW”.

Because these calculations can become numerous and unwieldy, I’ve created a separate admin/reporting form that most users can’t see. That way it works in the background without cluttering what users see.

IF(CONTAINS("TW",{DE:Target country | Asia-Pacific})="true",1,0)

 

Jared_Mauch
Jared_MauchAuthor
Level 6
July 10, 2026

Thanks for the confirmation. I have an admin section break on the custom form that I was planning on putting these new calculated fields in to limit the clutter others can see. Will I have to create separate reports for these calculated fields or is it possible to show the totals combined in a pie chart or bar graph?

Lyndsy-Denk
Community Advisor
Lyndsy-DenkCommunity Advisor
Community Advisor
July 10, 2026

This is where things get disappointing: These calculations cannot be visualized in charts. You would have to export the data and create a chart in Excel or something similar. (I’ve heard that maybe Canvas dashbaords can handle making a chart out of calcuated fields, but I’m not in Canvas Dashboards.) My workaround was to group by something and, in the column settings, summarize by Sum. The grouping is collapsed by default.

 

    skyehansen
    Adobe Champion and Community Advisor
    skyehansenAdobe Champion and Community Advisor
    July 13, 2026

    starting a separate response to agree with Lyndsy. Canvas Dashboards is the closest you’ll be able to get to what you need. As long as the number of choices are small (e.g.

    • Custom field = Fruit
    • Choices = Apples, Bananas, Oranges)

    No calculated fields need to be reported -- you would simply make a canvas dashboard and 3 KPI reports: Apples report, oranges report, bananas report. Below I’m displaying a table report (optional, just added it to show you the custom field) and 3 KPI reports.

     

     

      Jared_Mauch
      Jared_MauchAuthor
      Level 6
      July 13, 2026

      ​@skyehansen Thanks for sharing info about the canvas dashboard option. The current report tracking the original calculated field is on a standard dashboard with other project reports that stakeholders use. I’ll ask them if they’d like to convert that over to a canvas dashboard before going in this route because I don’t know if they’d like to flip over to a separate canvas dashboard just for these metrics their wanting to track.

      skyehansen
      Adobe Champion and Community Advisor
      skyehansenAdobe Champion and Community Advisor
      July 13, 2026

      I would never recommend doing this, but you can also add the canvas dashboard link as an external page in your Classic dashboard. 

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