Grouping Parent Tasks by Rounds in Task Report

[LutzWo]

Hello!

I've been tasked to create a parent task report. It needs to be grouped by rounds, but a lot of the parent tasks have naming conventions beyond just a simple R1, R2. R3, etc. So I tried to go to text mode, but the result keep coming up either No Value or Null_Object. One of my biggest issues is I don't know the valuefield for the parent task, which is partially why I'm getting one result or the other.

Below is the screenshot of what I have so far. It's based on another post, where someone had a similar problem but with task instead of parent task. I'm not the best at coding or scripting, so any help would be appreciated!

Thank you!

[MLehman]

I think you'll want to use an IF(CONTAINS(....) function because I'm assuming the parent tasks aren't named on R1, R2, but that's part of the name?

Something like this:

IF(CONTAINS({parent}.{name},"R1"),"R1")...etc.

That may not be exactly right because I don't have these naming conventions and can't test it. But that's where my mind went!

Good luck! 

[Heather_Kulbacki · Accepted solution]

I did some testing on a report in my instance, I think you need something similar to what @MLehman suggested, but a little different order

group.0.valueexpression=IF(CONTAINS("R1"),{parent}.{name},"R1",IF(Contains("R2"),{parent}.{name},"R2", etc

[LutzWo]

I tried making the edit, and I got a null object again. I even tried adding the expression in a custom form and got this response: "This is an invalid custom expression, please try again."

I must be doing something wrong. I swear editing in text mode hates me, and the feeling is mutual! 😂

[skyehansen]

hi, I haven't tried this myself, but wanted to point out a few things.

1) bookmark and follow this page as closely as possible. https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/workfront/using/reporting/reports/calculated-custom-data/...

2) the syntax from the above link for CONTAINS, is 

CONTAINS(findText, withinText)

 (you're actually doing a combination expression, but I just want to focus on that CONTAINS part for now)

Your "findText" is all the text you're trying to find (R1, R2, and so on). Your "withinText" is the field you're looking in (the parent name). The findText and withinText have to both live within the same set of brackets. So without initially testing, I would red-flag the ("R1") part of the expression. I would also have flagged the fact that one of the "Contains" isn't in all caps.

Following syntax is very important. Syntax is the set of rules about how something needs to be written. If you wrote it wrong, nothing will work.

3) I always recommend starting small and then building on. Don't add extra stuff for R2 and R3, before figuring out whether you can get it working for R1 first. By making a small expression, e.g. IF(CONTAINS("R1",{parent}.{name}),"R1","invalid expression") and testing to see if it works, you have much less troubleshooting to do and can feel more confident about which parts of your expression should vs probably don't work.

I'll also point out that often it's easier getting something working in a view rather than a grouping. So it's also valid to start it off as a view first, and then try and move the same expression into the grouping area. At least if you can SEE you're getting results in a column, it's much easier to say that the problem might not lie with your expression as much as it might lie with what is or isn't possible in a grouping.

Good luck!