Referencing a Program field in a calculated custom Issue field

[NickVa1]

Hi WF Community,

I'm looking to create a custom calculated field on an Issue form - Amount.

The calculation is pretty simple: Approved Hours * Billing Rate

The Approved Hours field lives on the Issue custom form, so it's easy to include in my calculation. However, the Billing Rate lives at the Program level. This is where I'm not sure how to reference this field in the calculation on my Issue form.

Is this possible?

Thanks,

Nick

[skyehansen]

hi Nick, if you look at the API explorer, you'll see that the issue object's "References" tab doesn't include Program. This should usually be a clear indication you can't reference it.

If there's a way for you to reflect that billing rate at the project level, you should be able to grab it from there.

https://one.workfront.com/s/api-explorer

[NickVa1]

Thanks, Skye.

Do you know what the Calculation expression would look like on a project custom form field to capture a field (Overage Rate) on the Program object? I'm assuming it's like text mode (program:DE:Overage Rate), but not sure.

[skyehansen]

hi Nick, based on your question, I think the best thing for you to do would be to bookmark and read this page top to bottom, particularly the syntax section and concentrate on the table:

https://one.workfront.com/s/document-item?bundleId=the-new-workfront-experience&topicId=Content%2FRe...

The table gives you a concrete example of the difference between how you would show this in reporting vs in a calculated field. I'm personally not aware of you needing to use "DE" for calculated fields at the moment, but I also don't think it hurts anything, so I'll leave it to you to test out.

One thing I'll also mention as you start your journey to understanding syntax: in a month or two, this will all change (for release 22.3 they are planning to change the syntax for custom calculated fields). I'm a bit sad as I think it may render a few posts in the community useless but I also think it's an important change that will make things easier for new system admins to learn syntax.