Making Accelo Even Smarter: Custom Formula Fields

Your business is unique, and with Accelo's ability to have lots and lots of different custom fields, you can easily configure it to store the information that matters to your business. Combined with our Triggers module, Accelo becomes an always-on smart platform that can create tasks, send emails or update status based on rules you give it.

One thing that our more advanced users have been asking for in Accelo is the ability to perform calculations on combinations of fields. A simple example would be the area of a room - if your user enters the width and the length, a formula field could multiply them together for the area. Another example is dates - if your objective is to send the client a proposal within 2 days, the initial date of an opportunity and add 2 days to it and then use a trigger to send a notification when that "response deadline" has passed.

The great thing about these formulas is that they're smart - any time the sale, project, ticket or retainer is updated, they get updated too without anyone having to lift a finger. You can even cascade them - so, using the example of the "area" above, if your price per square foot was $2, you can calculate the likely value of the opportunity by multiplying the output of the area calculation by $2. Magic!

When we first introduced an early/beta version of formulas, the clients who used it gave us the feedback that it would make them a lot more useful if they could be built with logic too. Using the example above of the using the "area" formula field to then calculate another formula field (the potential value), they wanted to be able to reference a third field like "covering" and say "if covering=hardwood, set value to be area x $5, if covering=carpet, set value to be area x $2" and so on.

These "conditional" or "logic" based formulas which use "if, then, else" syntax, were another level of tricky for our team to develop (especially our design team - making something powerful and easy to use is pretty tricky), but their power - even with the contrived example of floor coverings - is pretty obvious to anyone running a fast moving, interconnected business.

In particular, these formulas are a huge win for power-users who have wanted to configure special KPIs, benchmark dates and other metrics - and with the if-then-else feature, you can have a single "target" custom field you report of (using saved filters or triggers) and have it be populated intelligently.

To access the newly minted formula powers, you’ll want to find (or create) a formula field within the Custom Fields view for one of your Ticket, Project or Sale types. We should stress that there’s no need to update any existing formula fields you're using - these will continue working as before, but can also be easily modified to take advantage of the new conditional formula sets.

You’ll notice we’ve given the formula editing pop-up a little make-over to simplify the layout and make it easier to follow the configuration steps. Whether creating a basic formula field, or one with rulesets, the same “modal” is used.

To dive into another example: If you already have a formula field which set-up a custom “Target Resolution” date based on the Submitted Date of the Ticket plus 5 days, you can now upgrade this field to use different formulas depending on certain conditions being met, such as +2 days rather than +5, for your Key Account / VIP customers. Configuring this scenario is now possible - and super quick and easy - using the new IF/ELSE Conditions within the formula field configuration.

When an IF/ELSE Condition block is inserted, the system pairs it with a new formula set-up area so you can define a unique formula to be run when this condition is met. Of course, you may need more than 1 condition within an IF/ELSE block, so there’s an option to Add new condition under the arrow menu for each block.

As you would expect, if the system runs through all the IF/ELSE condition blocks and none of them match, then the final formula is used - since there are no conditions on the last formula. We’ve also catered for the need to re-prioritize these blocks without having to remove each and recreate them: Move up & Move down options let you shuffle the order of each block - so you can rest assured the system evaluates your formulas in exactly the way you need it to!

Much like our Triggers module, there are a range of fields available for the conditions section - not just fields limited to the object you are configuring (in our case, a Ticket) but also fields for the Company and Contact associated with the Ticket. There’s even some financial details available so you could create financial KPIs and the basis for Triggers to warn you if your own targets are slipping.

We should note that if you’re dealing with a large number of objects, such as 2,000 tickets, affected by a new or modified formula field, the re-evaluation (calculating the value for each ticket) will take some time (we do it in the background so you don't have to stare at a spinner while we work our magic); just don't hit save and then get concerned/confused if the formulas for all 2,000 tickets take a few minutes to get populated.

Like the custom business processes and triggers functionality, these formulas are a Premium only feature. If you've got any questions about them or how to make the most of them in your Accelo account, email [email protected]. If you aren't an Accelo user and want to see them for yourself, you can sign up for a free trial at signup.accelo.com.