Formatting a Calculated Field

[SantasLittleHelper]

I have a field with the expression below: (I've made the fields generic so they are easier to understand)

IIF(Field1='Example Text',[IDCode] & [IDCounty],[IDCode] & [IDNumber])

This table hopefully summarises what is currently happening:

Field1	IDCode	IDCounty	IDNumber	Calculated Field	What I want
Example Text	AB	Cambridgeshire	(Null)	ABCambridgeshire	ABCambridgeshire
Different Text	GH	(Null)	00023	GH23	GH00023
Different Text	PI	(Null)	00467	PI467	PI00467

<tbody>
</tbody>

Is there a way to format the Calculated field so that if the ID Number is used it, keeps any leading zeros?

 

[Joe4]

So, I take it that IDNumber must actually be a numeric field with custom formatting, if leading zeroes are being dropped.

Try:

IIF(Field1='Example Text',[IDCode] & [IDCounty],[IDCode] & FORMAT([IDNumber],"00000"))

 

[SantasLittleHelper]

So, I take it that IDNumber must actually be a numeric field with custom formatting, if leading zeroes are being dropped.

Try:

IIF(Field1='Example Text',[IDCode] & [IDCounty],[IDCode] & FORMAT([IDNumber],"00000"))

Thanks Joe, I've just tried this but when I go to save, it says "The expression cannot be used in a calculate column"

Do you have any other ideas at all?

 

[Joe4]

Are you doing this in a query or table?
I am guessing that you may be doing it in a table.

Though the new versions of Excel allow you to do calculated columns in a table, it is recommended that you do not do this, for a few reasons, the top two of which are:
- There are restrictions regarding the type of calculations you can do
- No other database platform supports this functionality, so if you needed to convert this to something like a SQL database down the road, this would cause issue

So it is recommended that you do all calculated fields in queries instead of at the table level. There is really no reason to do them at the table level. Pretty much anything you can do with a table you can use a query for. So you really do not lose anything by doing the calculations in a query.