♦ Applies to: v12.0 and later.

Apptio Uplifted Content This topic was contributed by Apptio expert and Technical Support Engineer @George _.

Symptom: Unexpected results in the Formula column

When using a series of formula columns, the values in one of the columns does not show the expected calculated amount based on the metric you use in your formula. When you attempt to add a new formula column, your chart displays an “Error” message.

What's going on

The formulas in a formula column can use modeled metrics, calculated metrics, or other columns from the chart in your report. See some specific scenarios below.

NOTE  Be aware of the column names you use in charts.

Scenario 1

Let's say you create a formula column (How?) named “Cost” and use the Cost metric in the formula:

The following error appears:

The application attempts to use the “Cost” column you create to calculate the formula you are creating, which results in an error.

Scenario 2

Or, let's say you create a formula column and name it after an existing metric (This example uses “Variable” for the column name):

Because you are not using that same metric in the formula, the application allows you to create this column.

Then, you attempt to add another formula column that uses the actual metric ("Variable" in the example):

In the resulting chart, the columns are automatically renamed and the values in your new formula column do not use the metric. Instead, the columns use the value from the previous formula column:

Resolution

To see which column is the new formula column, right-click on the column header and select Show Info:

To correct this, remove the formula column that uses the metric for its name and re-create the column using a different name (not the metric name). Note that by simply renaming the column, you will only change the name on the surface, and the Underlying Name will still be used in subsequent formula columns.

Here is our example being validated after rebuilding the formula columns and not using the Variable metric as the name of a formula column:

To prevent conflicts like this when using formula columns, avoid using the names of existing metrics for the names of the columns you create. If a modeled metric exists, try to use the actual modeled metric, using the Ad Hoc Component Configuration, instead of a formula column. 

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