Data Type Formulas

Introduction

On the first page in this two page series, Create a Data Type, I said that I would be showing you how to get data from your new Data Type by using formulas: here it is!

On the create a data type page, I showed this screenshot:

And that was intended to show, in this case, how to extract the Latency column from the Data Type. Try this, though ...

Data Type Formula

In cell G1 I can add the name of the data that I want to extract and put into my table: Latency in this case

In cell G2 I type =A2 ... and without doing anything else, Excel will show me this, all of the choices available to me:

I can continue typing the name or double click on the name I want to choose from the list provided.

Alternatively, I can type this as my formula: 

G1 =Column Header I want to use

G2 =[@[Speedtest_Sep_2020]].Latency

NOTE: this is the format that my version of Excel uses but I see on the Microsoft page How to write formulas that reference data types, they say it should be in this style: =[@Speedtest_Sep_2020].Latency but that will not work for me. In case of problems, try them both!

By the Way

If you want to use your new column containing values as part of your analysis, this would work 

=SQRT[@[Speedtest_Sep_2020]].Latency) 

and so would this

=[@[Speedtest_Sep_2020]].Latency/100

You can even do something like this:

=[@[Speedtest_Sep_2020]].Latency&" blah blah" ;)

Your imagination is probably the limit to what you can do here.

Duncan Williamson

17th April 2021