Calculated fields have excited me since my first day working at SugarCRM. I still get excited with every new release that contains an advancement to calculated fields, and so I couldn't help but cheer when I learned that calculating dropdown fields was a part of the Q1 2023 (12.3.0) release.
As a support director, my team's focus is typically break/fix analysis and helping customers face the challenges they present to us. From that perspective, we don't always have in mind all the great benefits a feature offers, so I hoped to discuss this new feature here and see what benefits you have in mind that I might be missing.
When I choose a field type, I usually consider what type of filter operators I get with that field in ListView and Reports. When I know a field is going to have a finite number of possible values, which is often the case with calculated fields, I prefer dropdown fields because they come with the "is one of" and "is not one of" filter operators.
Until this Q1 2023 release, we couldn't calculate dropdown fields, so I felt I had to settle for a field type that could not take advantage of these desired filter operators. Now that I can calculate dropdown fields, I feel like I get the best of both worlds: the power of calculating, and the filter operators I want!
Note: Those with self-hosted instances or on an annual release schedule will get access to this feature with Q2 2023 (13.0.0).
What are some benefits you see in using the new calculated dropdown feature?
Regards,
Patrick McQueen
Director, SugarCRM Support