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rform82
Known Participant
August 17, 2022
Question

Currency Field

  • August 17, 2022
  • 1 reply
  • 1934 views

Hello,

Looking for suggestions here as I'm not sure what the right solution is. I have been tasked with making a currency field handle any currency. Currently, I have field properties format category set up to display as:

$ 1,234.56

This is usually fine as I have only needed to worry about USD. However, this needs to be able to handle any currency, but I have no idea what would work. A few ideas I had:

  • Make the field only accept currency symbols, numbers, commas and periods (not sure how to do this)
  • Add a dropdown before the field that lists all currencies, and have the field format the amount based on the currency selected
  • Leave it as a field that can accept whatever someone enters and hope they don't make a mistake (at least I know how to make this one work!)

 

That's all that comes to mind at the moment, but I'm looking for any suggestions or examples (easier for me to follow because I'm still learning) that may exist (I haven't been able to find anything in my searches yet). There may be a more logical solution than what comes to mind, and I welcome any help. Thanks in advance.

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1 reply

try67
Community Expert
try67Community Expert
Community Expert
August 18, 2022

I would go with either 2 or 3. However, 2 has a problem that the number formatting and currency symbol are not necessarily connected. For example, if someone in France uses a USD amount they might want it formatted in the way that is customary there, and not in the US, and vice versa. Also, some currencies could have multiple formats associated with them, depending on the location (Euro in Spain is not the same as Euro in France), etc.

The issue with approach 3 is that people can (and will make mistakes), but then it will be on them, not on you.

However, it will also mean you won't be able to use what they enter in other calculations, since you won't know for sure what format was used. Don't know if that's an issue for you...

R
rform82Author
Known Participant
August 18, 2022

Thank you for the response. I think I follow along with most everything. Attached is the exploration I have been working on, as well as notes beside each example that I'm hoping to solve. I see merit in each one, but realize none are perfect.

Exploration 1

  • Is it possible if user changes currency in dropdown after entering a number, for that number field to update the currency symbol to match the currency without having to reenter the number in order for the currency symbol to change (see the USD £23.00 at the bottom of this example where I changed from GBP to USD but currency symbol remained GBP).
  • When I clear the page, the dropdown list still shows the selection. It seems to be related to the export value in Properties>Options because when I remove that it works. Any ideas how to fix this?
  • Is it possible with the dropdowns to have it so that it shows no currency code by default. I added an empty row to achieve this, but someone could enter a number with no currency code selected. Is there a better way? If not, I will likely set it to the first currency code in the list. 

 

Exploration 2

  • This option allows user to enter a value in the Cost field and then the code in the Currency field. The issue with this is not every currency would format the same way (ex - 23.00) so I'm wondering if I may be better to leave the cost field as a regular text field with no special formatting.

 

Exploration 3

  • This option allows user to enter anything in the fields, so there are no limitations based on how they enter. More room for error, but with so many different types of currency and formats it may be the best way.

 

Appreciate any assistance/feedback here. Thank you everyone!

R
rform82Author
Known Participant
August 18, 2022

I believe I solved the issue with the rest not clearing the dropdown fields. I missed that I could select the default choice in the Item List, so I changed it to the first/empty entry. Attached with the adjustment made.

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