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Joe Gill

Microsoft MVP - Power Platform Consultant

Power Fx Formula Columns in Dataverse

22nd July 2022 by Joe Gill

The preview of Power Fx formula columns in Dataverse has just been announced. Up until now, I ignored formula columns as they were only available in Dataverse for Teams. So I wanted to check out a little bugbear of mine with calculated fields and how they handle nulls. Strictly speaking, calculated fields handle nulls correctly and if you perform an arithmetic operation on a field containing a null the result is null. I did a post a long time ago suggesting a way to get around this.

Power Fx Formula Columns in Dataverse - Joe Gill

To create a Power Fx Formula Column you need to use the preview maker portal and you will now see the fx Formula option when you are creating a column.

Power Fx Formula Columns in Dataverse - Joe Gill

Enter your Power Fx formula as required and save the column.

Power Fx Formula Columns in Dataverse - Joe Gill

Once the column is saved in the preview portal it is available and editable in the maker portal. Be careful as formula columns are still in preview so you don’t want to inadvertently push them to production.

Power Fx Formula Columns in Dataverse - Joe Gill

Having added my PFX column to the form I can see that it handles nulls gracefully and treats a null value as a zero. This simplifies greatly the handling of null fields as you would expect from a low-code solution. You no longer need to create shadow calculation fields to check for null values or populate all your numeric fields with zeros using unnecessary database space. Power Fx Formula Columns work in the same way as calculated fields and they create computed fields on the table in the SQL Azure database behind Dataverse. So they only recalculate after you save the record.

Power Fx Formula Columns in Dataverse - Joe Gill

Power Fx started life as the Canvas Apps formula language. It is now becoming omnipresent across the Power Platform and soon will be available in Model Driven Apps, Power Virtual Agents, Canvas Apps and business process flows. So now is a good time to get up to speed with it, Power FX Overview, especially if you are struggling with nulls in calculated fields.

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Filed Under: Dataverse, Power Platform

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Joe Gill

Microsoft Business Applications MVP – Power Platform, Dynamics 365 and Azure.

An architect with over twenty years experience designing and developing technology solutions. Specializing in the Microsoft technology stack including Power Platform, Dynamics 365 and Azure. Microsoft MVP Profile

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