Duration Columns

Imagine that you run a design firm and want to store and manage information about the time (days, hours, minutes) spent on creating a logo or advertisement. The Duration column will be helpful for this purpose, and it can also serve as a basis for calculating designers’ pay.

General Properties

If a column contains data that doesn’t appear or behave as desired, you can edit the column’s General Properties.

Duration Options

Format

This property allows a user to specify the format in which the duration value will be represented. The following options are possible:

• HH:MM - hours:minutes
• HH:MM:SS - hours:minutes:seconds
• :MM - :minutes
• :MM:SS - :minutes:seconds
• Smart – This format presupposes smart converting of entered duration data that provides a more convenient way of representation. For example, if a user enters “125 min” value, the system will convert it into 2.08 hours.
• Days
• Hours
• Minutes
• Seconds

Decimal Places

This property allows a user to specify the number of decimal places for a numeral value. Please note that this field is required.

Totals

This property allows a user to view the total for all column entries; select the checkbox if you want the Totals line to be present at the end of the table.

Zero Values

When this property is unchecked, blank values are displayed instead of zero values. It also affects the average calculation as zero and blank values are ignored. If the property is checked, zero values are visible, and they are taken into account when calculating the average.

Averages

This property allows a user to view the average for all column entries; select the checkbox if you want the Averages line to be present at the end of the table.

Advanced Options

Colorization

To draw users’ attention to certain duration values, you can colorize them. The colorization is based on conditions where a value is less than an indicated number. Additionally, an alternative color can be specified in the "otherwise" field. You can also apply colorization in Formula-Duration columns. More details about colorization can be found here.

Help

When the Help text property is filled in, a question mark is displayed near the field name on the View/Edit form. Hovering over this question mark will show a pop-up with a tip or a help text message.