Sometimes it is helpful to concatenate values and texts in order to produce a more informative output for users of your analyses. In CPM, this features will mostly be used within the “Format Code” field when configuring Value KPIS or OLAP Tables (as described in Charts and Tables (Analysis View)). Concatenation can be done by simply using the “+” operator.
Concatenation can be used to modify the content of table columns. You can for example insert text before or after the content of a column. However, it is not possible to use different texts for each row, rather the value used will be applied to every row in the table. This feature will often be used to add currency signs to monetary values. When using Value KPIs, you can also type the label of the KPI directly into the “Format Code” field and concatenate it with its corresponding value.
Example:
In our OLAP Table, we want to show purchase order values in US-Dollar, therefore adding a Dollar sign behind each value inside the column. For this purpose, we will insert the following function into the “Format Code” field given in the configuration options for the OLAP Table: =TEXT($value; '0,000') + ' $'. Each purchase order will be formatted as text with thousands separator and the Dollar sign will be attached to it.
Now let’s assume we want to show the number of invoices without orders as a Value KPI and place the text “Invoices without Orders” in front of it so that every user will immediately understand the KPI displayed. After choosing the correct data source and table column (as described in Value KPI), we will insert the following concatenation into the “Format Code” field given in the configuration options for the column: ="Invoices without Orders:" +TEXT($value; '0,000').