Nested @Functions in IDEA - Relevance and Utility

Brian Element

Forums

Hi,

 

@Functions in IDEA allow for the following -

 

- Data Sanitization

- Data Conversion

- Data Preparation

- Data Integrity Checks

- Arithmetical Computations

- Conditional / What If Computations

- Fraud Analytics

- Ratio Analysis

 

and much more.

 

Over 100+ @Functions in IDEA span Character, Date, Numeric and Time fields.

 

Most of the time we may use @Functions in isolation like @len(Bank Account Number) to check the validity of the subject bank accounts.

 

To get more out of IDEA try to use nested @Functions if the situation demands.

 

A nested @Functions is an @Function within another @Function.

 

So if we apply @strip(@upper(Vendor Invoice Number)) to prepare the data to look for duplicate vendor invoices we bring together the efficacy of two powerful @Functions simultaneously.

 

The inner @upper(Vendor Invoice Number) will first convert the letters in the Vendor Invoice Number to upper case. Once done the outer @strip will remove all special characters and spaces from the virtual upper case field. This operation will increase your chances substantially of locating duplicate vendor invoices over a plain simple duplicate on the base invoice number field.

 

Kind Regards

 

Jairam