[✔️DONE] Fuller handling of number and currency in Number Field

In reading the discussion here:

There is some talk of the limitations of the current Number Field. Not only does not have a currency option, but there are no decimals available and I’ve spoken with support about this and simply that functionality is not built yet as I understand. So I wanted to post the specific request to build that Field out some more so it would have more robust capability, like in a lot of other nocode apps that have a “number” type column.

This is also related to and out-and-out dedicated Currency-type Field, requested here already:

Obviously if we ultimately had a separate Currency Field that would be fine, or if Currency was rolled into the Number Field as a configuration option, either solution solves the problem.

Thanks!

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Although it is not a massive drain on our productivity, as a real estate company we could definitely use a currency field, and would also love to see decimal and comma separator (I guess configurable for how they’re used differently in different countries). More number field functionality is a must long-term.

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Fibery supports decimals, right? or am I misunderstanding your need?
As for the currency option, do you mean that you want the symbol to prefix the number instead of suffix?
Of course, the thousands separator is useful in some cases, and that would be nice to have…

Hey Chris!

What I mean is if I write a number to the hundredths, let’s say, it disappears after I enter the data. Maybe that’s a bug?

Also, I cannot put in larger numbers. I track invoices in Fibery so that limit is problematic for sure.

That sounds a bit odd. I have no problems writing decimals, and I have checked that I can enter numbers in the billions, so there should be no problems with invoices (unless your business is doing extraordinarily well!)

@Chr1sG , too funny!

I’m actually referring to bills I receive (for my Vendors they are “invoices), they have all sorts of lengths, etc. which my Vendors control.

I get this when trying to put in a long number:

image

Alternatively I get this error at times, too.

Generally I think it’s odd the way you set up the Number Field, which a really essential one for custom field use in any app. I think more conventional is to have the ability to dictate what decimal level you have in a Number Field, and not have to choose whether the number has a decimal or not. I think you’ve used Coda - they do this very simply. Not Rocket Science and I wish we had that handling here.

This issue reminds me of the Awkward Date Picker which cause me angst on a daily basis since you can’t simply write in times in Natural Language, or any language for that matter! As when you try to put in a time value in a Date that isn’t written precisely as “MM:HH”, the entire calendar moves around and you have to go and redo the date itself.

Thanks!

I think it sounds like you would be better served by using a string (text) field for the ‘bill number’ since I’m guessing you don’t actually perform any arithmetic on the data. It’s really just a string of characters that is limited to using numeric digits, right?

You know that it’s possible to choose decimal instead of integer (and thus define precision) right?

Also, you said this:

Are you saying that you’d like all numbers to be stored internally as decimals, but be able to control the number of decimal places that are shown? I’m not sure how useful that is…maybe you have a use case that I don’t.
I definitely think it’s a shame that many fields are in some ways not editable after creation, but the decimal precision is one of the few things that can be changed after creation.

Yes I’m aware you can input a full string of any numerals in the “Text” Type Field. I think that’s an unnatural way to handle this need, and a workaround of sorts.

My team has found the way the “Number Field” works in Fibery a problematic area that affects Quality of Life. I’d simply expect that field to operate like just about all other Number Fields I’ve encountered work. Here are some examples of how other popular tools handle Number Fields:

Wrike:

ClickUp:

Notion:

Coda:

image

None make a differentiation between whether the number is an “integer” or “decimal.” In fact I think that’s actually linguistically incorrect, and confusing. Isn’t a “decimal” the part of the number after the “period” so to speak? From Wikipedia:

These are just more natural, intuitive ways to add a Number Field. I feel like a lot of the users are reflecting this with the requests around better Number handling, which is why I created a unique post for it. I may be wrong, I guess we’ll see if this post gets traction, and whether your, or my, take on the situation are better supported.

I am trying to highlight an area of Fibery that I think could use better UX handling so it’s more user friendly for teams coming in. I hope that’s useful.

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I agree that there is no logical reason why the user should have to choose between ‘integer’ and ‘decimal’, since the former is logically a subset of the latter. I suspect that it relates to how they are internally stored.
I agree that it would be nice to be able to define the thousand separator and whether or not the symbol precedes or succeeds the numbers.

As a side note, when using formulas, I think there might be a difference in functionality between the cases when the result is an integer or decimal, in that the former implements rounding, whereas the latter doesn’t (it just alters the presentation). I think this can have consequences if those numbers are then used elsewhere.

For me, I don’t use numbers enough for the problems to be a QoL issue, but on the other hand, some of the handling of dates (like what happens if you use ‘Date.End’ in a formula) is problematic for me, but that’s another story for another time :slight_smile:

Hi all!
Thanks for rising the theme. :sparkles:
So, here are some points.

  1. We suggest using Number fields for cases when the number is countable.
    So, in most cases, like - article number, invoice number, etc. - better to use a Text field.
  2. We do also hope someday to allow converting fields - like from integer number to the decimal one.

We have to make more clear p.1 logic and make human-friendly errors :slight_smile:

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Money formatting is in progress, soon it will be possible to select Money formatting, select currency, decimals representation, and thousands separator.

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Thanks Michael.

Any news on when this will be done:

Really need it for CRM we are trying to set up in Fibery to go along with the Product Mgmt we do.

Thanks!

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I hope I am not stealing the team’s thunder by posting, but it seems this feature is almost done as I just saw new options for number fields :smiling_face_with_three_hearts: Thanks again for implementing this.

I did have one question though: will we be able to do anything with the actually currency type (e.g. be able to convert from one to another in formulas, possibly using this) at some point in the future or is it just a display setting? Also, if it will carry some meaning, will there be a possibility in the future for users to possibly choose/change currency on a per entity basis (with a default preset)?

I wanted to thank you and then couldn’t resist asking for another thing. I’ll show myself out :man_facepalming: :smirk: :nerd_face:

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Money formatting is implemented in latest release

2021-06-24 16.03.33

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Great! Unfortunately I have a little issue when I try to implement it: I can’t set decimal the way I want on some fields with data in them already. I am guessing that it tries to preserve any existing data when changing field configuration, which is a good thing. But I can’t find any existing data that has a decimal point. Yet still I am unable to select 0 decimal points. See GIF where I check each existing value, showing no .0 decimals (it shows decimals before clicking because the currency field settings are for 1 decimal place), then I open the Type and attempt to edit the Field for 0 decimal, but it is grayed out:
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I wonder if that issue is related to having data with decimal values or that there is some underlying use of integers for no decimal value vs decimal/float for numbers with 1 or more decimal values. In general, it seems like fibery doesn’t let you change the field too much after first definition of it, which can be a pain.

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This is a great point. I hope the new Entity changes on the horizon we just heard about today:

Will rectify this. In particular I get stuck with not being able to edit relations, even those of the same type - so changing an one-to-one to another one-to-one, not to a Many-to-one, which understandably is a more complex issue.

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I have the same issue:

  • I can create a new field and set it to 0 decimal
  • An existing field currently set to 2 decimals cannot be changed to 0 decimal (grayed out)

Is this tied to a dependency somehow? Wen through the different relationships and there didn’t seem to be any. Also, this is in the default Agency workspace (which I am currently playing with) :slight_smile:

It’s a technical issue:
0 decimal places → stored as integer
1 or more decimal places → stored as decimal
Unfortunately, it’s not possible to convert a number field from decimal to integer.

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