Variable calculation #2

Hi ​@johnt happy Friday! I’m so sorry, for some reason the spam filter picked up your post and we missed it! 

​@john.desborough do you think you might be able to help a fellow John again? 

​@Grace ​@johnt - use a a variable for the running total. 

here’s what i did in this sample

created variable v_running to hold the running total:

add q1 to v_running

add q2 to v_running

subtract q3 from v_running

then

are your (expenses + deficit) greater than your income?

ie (expenses + deficit) - income GT zero, the answer should be NO

if (expenses + deficit) - income LT zero, the answer should be YES

evaluate v_running LT or GT 0 and set value of v_yesno

you should see this same detail in the typeform. 

des

​@john.desborough ​@Grace 

Thank you for your answer. It’s similar to what I did.

However, the problem I had was that I’m trying to do two calculations in one question. The first calculation (the one you helped with before) is to determine whether the applicant has ‘excess’ income, i.e. >£300 more than expenses. I created two variables, ‘surplus’ which is set at 300, and ‘balance’ which is zero. The steps in that calculation are:

• Add income to balance
• Add expenses to surplus
• Subtract surplus from balance
• If balance > surplus → “We have calculated that your income is much more than your expenses”.

This calculation works fine, but I then added a second calculation (like your suggestion) to the same question. And that’s where it got messy. I created another variable, ‘deficit’, set at zero.

• Add expenses to deficit
• Subtract income from deficit
• If deficit > 0 → “We have calculated that your expenses are more than your income”.

So my problem was not so much the calculation, more the workflow. I tested it with different values, some where income > expenses and some where income < expenses, but it always gave both conclusions, “We have calculated that your income is much more than your expenses” and “We have calculated that your expenses are more than your income”.

Now, having my calculation confirmed by your example, stepping away from it for a while, and explaining to you what I did, I’ve resolved it. I had a duplicated rule in the question that was screwing things up.

So thanks again for your help.

​@johnt - glad you got it resolved. pay the success forward by paying for a stranger’s coffee the next time you are out and about. lol

cheers

des

Really pleased you got to the bottom of it ​@johnt, thanks for jumping in with your advice ​@john.desborough 🙌

​@john.desborough ​@Grace 

Sorry, I spoke too soon. I thought I had resolved it. I tested it with different values, some with income > expenses and some with income < expenses, as I said before, by going back to the start of the form and changing the numbers. It seemed to work ok so I uploaded it to our website.

Tried it out there and it’s the same problem as before, though this time I started the form from scratch each time. If income is > expenses, or if income = expenses, or if income < expenses, it works. But if income is > (expenses + 300) (the value I put for “surplus’), then it goes to both conclusions in turn.

I’ve created a very much simplified version of the form. I would be very grateful if you could have a look at it, particularly the branching in S2 as I can’t see what I’m doing wrong.

Thanks

​@johnt - can you take screen shots of the logic rules please … that would help. 

here’s the set from my example: 

​@john.desborough 
Thanks John, here are the screenshots.

John