Formula on date....plz help

Question

Hi All,
I have a reporting requirement in which i have to do compariosn between different dates.
Mutliptovider contains following fields
Contract (char)
Move In date (char DATS)
Move Out date (char DATS)
Consumption(key fihure)
Status(need to calculate)
There will be user entry which can be any date (report start date & report end date).
now I have to do following comparison
Status = active if[ ( Move in date <report start date & report start date <Move out date<report end date) or (move in date < report start date & move out date> report end date) or (report start date< move in date< report end date & move out date > report end date) else In active
if anyone has any idea about it plz help
Regards
Sonal

Answer 1

Hi Sonal,
Firstly, create four formula variables
1) Move In date
2) Move Out date
3) Report start date
4) Report end date
Now you need to display status as active or inactive. This cannot be done at query level. For this you could create two characteristics 'Status1' with text table value 1-Active  and 'Status2' with text table value 2 - Inactive. And create two formula variables for the same. (This way one formula variable will always show 'Active' and the other 'Inactive')
Now create the following formula (with formula variables in place of the characteristic descriptions);
[ ( ( Move in date <report start date) * (report start date <Move out date<report end date)) +
((move in date < report start date) * (move out date> report end date)) +
((report start date< move in date< report end date) * (move out date > report end date)) * Status1] + Status2
Try out this formula in case you dont have any simpler solution yet, but this will definitely work.
Kindly let me know if this was what you required and whether it was helpful.
Regards,
Shruti