Duration
A whole number of minutes shown as readable time such as 1.5 hours, with a drop-down of common intervals.
What it is
Duration is a format of the Whole Number column. The form shows a drop-down with common intervals from 1 minute up to 3 days. You can pick one or type your own value. The stored value is always a number of minutes, while the form shows it as minutes, hours or days.
When to use it
Use it for lengths of time such as effort, setup time or service levels. For a point in time use Date and time. For a plain count of something other than time, use Whole number, decimal and float.
Licensing and configuration
No extra licence. Create a Whole Number column and set its Format to Duration in the table designer. The minimum and maximum of the column apply to the number of minutes. The Duration format cannot be applied to decimal columns.
Pitfalls
- Typed text must follow "x minutes", "x hours" or "x days". Hours and days accept decimals, such as 1.2 hours. A bare number is read as minutes.
- Values below one minute are rounded to the nearest minute.
- The database holds minutes, so flows, reports and canvas apps see a number and not the friendly text.
- Set a sensible maximum, because the column accepts any whole number of minutes inside its range.
Try it in the demo
- Open the first accelerator and find the Duration field in the Numbers section.
- Open the drop-down and pick a preset.
- Type 90 and see it become 1.5 hours.
- Type 2 days and see the value in days.