Yes, we need it. Examples: we have custom fields for Badge location, Gate codes, membership bundle number,... We need to easily sort (Member List with custom layout) by these numbers so that they display 1,2,3,... and not 1,10,11,100,... And we need all sorts to have a sort order option: Ascending or Descending. To find the last number assigned for example.

I need to be able to sort the directory numerically using the directory gadget. I don't need a lot of function, just a field that is restricted to numbers so it will sort. No decimal places not validation, just the correct sorting. Thanks.

See comment from support below.

I'm afraid when it comes to ordering text field types, sorting is done alphabetically. This means numbers inserted into such fields are sorted based on their initial number rather than the actual amount. For example you'll see that the sorting goes from 18, 19, 2:

This is occurring since the system sorts by the order of characters within the string of text instead of a numerical value.

i would like to be able to sort by address number in our online directory. currently our address number sorts as text which is not helpful.

I have always found it difficult to understand the argument that numeric fields are unnecessary. I cannot imagine Excel or any database not having numeric fields! To answer Evgeny's specific questions:
1) We are a golf society catering for members between the age of 20 and 100 years old. We capture, currently in text fields: 'Year of birth' (members do not always wish to disclose their date of birth for privacy reasons; 'Golf handicap' (number between -8.0 and +57.0). We have tournaments that we enter where there are age restrictions, for example, over 55 years of age, over 70 years of age. We also need to differentiate between category 1 golfers (handicap 5.0 or less), category 2 golfers (handicap 6.0 to 12.0) and so on
2) Yes, we do need to have the ability to search on the above numbers, including 'less', 'greater' and 'between'. We would like to be able to perform a search of any member over the age of 55 with a handicap of 12 or less, and use this to create a directory of members who satisfy this criteria
3) As explained, we need integers, decimal and positive/negative
4) Validation would be helpful because we don't want new members putting in the wrong birth year, so we would only allow birth dates between 1900 and 2050
Hopefully this can be addressed in the very near future. Even though it doesn't appear to attract many votes, I am sure that there are many, many organizations that would use numeric fields if they were available

In a way, Evgeny is correct in calling export a workaround. Providing numerical fields would at least be a partial and superior workaround for two other deficiencies in Wild Apricot:
https://forums.wildapricot.com/forums/308932-wishlist/suggestions/41953792-advanced-search-needs-more-fields
https://forums.wildapricot.com/forums/308932-wishlist/suggestions/8826766-database-fields-custom-validation-e-g-regular-e

A current issue of mine is to search for zip codes within a specific range. Being able to all for between 21000 and 21200 is much easier than "starts with 210 or starts with 211 or starts with 212"

Understanding that this is on hold, but wanting to add my two cents... I have a number of clients that are chapters of a national association. In order to become a chapter member, you have to be a national member. So when someone fills out an application, we want to collect their national member number. As it stands now, they can just type "none" or "pending" or anything else. We need a field that can only accept numbers, not letters.

We are an alumni group. Much of our communications is based on class year.
I'd like to be able to search for people who, for example:
-graduated before 1970
-after 2000
-between 2014 and 2017
-entered only a 2-digit date instead of 4-digit (field value <100)

Help! the Viper 640 Class Association is a group of boat owners who identify our boats by sail numbers. I have created a common field for sail numbers, but when creating a layout, the sail numbers are alpha and not numeric. As such, 23 is followed by not 24 but 230!

Please add the capability of a common field that is a numeric datapoint and please let me know when it's done so I can convert my data.

Yes, there are workarounds, but WA would be more effective for us were this possible.

Thanks,

Ed Padin

We are a golf society and I am working with two other societies who use the Wild Apricot. For every member we capture his or her golf handicap, which takes two possible forms. Firstly, an exact handicap (1dp) and secondly, a playing handicap (0dp, rounded up). We need to able to sort on handicap and search for members in handicap ranges (or less than or more than). We cannot do this without a numeric field
Handicaps typically range between 0 (scratch) and 45 but as a further complication, which I don't expect Wild Apricot to address, a player who is better than scratch can have a 'plus' handicap (e.g. plus 2). I would be happy to accommodate this as a negative number, so, ideally, the numeric field should be able to accommodate a negative number for sorting purposes.

Thanks for the reminders, Walt :)

Today I am trying to add up the number of people at an event who are participating in three different activities.

Because there is no numeric field, some of them type "Two" instead of 2, so I have to change those so they will auto-sum in our hand-coded workaround.

If I export to a spreadsheet, even "2" comes in as text, so I can't add them up in the spreadsheet without a lot more work.

I just started to draft an email blast to members in nearby zip codes.

Then I realized I could not do an Advanced Search to select them because the zip code is not a numeric field. :(

Your design example is for numeric field in registration forms. But I hope you will also provide it in contact and membership fields.

I think you will satisfy most of our needs with a simple integer field that accepts any number. And you already know my feeling that a partial solution now is better than a full solution later. :)

Are you kidding......export is a workaround for another problem???? That may be YOUR view of export, but it is not other peoples UNLESS you plan to replace all other software and all other uses of data. So, if i want to produce graphs or tables of data i want to store in WA, i have to wait until you add an excell-like package to WA? Your view is focused on what works for you - keeping people dependent on WA - not what works for the customer. Tell me another major software program of any kind that does not have number fields.

I hear you, Walt.

Evgeny -

I have a specific suggestion for action on this, and then a general comment.

Specific suggestion: We could use the extra charge field (not shown in your design) as a workaround numeric field, if you would just let us set the dollar amount to zero (and for extra credit, don't show the money calculation if it is zero).

I would rather have a workaround soon than a complete solution years from now.

General comment: You said "But from our point of view, export itself is a workaround to another problem - something is missing in Wild Apricot functionality and you try to substitute it with export. This means that adding new field type will not truly resolve initial problem, so at some level it's not a real system improvement and we usually try to avoid such system changes."

I suggest this is exactly the wrong thinking. WA is never going to do everything for everybody. And any improvement you make is going to take a lot of time. Please make it easier to work around the lack of features that you haven't had time to implement yet.

(Case in point: Listserv, where several small changes would get us most of this needed functionality, but instead we are still waiting.)

Because WA's event registration lacks flexibility for multiple guests, we use numeric fields to specify the number of adults and children on a registration form (for pay-at-the-door events, of course; for prepay we use additional purchase).

We use numeric fields for year of birth, and would like to be able to search on this numeric value.

The old thread had 13 votes. Hope they are still being counted. Any idea when this useful feature will make the roadmap?

In response to your question, these are my reasons to wanting to be able to sort number fields.

I have an amount of financial information that I was able to consolidate from a relational database into a flat spreadsheet that can now be imported into Wild Apricot. This contains history for each contact such as the first date they became a member, amount of money they have contributed to memberships over the years, the number of years they contributed as a member before the date that Wild Apricot began being used. Etc.

This is an example of the data that I would be importing;

Member Since Last Date of Membership Years Contributed Membership Contributions Donation Contributions Last Donation Date In Volunteer System
1/07/1990 30/06/2014 19 $606 $0
NO

Since there are over 12000 contacts in the legacy database from history we are only importing 500 or so, so there will be an archive which we're going to refer to in excel however it would be good to have easy to refer to details about the active contacts on Wild Apricot and be able to create advanced searches according to those details.

To be honest it is a workaround to empower users with the historical information, however it would be useful. Otherwise, I'm happy to just keep it as a flat reference with no sorting capabilities. I understand and that there are many more important things to be working on than a workaround for something that doesn't directly improve the current processes in WA.

For instance, I can see that this already exists to sort donations captured within WA.

I would rather that development be put towards functions that I really need like recurring donations.

I'd like to see a numeric field type as well. Our group is a golf organization and some of our tournaments are open only to members with handicap indexes below a certain number or in specified ranges. With the handicap index in a text field I can't create the saved searches I need, such as all members with handicap index less than 15 or members with a handicap index between 4 and 8.