We have spent a lot of time refining the analytics tool we built to produce the list of the most popular formula functions to gain deeper insights into how you’re using Calcapp. A year later, here’s a fresh look at some of those data points, all pertaining only to apps created in 2025.
Most popular functions
If we look at the most popular functions used in only the apps created over the past 12 months, we can see that the list hasn’t changed all that much:
| Rank | Function name | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | IF | 52.6% |
| 2 | CUMPRINC | 14.1% |
| 3 | ABS | 12.9% |
| 4 | ROUND | 11.8% |
| 5 | ISDEFINED | 1.7% |
| 6 | DATE | 1.0% |
| 7 | BLANK | 0.9% |
| 8 | FORMATNUMBER | 0.9% |
| 9 | RGB | 0.9% |
| 10 | AND | 0.4% |
| 11 | TONUMBER | 0.3% |
| 12 | SUM | 0.2% |
| 13 | LEN | 0.2% |
| 14 | IFS | 0.2% |
| 15 | TODAY | 0.2% |
| 16 | ISBLANK | 0.2% |
| 17 | COLOR | 0.2% |
| 18 | CONVERT | 0.1% |
| 19 | PMT | 0.1% |
| 20 | MAX | 0.1% |
Interestingly, RGB has entered the top 10, pushing CHOOSE down to 25th place. This suggests that more app creators are customizing their color schemes and creating visually distinctive apps.
(Or it could simply reflect that our new templates use RGB heavily.)
Most popular button types
We also have a list of the most popular button types:
| Rank | Button type | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Reset | 80.3% |
| 2 | Email report | 7.7% |
| 3 | Go forward | 4.4% |
| 4 | Go back | 2.1% |
| 5 | Formula | 2.0% |
| 6 | Server relay | 1.2% |
| 7 | Open report | 1.0% |
| 8 | Browse | 0.7% |
| 9 | Clipboard copy | 0.2% |
| 10 | Compose email | 0.2% |
What we learned here is that reset buttons are by far the most popular. That was the default when you pressed Add button for years, but we changed it a few years ago to email report buttons. That was apparently the wrong call, because you have all dutifully changed those buttons to reset buttons!
That alone is very useful information to us, because it’s actionable. We have changed the default to reset buttons once more. Therefore, it appears that you won’t have to change the button kind more than one time out of five, if you’re a typical user.
Most popular screen types
We also have data on the most popular screen types:
| Rank | Screen type | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Form | 89.6% |
| 2 | List | 7.7% |
| 3 | Text | 2.7% |
Nothing terribly surprising here. We’ll revise our handling of different screens in the future, stay tuned.
Most common formula errors
What’s more interesting is that we now have data on the most common formula errors you encounter:
| Rank | Error kind | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Invalid name reference | 41.6% |
| 2 | Circular dependency | 21.8% |
| 3 | Type mismatch (formula) | 14.4% |
| 4 | Type mismatch (operator) | 10.5% |
| 5 | Illegal ordering | 3.6% |
| 6 | Unknown function | 3.4% |
| 7 | Invalid text in formula | 1.6% |
| 8 | Action formula support required | 1.1% |
| 9 | Function parameter count | 1.0% |
| 10 | Type mismatch (function) | 0.8% |
We obviously have our work cut out for us here. To be clear, this list represents formula errors in apps that are stored on our server — which is to say, apps probably abandoned by would-be app authors because of these errors.
(If you get frustrated, please get in touch! During working hours, we often manage to respond immediately when you chat with us. We are also often quick to respond to emails at support@calcapp.net.)
Invalid name references
What this tells us is that referencing fields, buttons and the like is a friction point. That particular error message links to this page, which tries to explain how it works, when you reference items from other screens, but perhaps this explanation isn’t clear enough.
Before we introduced our autocomplete functionality, this figure was actually higher, around 60%. The nice thing about autocomplete is that you can type the name or label of, say, a field, and autocomplete inserts the correct syntax automatically. We think that this has contributed to getting this error down in our statistics, but it’s still concerning to see it being so high.
Circular references
Circular dependencies are tricky. Calcapp is fairly unique in that it diagnoses these errors when you’re building your app (good) instead of just having your app fail with an error message when you run it (bad). However, we have struggled to produce a clear and actionable error message when circular dependencies are found.
So what are these circular dependencies? Plainly put, it’s when a field indirectly or directly references itself in the formula.
What’s the value of Field1 supposed to be? Why, it should be the value of Field1 plus 2! Obviously, that can’t work, and the same goes if Field1 depends on Field2, which depends on Field3, which depends on Field1. It’s difficult to get this across in an error message, and we’ll keep trying to make it clearer.
Helping us serve you better
These insights into how you use Calcapp are invaluable for us. They guide our development priorities and help us understand where our users struggle most. While we’ve made great strides with features like autocomplete, the data shows we still have important work ahead in making formula creation more intuitive and error-resistant. Keep building those apps — and keep letting us know where you get stuck!