This section describes how to use CONCATENATE() function and Ampersand (&) operator expressions in your email templates. For information about using text expressions in templates, see Text expressions.
You can include CONCATENATE() functions or Ampersand (&) operators in your template to combine two or more values to yield a single text value.
An Ampersand operator is just a synonym for the CONCATENATE() function. When you specify an Ampersand operator in an expression, AppSheet converts that portion of the expression into a CONCATENATE() function. Using an Ampersand operator is simply a compact way of specifying the CONCATENATE() function.
For example, the following two expressions are equivalent:
<<CONCATENATE("Time: ",[MeetingTime], " (Uses CONCATENATE)")>>
<<"Time: "&[MeetingTime]&" (Uses &)">>
If you refer to a field in a CONCATENATE() expression, the value of that field is not formatted. Because AppSheet uses the CONCATENATE() function when combining two or more record key field values to yield the compound key value for the record, the resulting key value must contain the entire unformatted value of each key field.
For example, if the CONCATENATE() expression contains a MeetingTime time field that specifies Ignore seconds "On", the time value is displayed in full; the Ignore seconds setting is not honored.
For example, the following:
<<CONCATENATE("Time: ",[MeetingTime], " (Uses CONCATENATE)")>>
<<"Time: "&[MeetingTime]&" (Uses &)">>Results in :
Time: 3:30:45 PM (Uses CONCATENATE)
Time: 3:30:45 PM (Uses &)
You can force a field value to be formatted by enclosing the field value in a TEXT() function.
For example:
<<CONCATENATE("Time: ",TEXT([MeetingTime]), " (Uses CONCATENATE)")>>
<<"Time: "&TEXT([MeetingTime])&" (Uses &)">>Results in:
Time: 3:30 PM (Uses CONCATENATE)
Time: 3:30 PM (Uses &)