Allow In-Place Column Replacement When Editing Calculated Fields (OAS 2025/26/OAC)

Dhaval Parikh Stantec

I'd like to suggest a UX improvement to the calculated field editor in Oracle Analytics Server (OAS 2025). I am not sure if this is resolved in OAC or OAS 2026.

Current Behavior:
When building or editing a calculated field and you want to swap out a column already used in the formula, there's no way to replace it in place. If you drag or select a new column, it simply gets appended to the existing formula — it doesn't replace the column you intended to change. This forces you to:

1. Manually delete the old column reference from the formula first
2. Then add the new column

If you forget to delete the old one first, you end up with an extra column in your formula that then needs to be removed manually - adding unnecessary steps

Proposed Improvement:
When a column reference is already selected/highlighted in the formula editor, replacing it (by dragging a new column or selecting one from the data panel) should swap it out in place - similar to how text editors handle selected text replacement. This would make the workflow much faster and more intuitive.

Expected Benefit:

• Fewer clicks and manual steps when editing calculations
• Reduces the chance of accidentally leaving stale column references in a formula
• More consistent with standard editing conventions users are already familiar with

This is a small change but would meaningfully improve the day-to-day experience for anyone working frequently with calculated fields.

Would love to hear if others have run into this - please vote if you agree this would be a helpful improvement!

Thanks