>>Hi Dave,
>>
>>>The function call works just fine in the load event.
>>Finally Dave, you found the answer. It is so funny that we were looking into grids and columns and the solution came from something totally in a different direction.
>
>Oh no - I haven't found the answer at all. I just found that the S2ms() function works fine in the Load event. That is, the function is visible to the form at all times.
>
>Now if I set the controlsource of column3 at design time to be simply...
>

smdrday.duration
>

>The grid fires up just fine.
>If I have a button on the form which does
>

THISFORM.grd1.column3.controlsource= "s2ms(smdrday.duration)"
>

>I get error ... "variable is not found" !!!
>What variable could it be talking about??
>Even though a call to s2ms(smdrday.duration) works fine!
>
>Still no closer :-((

Have you tried setting the controlsource to:

THISFORM.grd1.column3.controlsource= "= s2ms(smdrday.duration)"