>>>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)"

I've now tried that using "=" and the error message now is...
"data source for this object must be a variable reference"