 <p>You have to enclose the value of pm in quotation marks too:</p> <pre><code>result = Evaluate({@DBlookup("":"";"":"";"admin";"} &amp; pm &amp; {";1)}) </code></pre> <p>This way it is recognized as a string. </p> <p>Example:</p> <p>If pm has a string value "Domino" then Evaluate string has to look like this:</p> <pre><code>@DBlookup("":"";"":"";"admin";"Domino";1) </code></pre> <p>but in your original formula version it would be </p> <pre><code>@DBlookup("":"";"":"";"admin";Domino;1) </code></pre> <p>BTW, the code would break if pm would contain a quotation mark. If you are sure that can't happen then the code is fine.</p>