Adjust The Date Range To Encompass Early And Late Dates; Set Up A Manual Level For Unknown Categories - IBM Cognos User Manual

2. Click the Time tab.
3. From the Date input format box, select the appropriate date format and click
4. In the Data Sources list, select the data source for which you want to

Adjust the Date Range to Encompass Early and Late Dates

Categories for Early Dates and Late Dates are automatically generated if dates
from the source fall outside the range specified for any time dimension. By
changing the date range, you can incorporate out-of-range dates into your model.
An Early Dates or Late Dates category may also be generated if the Date input
format specified on the Time tab of a property sheet for a date column does not
match the date format of the data in the source.
For example, suppose your data source contains regional sales data from 2006 to
2007. You set the Earliest date and Latest date on the Time tab of the time
dimension property sheet to 20050101 and 20061231 respectively. A week later, the
source is updated to include data for 2007. When you generate categories for your
model, Late Dates categories appear. You follow the procedure outlined below to
incorporate this new data into your model.
Procedure
1. Open the property sheet for the time dimension and click the Time tab.
2. Type date values for Earliest date and Latest date as they currently exist in
3. In the Data Sources list, select the query that provides date values for the
4. In the Data Sources list, select the data source for which you want to

Set up a Manual Level for Unknown Categories

You can create an orphanage category in a manual level, to keep new data separate
until you can connect it to the appropriate parent category.
After you create an orphanage category, any subsequently generated categories
that do not have a position defined in the model become children of that
orphanage.
For example, suppose your organization is compiling customer satisfaction data for
analysis by service, city, and region. The data is compiled over a two-week period,
so the source is updated frequently. As you build the model, you want to store
new data separately from the part of the model you are working on. You also want
to be able to separately update the data in the completed areas of your model.
Procedure
1. Open the Categories diagram for the dimension in which you want to create an
2. From the Edit menu, click Insert Level, and specify the Level name for your
OK.
regenerate categories, and from the Run menu, click Generate Categories From
Selected Data Source.
your data source and click OK.
model.
regenerate categories, and from the Run menu, click Generate Categories From
Selected Data Source.
orphanage category and click the highest (left-most) level, such as Region.
new orphanage level on the Level property sheet.
Chapter 4. Structuring Your Data Into Dimensions
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