Set Up Fiscal Years, Quarters, And Months; Set Up Calendar And Fiscal Years Within A Single Time Dimension - IBM Cognos User Manual

Set up Fiscal Years, Quarters, and Months

By default, dates in the time dimension are organized in accordance with the
standard calendar year, with a Year begins property controlling the date when the
year starts. To set up a time dimension for a non-calendar fiscal year, you change
the Year begins property from January 1 to the first day of your fiscal year, as
applicable.
If you are creating a fiscal year as an alternate drill-down path in an existing time
dimension based on the calendar year, ensure that the two paths converge at a
level whose categories coincide exactly.
Procedure
1. Open the Categories diagram for the time dimension that is to be based on
2. Open the Drill Category property sheet for the drill category and click the
3. In the Year begins box, type the date on which the fiscal year begins.
4. Click OK.
Set up Calendar and Fiscal Years Within a Single Time
Dimension
In many businesses, measures are tracked over more than one time scale. A
common combination is calendar and fiscal years, where the fiscal year spans
different parts of two calendar years.
Typically, calendar and fiscal years span different months, converging at the month
level, with the same number of months in each drill-down path.
When you create alternate drill-down paths for your calendar and fiscal time
periods, the Order by column for each path must be identical at the convergence
level. Cognos Transformer automatically handles this for the first drill-down path.
However, if you add more than one alternate path, you must specify the
appropriate Order by column for each new path.
Procedure
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IBM Cognos Transformer Version 10.1.1: User Guide
fiscal years.
Time tab.
Choose a valid date from any year, but ensure that your specified starting date
is the first day in the first week of that year. The default format is YYYYMMDD.
1. If no time dimension currently exists, create one that contains standard
calendar time periods, either manually or by using the Date Wizard.
2. In the Dimension Map, select the level at which you want the calendar and
fiscal years to converge.
Note: When connecting alternate drill-down paths in the time dimension, the
Year begins property on the Time tab of the Drill Category property sheet for
an alternate path must be offset by whole units of the chosen convergence
level.
3. From the Edit menu, click Create Drill-Down.
An alternate drill-down path appears in the time dimension.
4. In the Dimension Map, click on the empty area created for the new alternate
drill-down path.
5. From the Edit menu, click Insert Level.