Setting Up Relative Time Categories - IBM Cognos User Manual

10. When you are finished defining the properties for this level, click OK.
11. Repeat steps 6 through 10 for each custom time level you want to add.

Setting Up Relative Time Categories

Some of the most commonly requested reports in any organization are
period-over-period performance reports and trend analyses, how sales in the
current period compare to sales from previous periods, and how last year's budget
compares to projections for next year. By including the most commonly required
relative time categories in your cubes, you avoid the need to recalculate them in
every OLAP report.
The types of relative time categories are:
v single-category periods, such as Same Month, Prior Quarter or Same Month,
v to-date periods, such as Year To-Date or Quarter To-Date
v N-period running totals, such as a 2-week total in the previous month, or a
You can also create custom to-date and N-period relative time categories to span
specified time ranges.
When using relative time categories, ensure that you set the Inclusion property to
Always include for each level in the time dimension so that the relative dates are
calculated correctly.
Default Relative Time Categories
The following relative time categories are automatically inserted into your model.
However, you can delete them or replace them with custom time categories that
better meet your users' OLAP reporting needs.
Tip: To replace automatically generated relative time categories with custom time
categories, start with the closest built-in choice, change it to a custom relative time
category and then change only those few settings needed to customize the
category.
v Current <period>
v Last <period>
v <Higher-level periods> To-Date (Grouped), including
5. In the Date Level Creation dialog box, select Do not create levels and click
OK twice.
6. Position the cursor in the Dimension Map, below your new time dimension
and, from the Edit menu, click Insert Level to open the property sheet for
your first manual level.
7. In the Associations box, click Add.
8. In the New Association dialog box, select Source from the Association role
drop-down list, and click More to select the column that contains the date
values for this first level of your time dimension. Click OK twice.
9. While still on the Level property sheet, assign other required properties for
this level.
For example, specify a different name for the level and, on the Time tab,
change Date function or Time level ranking.
Prior Year
4-month total in the previous year
Chapter 4. Structuring Your Data Into Dimensions
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