Set The Current Period Manually; Track Changes In A Measure Over A Specific Time Period - IBM Cognos User Manual

2. On the General tab, clear the Sets the current period check box for all but the
one you want used to set the current period.
3. Open the property sheet for the time dimension and, on the Time tab, select
the Automatically set the current time period check box. Click OK.

Set the Current Period Manually

If you clear the Automatically set the current time period check box, you can set
the current period to use any date category in the time dimension.
In general, you select a date category that appears at the lowest level in the time
dimension, but this is not a mandatory requirement. Once set, each time category
is generated and, before the creation of any cubes, the latest date category at the
lowest level below the selected category is used to set the current period. This
feature is useful when you want to automatically set the current period to the
latest date in a year, rather than to the latest date in your data.
Procedure
1. Open the property sheet for the time dimension and, on the Time tab, clear the
Automatically set the current time period check box. Click OK, and open the
Categories diagram for the time dimension.
2. Select the date category that you want to be the current period and, from the
Diagram menu, click Set Current Period.
The current period is set for the time dimension and automatically updated on
the time dimension property sheet.

Track Changes in a Measure over a Specific Time Period

Businesses often need to track changes in a measure, from one time period to
another. You can use relative time categories to enable your OLAP report users to
analyze trends from month to month, quarter to quarter, and year to year.
For example, suppose your users want to gauge current sales revenues in light of
previous performance. You set up the current period for your model to
automatically use the most recent date values available after each data update.
Then, you set up relative time categories that represent last month, last quarter,
and last year, as well as the same month of the prior quarter, same quarter of the
prior year, and same month of the prior year.
Procedure
1. Open the Categories diagram for the time dimension and position the pointer
over the right side of the root category.
The pointer changes to a crosshair.
2. Drag the pointer to the right of the root category.
A new relative time category is created and its property sheet opens.
3. In the Category code box, type a name for the new category.
4. Click the Relative Time tab.
5. In the Relative time box, select the relative time period that represents the
single period for which you want to create a relative time category, and click
OK.
For a Year-Quarter-Month time dimension, the available single categories list
includes the following:
v Current Month
Chapter 4. Structuring Your Data Into Dimensions
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