Have you ever been asked to create a report containing prior year and current? The request is common and most report writers would respond by doing a union of the current year data, plus the prior year data, then present the results on a crosstab. If you have a cube modeler like Transformer, it does the current year and prior year work for you, but what if you don’t have a cube modeler with a time wizard build in? You can create a Time Dimension using a Time Period field in Framework Manager. The technique to derive a hierarchy containing custom time periods will be covered in a later blog post, but for now we will talk about the concept of year of year report and how Time Periods works.

What are Framework Manager time periods?

One would logically think about the calendar when they think of time periods. However, there are many businesses that do not adhere to the calendar for their fiscal reporting. A time period is a concept defined by the business to report on financial or sales results over a standard period of time. These periods are usually defined by years, quarters, months, weeks and sometimes one less thought about such as the seasons of the year.

Where should a time period be defined?
For best performance, time calculations would ideally be defined within an enterprise date table dynamically controlled by a stored procedure. However, if this is not an option, then a query subject within the business view of Framework Manager can also control how you define your business time periods. Doing either one of these eases the process of creating calculations for period comparisons.

Why is time period comparison reporting important?
Year over year or even time period over time period, reporting is important to evaluate the performance of the business or a department. This style of reporting is important in helping a business identify measurable recurring events. The reports can help to identify a negative trend that needs corrective action or a positive trend, which requires increased productivity in specific areas of the business. Such as manufacturing or purchasing to stock trending item(s) at the beginning of the appropriate trend.