Current Data vs Previous Data

[Renith]

Hi,

I am new to Microstrategy. I am having problems displaying a comparison between Current Vs Previous Data.

The user should be able to compare Current Year Data vs Previous Year Data based on a number of parameters, including some fields calculated using a Metric.
Please see the sample Layout below that is required.

Category 1 Week Day
1 1
October 2002 vs. Oct 2003
2002 2003 Difference
Parameter 1 11.23 12.23 + 1.00
Parameter 2 2,053 3,053 + 1000
Parameter 3 3.42 2.42 - 1.00
Parameter 4 11,706 12,306 + 600


(1) I tried using the Tranformation & metrics at a field level to arrive at the difference. I was able to arrive at the difference, but I was not able to display the inputs for comparison in the reports. Is there a way to achieve this ?

(2) Is there any other way other than the Transformation to achieve this?

(3) The user should be able to compare this month data with, say data for June for the same year. In this case, transformation will not work. So is there a way to achieve this some other way ?

Please help !

Thanks,
Reni

 

[entaroadun]

1. Please explain what you mean by "not able to display the inputs for comparison". I assume you created three metrics: Current Value, Previous Value, and Difference. You can display Current Value and Previous Value along with the Difference. Aren't the Current Value and Previous Value your inputs?

2. You can use a consolidation to do the same thing. As a single adhoc request, it really doesn't matter which you choose. If you have a lot of these reports though, you should analyze which make more sense for your requirements. It really depends. I'm sorry I can't be more specific on this point, but if you tell us your requirements, I'm sure we can come up with a good framework.

3. Comparing October with June can be done with a transformation. You can have a "4 month prior" transformation or a "June of same year" transformation. You can also do it with consolidations. It depends on your specific requirement which of these is best.

 

[Renith]

Requirement:
The user will enter two inputs for Year, month, week and weekday. The report shall display the 1st input metrics data in one-column and 2nd input metrics data in second column and the 3rd columns shall get the variance of the first two columns.

The following are the approaches:

· Report level filters are not possible. We can have only one or more filter at the report level for a single metric. We cannot map the first filter to one metric and another to the second metric.
· So to over come this we have done filtering at the metric level. We have created two metrics for each input. But the problem with metric level filter is we cannot display the inputs given as headers. Even while exporting we cannot get the inputs. Only report level filters will be exported.
· One solution for this is we can give one input and can calculate the previous days, week, month or years date based on the first input. For this we need to create the transformations, which are static. We cannot create the transformations dynamically. The problem with this approach is the user cannot get the comparison for any given inputs. He is limited to the previous day or week or month or year.
· Consolidations will also become static.

-----------------------
Sorry if I misled you in my first query stating that we are comparing with June data always. The user can choose any two Dates to compare against. This is why , we thought it was impossible to have all the possible transformations defined.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated!

Thanks

 

[entaroadun]

I believe you can put attribute element prompts inside of consolidations. However, I don't think the column headings can be updated. I don't think MSTR can do what you need without customization.