Time Dimensions is a dimension with a date key and its base content is generated by Profitbase Studio.
A time dimension always has the Base calendar. In addition you can add Fiscal and Trade based calenders. The time dimension can be extended by properties and joined with other tables.
SSAS databases normally has at least one Time Dimension. Transaction tables will link to this, so this time span should be set appropriate according to where it's used.
The Time Dimension contains a base or normal calendar from 1. January to 31. December each year.
For Fiscal calendar, the year (financial year, or budget year) is the period used for accounting purposes and preparing financial statements. In Profitbase Studio a Fiscal calendar is used only when the Fiscal year differs from a 'normal' year. The fiscal year value is determined by start date and how many of the months / periods belong to a natural year. The natural year with the majority of the months in the fiscal time range, determines the fiscal year value.
Trade calendars ensures sales comparability between years by dividing the year into months based on a week pattern (4-4-5,4-5-4 or 5-4-4). Trade (and non regular Fiscal) years requires specifying a Quarter Week Pattern and when to add a 53rd week to a fiscal year.
The Quarter Week Pattern can be 4-4-5, 4-5-4 and 5-4-4, where the numbers specifies the number of weeks for each fiscal month in a quarter.
In fiscal years with 53 weeks, one of the months in the quarter will get an extra week, giving the quarter an alternate week pattern, for example 4-4-5 will become 4-5-5.
Specifying when to apply the 53rd week is done by entering a list of year.fiscalmonth values in the Fiscal Years/53 Weeks field of the Fiscal or Trade Time Dimension settings page.
The input must be a comma or semicolon separated list on the following form;
[year].[fiscalmonth], [year].[fiscalmonth],...or [year].[fiscalmonth]; [year].[fiscalmonth];...
for example 2004.3, 2009.3, 20014.3
Note: The fiscal month value is not necessarily the actual month of a year, but rather the month of the fiscal year. The year-part is the natural year that is the start year of the fiscal year. The fiscalmonth-part is the month number of the fiscal year.
For example, if your fiscal year starts April 2nd 2006 and ends March 31st 2007, February 2007 will be the 11th month, which in turn will give a week 53 [year].[fiscalmonth] value equal to 2006.11.
| Name | This is the name of the Time Dimension. It can be overridden when used in a module. The name can have translations. |
| Description | User defined description. |
| Comments | User defined comment (supports RTF-format). See more here. |
| Start/End Date | This is used as the span for the Time Dimension. The result table will contain on row per day within this period. |
| Use Fiscal calendar | If the dimension will have columns/attributes/hierarchies for fiscal calendar. A section for entering fiscal settings will be enabled. |
| Use Trade calendar | If the dimension will have columns/attributes/hierarchies for trade calendar. A section for entering trade settings will be enabled. |
This contains status of last operation. Click here for more details and usage.
These setting is used to create the base calendar for the Time Dimension.
| Calendar | Profitbase Studio uses the Calendar setting to determine which day of the week if the first day and how to set week numbers. The selections are:
|
| Override standard calendar settings |
Check to override the default Calendar. Calendar Week Rule defines how the first week, week number 1, of the new year will be determined. The options are:
First Day of Week defines the first day of the week (Sunday,Monday..Saturday) |
| Time hierarchies | Check to select between predefined hierarchies.The hierarchies can be translated along with level items and its all member name. |
| Time Dimension formatting | For each selected language under solution settings, the name part of attributes (quarter, month, week, week day, day can be formatted with a set of predefined formats. Custom formats can be added. For details click here. |
For more on fiscal, see text above..
| Fiscal Start Date | Start date of calendar |
| Quarter Week Pattern | Regular or 4-4-5/4-5-4/5-4-4 where the numbers specifies the number of weeks for each fiscal month in a quarter. |
| 53 Week Settings | List of year.fiscalmonth values. |
| Time hierarchies | Check to select between predefined hierarchies.The hierarchies can be translated along with level items and its all member name. |
| Time Dimension formatting | For each selected language under solution settings, the name part of attributes (quarter, month, week, week day, day can be formatted with a set of predefined formats. |
For more on fiscal, see text above..
| Trade Start Date | Start date of calendar |
| Quarter Week Pattern | 4-4-5/4-5-4/5-4-4 where the numbers specifies the number of weeks for each fiscal month in a quarter. |
| 53 Week Settings | List of year.fiscalmonth values. |
| Time hierarchies | Check to select between predefined hierarchies.The hierarchies can be translated along with level items and its all member name. |
| Time Dimension formatting | For each selected language under solution settings, the name part of attributes (quarter, month, week, week day, day can be formatted with a set of predefined formats. |
This section has two parts:
From this section, an e.g. data source table can be joined to add new columns. DateID is the key column of the time dimension and this is usually what you binds to.
Select a table from the list at right. Check those columns that should be included to the time dimension. Click on the [Join] button to define how to join the two tables.
When processing the time dimension the additional fields from the joined table will be inserted into the time dimension table.
Scrips can be created to e.g. fill properties etc. In this section scripts can be connected to processing of the Time Dimension.
For more information on adding scripts click here, and for more on linking script extensions click here.