[UNSOLVED]Special date category Month - current yr/prior yr

[SueC]

I was quite proud of myself when I was able to easily set up a special date category group for our CFO that allows her to look at year over year comparisons for any given month.Ã,  The current diagram looks like this:

Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã, Jan 2004
January
Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã,  Ã, Jan 2005

I set this up for each of the 12 months.Ã,  Each month/year is a CUSTOM relative time --> SINGLE CATEGORY --> target MONTHS --> offset (for Jan) -10 --> context YEARS --> offset either 0 or -1.Ã, 

It was beautiful and worked like a charm.Ã,  Until the month changed.Ã,  The month offset for January when the month is November is -10, however when the month changes to December -10 will be Febuary.Ã,  If I don't go in and modify the offset for each month the January category will have Feb 2004/Feb 2005 under it.

Does anyone have any ideas that I can try so that I don't have to modify my model on the first of each month?Ã,  I've attached screen shots from the model in case my explanation doesn't give you the picture.

Thanks!

sue

[Shell]

Hi,

I know this is old but it says unsolved - this is a solution but it is not a very nice one.

In the past I encountering this problem and I created a dimension called Months of the year. (There is a function for monthname in Impromptu or if using reportNet you can use an if then else on the month number as part of the date) Then Taught the users to nest the date dimension next to it. Therefore you can look at January not only year on year but for any year for which data is held in the cube.

As I said it is not as pretty a solution as using special date categories but it will produce the result.

The additional problem with it is if you are comparing April 2005 with April 2006 because it does not take in account the smarts in special date categories it will not recognise to compare to the same point last year. You will have to educate the users to note the current month comparison will be a full month to a part month and is therefore not relevant or accurate.

[SueC]

Update 4/28/06 - hey never mind.Ã,  It's not a problem any more.Ã,  I got canned this morning (I see now that the trap was set months ago and I played right in to it).Ã,  So, it's not my problem any longer!Ã, 

That's one way to solve these issues!!!Ã,  Ã, ;D

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Thank you Shell.Ã,  I've had this suggested a couple of times and just haven't tried it yet.Ã,  I've been meaning to but other things keep coming up.Ã,  But knowing that you've done it and it works (the other suggestions were just that -- "try this") is reassuring.Ã, 

I'll give it a try.

Thanks again.Ã,  And it looks like you're new so welcome to the forum.Ã,  I hope you stick around and play with us!

Sue

[Draoued]

Have a look to Supportlink 12n1
Page 35 you can find a macro to rename the relative time category , I think with some adjustment you can make it working for your case.
Or be nice with the fellow handling the case now, and give him the info :-)