Exclude current month from display in multidimensional reporting

[JMDONS]

Hi Cognos Experts,

Would highly appreciate if someone could please help with the following scenario:

Studio: Cognos Report Studio 10.1.1
Datasource: OLAP Cube.
Display: Combination chart.
Style: Multidimensional reporting.

We have a combination chart that displays the headcount on the bars on Y-axis. On the X-axis we have previous 24 months displayed from the current month (Aug 2014) grouped by the financial years.

Issue: We need to exclude the current month (Aug 2014) from the display as only the previous/closed months data is required.

We tried the following:

-   Slicer with 'except' function. It did not give us any error messages but did not filter Aug 2014.

Thanks in advance.   

JMDONS

[MFGF]

Hi Cognos Experts,

Would highly appreciate if someone could please help with the following scenario:

Studio: Cognos Report Studio 10.1.1
Datasource: OLAP Cube.
Display: Combination chart.
Style: Multidimensional reporting.

We have a combination chart that displays the headcount on the bars on Y-axis. On the X-axis we have previous 24 months displayed from the current month (Aug 2014) grouped by the financial years.

Issue: We need to exclude the current month (Aug 2014) from the display as only the previous/closed months data is required.

We tried the following:

-   Slicer with 'except' function. It did not give us any error messages but did not filter Aug 2014.

Thanks in advance.   

JMDONS

Hi,

How are you deriving the 24-month set of members currently? If it's an expression in a query calculation, what expression is being used?

Slicers do not affect the members displayed in a report on the axes of charts - they simply add context to the measure values being displayed. With a dimensional report like this, where the month members are being displayed, it's not what you need if you want to exclude any of the month members from your chart.

One of the key differences between relational reporting styles and dimensional reporting styles is that in relational, you deal with items containing all the values, and you then filter the items to reduce the values shown. In dimensional, you have access to the members (ie descriptive values) individually, and you can choose which members are retrieved directly from the cube.

If you can tell us how you are currently retrieving the 24 months, plus if you could also provide an example of what a Month member MUN (Member Unique Name) looks like in your package, we can likely give you an expression to retrieve the month members you desire.

One last question - if the current month (ie Aug 2014) isn't retrieved, does this then mean you show the last 23 months (ie still starting with Sep 2012), or will it be 24 months with Aug 2012 as the first member in the set?

Cheers!

MF.

[BigChris]

This might not be the answer you're looking for (said in my best Obi Wan Kenobe voice), but I'd do this in the cube itself. You could quite easily create an offset time dimension which would then be available in other reports, which might be useful if you're going to be doing the same things in different places.

Just me 2p worth.

C

[MFGF]

Just me 2p worth.

Wow! A whole month's salary for me! :)

MF.

[BigChris]

You get paid?