Defining Time Hierarchies

This section provides an overview of time hierarchies and discusses how to define time hierarchies.

Page Used to Define Time Hierarchies

Page Name	Definition Name	Navigation	Usage
Time Hierarchy	BP_TIME_HIER	select Planning and Budgeting, then select Planning and Budgeting Setup, then select Define Parameters, then select Time Hierarchy	Enter the identifier of the calendar and a unique delimiter for each time hierarchy level to generate the desired budget period.

Understanding Time Hierarchies

The time hierarchy enables you to compare line item scenarios and activities with others within a defined scenario group. For example, you can roll up a scenario and activity using a monthly calendar into a quarterly view to compare it with a scenario and activity using a quarterly calendar. The time hierarchy allows for aggregation of budget transactions to increasingly summarized time periods (such as monthly transactions that are aggregated to quarterly).

You must include and define any calendar in your time hierarchy that is used in a nonhistory planning scenario within the scenario group. History-type scenario calendars are normalized through period mapping rules within the scenario group, and their calendars are not required.

Calendar	Detail Calendar	Summary Calendar	Budget Period Calendar
Detail	X	X
Summary	X	X
Budget Period			X

Time Hierarchy Page

Use the Time Hierarchy page (BP_TIME_HIER) to enter the identifier of the calendar and a unique delimiter for each time hierarchy level to generate the desired budget period.

Navigation

select Planning and Budgeting, then select Planning and Budgeting Setup, then select Define Parameters, then select Time Hierarchy

Image: Time Hierarchy page

This example illustrates the fields and controls on the Time Hierarchy page. You can find definitions for the fields and controls later on this page.

Calendar ID

Enter the identifier of the calendar (such as A1 for Annual or Q1 for Quarterly).

If you select the calendar ID using the prompt, the system displays only the calendars with the same setID as the time hierarchy. You define the list of available detail, summary, or budget period calendars by selecting select EPM Foundation, then select EPM Setup, then select Common Definitions, then select Calendars. The calendars in the hierarchy must be of the same category, either all detail and summary or all budget period. After the time hierarchy is associated with a scenario group, you cannot change these calendar IDs (and they become unavailable) if they correspond to any planning scenarios in that scenario group. If any scenarios using the time hierarchy are staged, you cannot change anything in the time hierarchy except the description. Specified calendars must be in ascending level of summarization. (For example, the lowest level must be more detailed than the second lowest.) The calendars that are selected in the hierarchy must span the period ranges that are specified on all nonhistory scenarios that will use the time hierarchy (using a scenario group). Finally, ensure that the periods in each level align with each other. (For example, if monthly periods start on the first of the month, then the quarterly periods in the level above should also start on the first of a month.)

Description

Displays the description that is related to the selected calendar ID that is defined using the calendar definition pages.

Click this link to access the calendar definition page.

The maximum number of levels in a time hierarchy is four, including the default ALL_TIME level that is displayed in the top row.

Calendar Type

Displays the type of calendar that is defined using the calendar definition page. Values are Detail Calendar, Summary Calendar, and Budget Period Calendar.

Budget period calendar is defined by a calendar start date and a calendar end date. Detail calendar is defined by accounting period (month, quarter, and so on) and fiscal year. Summary calendar is defined by a beginning budget period and ending budget period.

Delimiter

Enter a unique delimiter for each time hierarchy level that is associated with detail and summary type calendars to generate the desired budget period.

The system uses this value within the concatenation of the fiscal year and accounting period to form a budget period that is used later in the planning and budgeting process. For example, a delimiter of M within a monthly detail calendar forms periods such as 2004M1. Having a single period field allows for the creation of a time hierarchy tree, the feature that facilitates aggregation of budgeting and planning transactions to higher levels of time.

Because budget period calendars already save their periods as single fields, delimiters are not required; however, all of the periods for the date range of a scenario group must be unique. That is, two budget period calendars in the same hierarchy cannot have the Period 1 name representing January 2004 and December 2004 respectively if the time span of the scenario group is January through December 2004. The system validates this during tree generation when you save the scenario group. If no scenario group spans that time period, then no conflict occurs.

The generated tree rounds periods to the nearest period available. Therefore, if the scenario group date range is April 1, 2001 to June 30, 2002 (Q2 2001 to Q2 2002), the calendar includes annual periods for 2001 and 2002 from the A1 calendar and the date range of the tree expands to January 1, 2001 to December 31, 2002.