Get Started with Calculations

Calculations enable you to create reusable artifacts to enhance your analytics content. For example, you might calculate the a moving average or concatenate two text fields.

With calculations, you can create aggregates, strings, math functions, dates, filters, analytics, and spatial functions. For a full list of supported functions, see Functions.

To create a calculation from the workbook editor, in the Data pane or Visualize pane, right-click on My Calculations in the Data pane or click Add (+) at the top of the pane. Then select either Create Calculation or Create Group Calculation or Create Time Series Calculation. You can also create a group calculation based on an existing calculation by right-clicking the calculation and selecting Create Group Calculation.

• Calculations enable you to create data elements based on a wide range of expressions and functions. For example, concatenate text, create clusters or outliers, or calculate median values.
  
  
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• Group Calculations enable you to categorize you data for easier analysis. For example, you might create job categories Management, Sales, Technical, and Support so that you can assign job titles to these categories and report on them.
  
  
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• Time-Series Calculations enable you to compare measure values over time. For example, you might compare the number of webite hits in the current year to the number in the previous year.
  
  
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Working With Calculations

When you create calculations in workbooks, by default they're stored in the My Calculations area of the workbook where you created them.

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You can organize your calculations by creating multiple levels of subfolders in the My Calculations area of the Data pane. See Create a Folder to Store Calculations in a Workbook.

Right-click calculations and folders to access these options:

Option	Use this option to
Add to Selected Visualization	Add the calculation to visualizations on the currently displayed canvas.
Copy Expanded Expression	(Displayed when a calculation references another calculation, known as a nested calculation) Copy the expression that is formed by replacing the referenced calculations with their source expressions recursively. In other words, the nested expressions are copied, replacing the name of the nested calculation.
Copy Expression	Review and copy the underlying SQL code used by the calculation. If the calculation references another calculation, the nested expressions aren't copied.
Create Best Visualization	Let Oracle Analytics create a visualization for you based on the best style for the data that you have.
Create Calculation	Add a calculation to the workbook using a specific function. For example, you might use a forecast function to predict booking numbers by month.
Create Group Calculation	Categorize you data for easier analysis. For example, to assign job titles to categories and report on them, you might create groups for Management, Sales, Technical, and Support.
Create Time Series Calculation	Compare data values across time periods. For example, perform year-on-year (YoY) analysis.
Create Filter	Filter the workbook or visualization using the calculation.
Create Folder	Create subfolders under the currently selected folder to organize your calculations. You can then drag and drop existing calculations into the subfolders.
Delete Calculation	Remove the calculation from the workbook.
Delete Folder	Remove a folder from the workbook. You can only delete empty folders.
Duplicate Calculation	Create an editable copy of the calculation.
Edit Calculation	Update the calculation.
Pick Visualization	Add the calculation to the canvas using a visualization style that you select from a list of suitable styles.
Rename Folder	Change the name of a folder.

Adding Comments to Calculations

In Expression Builder you can annotate calculations with comments in block quotes to describe calculation logic, accessibility, change management, history, and so on. For example:

Sum( Sales )
/* Comment! */