Analyzing Time-Related Data in Query Designer

Cloud data source types: Oracle Essbase

On-premises data source types: Oracle Essbase

Filtering data limits the amount of data returned to a specified top or bottom criterion. Top or bottom ranking enables you to view, for example, the top 10 products in sales for a given region.

Using Oracle Smart View for Office, you can analyze flash metrics such as sales of cost of goods sold against time-based metrics. This enables you to look for trends, find averages for different time periods, and so forth. To do this, you use linked attributes which enable periodicity of members. Periodicity is a shared pattern among time dimension members that make them meaningful for time-based analysis (January and April share periodicity as first months of quarters, for example). Day by month, day by week, and week by year are examples of linked attributes. You can also set ranges for linked attributes and apply filters.

To analyze time-related data in Query Designer:

1. Create a query.
2. From the Query Designer toolbar, select Date-Time dimension and drag it to the grid or within the toolbar.
3. Click Date-Time in the Query Designer toolbar to open Member Selection, where you can select members and apply Period, Range, and other filters.
4. Under Attributes on the Query Designer toolbar, select an attribute or linked attribute in the drop-down menu, then drag it to the grid or within the toolbar. Repeat as necessary for other attributes.
5. To select members and apply filters to an attribute, click the attribute name on the Query Designer toolbar to open Member Selection.
6. Click on the POV toolbar.