Understanding Period Movement Variance Insight Comparison Benchmarks

Explainability for period movement variance insights can include several comparison benchmarks, depending on how the insight was configured.

Period Movement Variance insights are triggered when the absolute variance exceeds the administrator-defined threshold. Variance measures the difference between a current value and a comparison value, and helps identify significant increases or decreases relative to a selected baseline, such as:

  • Year-on-year
  • Period-on-period for the previous period
  • Period-on-period for a custom period
  • Historical average

Thresholds can be set for:

  • Absolute Variance (%), which measures the relative difference between the current value and the comparison value as a percentage. This metric answers: "By what percentage did the value increase or decrease?"
  • Absolute Variance (Numbers), which measures the actual numeric difference between the current value and the comparison value. This metric answers: "How much did the value increase or decrease?"

Variance is calculated as:

  • Absolute Variance (%):
    Formula for variance (%)
  • Absolute Variance (Numbers):
    Formula for variance (numbers)

Where:

  • CurrentValue = value for the selected period
  • ComparisonValue = value from the baseline period

Example

Table 11-1 Previous Period Comparison

Month Value Variance Variance %
Jan 1,000
Feb 1,100 100 10.00%
Mar 1,250 150 13.64%
Apr 1,180 -70 -5.60%
May 1,350 170 14.41%
Jun 1,150 -200 -14.81%

Videos

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Learn how Period Movement Variance insights help identify significant changes between current and benchmark periods. Learn how thresholds and benchmark comparisons make variance results easier to understand and review.

video icon Generating Period Movement Variance Insights in Cloud EPM