Derivations

A derivation is a calculation of a new measure as a function of some supplied measures. Oracle Argus Analytics displays all derivations as a column in Answers. You can use any of the following approaches to calculate derivations:

• Calculate the derivation as part of the creation of a request.

  In this approach, only the Web Catalog is modified. However, you must specify the calculation for each request, and the calculation is executed every time the request is executed.

• Calculate the derivation in the physical or business layer of the RPD file; it is propagated to the presentation layer. This makes the derivation you created appear in Answers as a column.

  Using this approach, you can specify the calculation once and use it for multiple requests. The derived value looks the same as any other Answers column.

• Calculate the derivation in the data mart.

  The calculation is run at ETL execution time and not at query time. The derived value looks the same as any other Answers column. In this approach, you must add the result column to the staging and target tables, modify the ETL procedures (both Source Dependent Extract (SDE) and Source Independent Load (SIL)), and then add the column to all the layers of the RPD.