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Use Time Options in Visual Report Builder

Last update: Tue Jul 25 2023 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time)

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One of the features of the Visual Report Builder is the global Time Range and Interval settings. These settings allow you to analyze the data in your report for a specific time period.

However, for some analyses, you may need to consider different Time Ranges or Time Intervals in the same report. That is where Time Options come in. To give you a better idea of how to use Time options in your reports, this tutorial covers the following use cases:

If you want to follow along with some of the sample reports discussed in this topic, open the Visual Report Builder before continuing.

Analyzing Metrics without Timestamps notimestamp

Some metrics simply cannot trend over time because the data is not collected or stored with an associated timestamp. For example, an inventory table often contains only one row for each SKU. In that case, you should create the metric without specifying a timestamp.

When using such a metric in your reporting, you notice that adding this metric to a report automatically sets an independent Time Interval of None and Time Range of Global:

Giving One Metric an Independent Time Interval independenttimeinterval

Time Options allow you to create time-based 100% charts to identify which day, week, month, or year contributed the most value during a specific time range. In this section, you create a chart that shows you the percent of revenue generated in each calendar month of a year.

This type of report can be useful if you want to compare revenue generated year-over-year. For example, you have a chart for 2015 revealed that January contributed 18 percent of revenue for the year and a chart for 2016 showed only 8 percent. You could start researching what might have happened.

  1. Add your Revenue metric to the report.

  2. Click Duplicate to make a copy of the metric.

  3. Click the global Time Range option, then Moving Time Range. Set this to Last Year.

  4. Click the global Time Interval option and set it to Monthly.

  5. Report Builder automatically adds a second Y-axis for a second metric. Deselect the Multiple Y-Axes box.

  6. Next, you apply an independent Time Interval to the first metric. Click Time Options (clock icon) to the right of the first Revenue metric.

  7. Click Time Options in the expanded window that displays above the report.

  8. In the dropdown, set the following:

    • Time Interval: set this to None.

    • Time Range: set this to Last Year by first clicking Custom, then Moving Range, and finally selecting the Last Year option.

    • Click Apply to save the interval and range settings. This creates a metric that calculates the total revenue for the previous year. Next, you use this metric as the denominator in a formula.

    • To see the percent of revenue for each month, you must add a formula to the report. Click Add Formula.

    • Enter B/A in the formula field and select % Percent from the dropdown next to the text field. This formula divides the amount of revenue from a specific month last year by the total amount of revenue last year.

    • Click Apply Changes.

    • Hide both of your input metrics and rename the formula.

Now you can see just how impactful each month was last year:

Comparing the Same Metric Across Different Time Ranges difftimerange

This example uses a custom dimension called Day number of the month. If you want to create this report and do not already have this dimension in your Data Warehouse, contact support for assistance.

The two most common examples in this category are (1) comparing growth metrics (revenue year-over-year or month-over-month) and (2) better understanding recent inventory or item sales trends.

To demonstrate this use case, look at the daily revenue for the previous month compared to the same month from the previous year. Say you want to look at the revenue for each day of January 2016 and then compare that to January 2015, January 2014, and so on, – this report would show us that.

  1. Add your Revenue metric to the report.

  2. Click Duplicate to make a copy of the metric.

  3. Rename the first metric to Items sold last 7 days and the second metric to Items sold last 28 days.

  4. Click Time Range, then Moving Time Range. Set this to Last Month.

  5. Click Time Interval and set it to None.

  6. Click Time Options (clock icon) next to the second Revenue metric.

  7. Click Time Options in the expanded window that displays above the report.

  8. In the dropdown, set the following:

    • Time Interval: set this to None.

    • Time Range: set this to From 14 Months Ago To 13 Months Ago by first clicking Custom then Moving Range. Use the fields and dropdowns at the top of the menu to set the range. This setting allows us to see the revenue for the previous month, but in the previous year.

    Do not worry if the metric disappears from the report - setting an independent time option automatically hides the metric from the report. To redisplay it, click Show next to the metric.

    • Click Apply to save the interval and range settings.

    • Next, you add your custom Day number of the month dimension by clicking Group By and selecting the dimension. This will return the day number of the month of an order - for example, an order placed on March 2 will return 2.

    • In the Group By dropdown, select Show All and click Apply. This creates the X-axis values for the report:

    • Rename the metrics. In the example, the first metric is Revenue - 2015 and the second is Revenue - 2014.

Another common use of custom Time Options is to determine weeks of supply. Especially during the holiday season or a special promotional period, you may want to consider items sold over the last week, month, and previous promotional period to make informed purchasing decisions.

Remember to set the time ranges to what you need when building this report yourself.

  1. Add your Items Sold metric to the report.

  2. Click Duplicate to make a copy of the metric.

  3. Rename the metrics. You can use the same names or use something that is similar:

    1. Rename the first metric to Items sold last 7 days.
    2. Rename the second metric to Items sold last 28 days.

  4. On the Items sold last 7 days metric, click the global Time Range option then Moving Time Range. For this example, you set it to Last 7 Days.

  5. Click Time Interval and set it to None.

  6. Next, you define the Time Options for the Items sold last 28 days metric. Click Time Options (clock icon) to the right of the second Items sold metric.

  7. Click Time Options in the expanded window that displays above the report.

  8. In the dropdown, set the following:

    • Time Interval: set this to None.

    • Time Range: set this to From 29 days to 1 day ago by first clicking Custom, then Moving Range. Use the fields and dropdowns at the top of the menu to set the range.

    • Click Apply to save the interval and range settings.

    • Duplicate the Items sold last 28 days metric and open the new metric’s Time Options. Set the options to the following:

      • Time Interval: leave this as None.
      • Time Range: change this to the date range that aligns with the promotion you are interested in by clicking Specific Date Range and then entering the appropriate dates.
      • Rename the metric Items sold during last promotion or something similar.
      • Add your Units on hand metric.
      • Next, you must add the calculations that show us the weeks on hand, considering sales trends, for the time periods (last 7 days, last 28 days, and last promo period) you are including in the report. You must do this once for each time period.

To create the formulas, click Add Formula. Enter the formulae below and click Apply Changes when finished. Repeat this for each of the three time periods:

  • For the last 7 days time period, enter D / A in the Formula field.

  • For the last 28 days time period, enter D / (B/4) in the Formula field.

    note note
    NOTE
    It is important to normalize your selected time ranges here. Break 28 days into four weeks in this example. You may need to apply different logic to the formula.

  • For the last promo period, enter D / C in the Formula field.

  • Lastly, customize the report by hiding the metrics and adding a SKU or a similar dimension to the report as a Group By.

This example demonstrates that current inventory levels were well situated for a product-wide 14-day sale. However, adding a comparable promotional period suggests that the company needs to make some changes – either by ordering more inventory and only promoting the items with enough units in stock.

Because your customers behave differently over time, you can expect to see variances in data when performing analyses. Setting custom Time Options enables you to quickly create complex analyses, enabling data-driven decisions that factor in historical trends.

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