The Awesome TimeDim function

Sometimes, you think you know BusinessObjects, and then, you find a function you wonder.. what on earth is that.

One of those is : TimeDim

It's awesome.

In short : it completes a list of dates.

So, if you have data for 2012/01/01, 2012/01/05, 2012/01/06 -- it completes the list by adding 2012/01/02, 2012/01/03 and 2012/01/04

This is a VERY useful function indeed.

In the screenshot above, the left table does not have timedim on it.. the right one, the function is : =timedim([Invoice Date])

Oh.. by the way.. the help on this function DOESN'T WORK. So, you have to figure it out for yourself :)

Cool huh.

And it gets better.

 

The left table in the above picture, is what our database returns. But I want to show the table to the right.

Again, The TimeDim function can help.

In the above tables, I used the following functions :

=Year([Invoice Date]) 

="Q"+Quarter([Invoice Date]) 

In the right table, I used :

=Year(TimeDim([Invoice Date];YearPeriod))  

and

="Q"+Quarter(TimeDim([Invoice Date];QuarterPeriod))

 As it turns out, this particular function was added in Service Pack 4 of Business Objects XI R3

Cheers,

Peter