When you create a Time Intelligence or Time Intelligence Post Formula filter in PerformancePoint Dashboard Designer, you use a special syntax called Simple Time Period Specification (STPS) to create expressions that specify the time periods in your filter. STPS takes the form Period + n or Period - n, where 'n' is a positive integer that represents the number of time periods to include in the filter. For example, "Year - 6" is an STPS expression that PerformancePoint Monitoring Server uses to retrieve information for the last six years.
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How to use Time Intelligence expressions
You can use Time Intelligence expressions to specify many different forms of time:
- Time dimension members at any level as an offset from the current time, such as "Months to date" or "Most recent 2 quarters."
- The start of any standard calendar period, or the start of a fiscal calendar. For example, you can select the start month for a given fiscal year, or the start day of a given calendar month.
- A contiguous range of time members, such as "Months 3-10."
- The time values that appear in a report.
Important Before you create your Time Intelligence or Time Intelligence Post Formula filter, make sure that the data source that you use for your filter is configured to work with Time Intelligence. For more information, see Configure time and aggregation settings for a data source.
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Examples of Time Intelligence expressions
The following table shows some Time Intelligence expressions along with some examples.
| Time Intelligence expression format |
Example |
» Specify current period with an offset
Member
Member + Integer
Member – Integer |
Month
Day+10
Year-1 |
» Specify a range of continuous time periods
MemberExpression1: MemberExpression2 |
Month:Month+5 |
» Specify a parallel period with a specific lag
(MemberExpression1-Integer). MemberExpression2 |
(Year-1).Day |
» Specify a year- or month-to-date period
Year.MemberFunction:Member |
Year.FirstMonth:Month |
» Specify time hierarchy levels with a function
Member.MemberFunction |
Year.FirstChild |
» Specify a list of time periods
MemberExpression1,MemberExpression2 |
Day,Day-5 |
You can combine different syntax forms. For example, this expression is a list of several members:
Year-1,Week+2,Month-5:Month-2
Notice that one of the member expressions in the list is a range expression, Month-5:Month-2. This range expression actually specifies four individual members: Month-5, Month-4, Month-3, and Month-2.
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The general form of a Time Intelligence expression
When you write a Time Intelligence expression, you provide the information that Monitoring Server uses to run a query and to return only the Time dimension members that you specified.
Each Time Intelligence expression, represented as <TI_Expression> in the following example, consists of a comma-separated list of member expressions, or a range of member expressions. Each member expression is a combination of Time Intelligence members and member functions. The following example shows a formal definition of this syntax. <TI_Expression> ::=
<MemberExpression> , <TI_Expression> | <MemberExpression> : <MemberExpression>
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Time Intelligence Members
In a Time Intelligence expression, a Member is just a standard calendar hierarchy name. The following table lists the possible Member values that you can use in a Time Intelligence expression.
| Year |
Semester |
Quarter |
| Month |
Week |
Day |
| Hour |
Minute |
Second |
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Functions you can use with Time Intelligence Members
Time Intelligence expressions can also include a member function, in the form Member.MemberFunction. The following table lists the Time Intelligence member functions that you can use in your filters.
| MemberFunction |
Description |
Examples |
| Parent |
The parent level of time aggregation from the data source |
Day.Parent |
| FirstChild |
The first child aggregation level from the data source |
Month.FirstChild |
| LastChild |
The last child aggregation level from the data source |
Month.LastChild |
| FirstSemester |
Returns the first semester of the parent time period. The parent member for this function must be Year. |
Year.FirstSemester |
| LastSemester |
Returns the last semester of the parent time period. The parent member for this function must be Year. |
Year.LastSemester |
| FirstQuarter |
Returns the first quarter of the parent time period. The parent member for this function must be one of semester or year. |
Year.FirstQuarter Semester.FirstQuarter |
| LastQuarter |
Returns the last quarter of the parent time period. The parent member for this function must be one of semester or year. |
Year.LastQuarter (Semester-1).LastQuarter |
| FirstMonth |
Returns the first month of the parent period. |
Year.FirstMonth (Year-1).FirstMonth |
| LastMonth |
Returns the last month of the parent period. |
Year.LastMonth (Quarter+1).LastMonth |
| FirstWeek |
Returns the first full week of the parent period. |
Year.FirstWeek (Semester-1).FirstWeek |
| LastWeek |
Returns the last full week of the parent period. |
Year.LastWeek (Semester+1).LastWeek |
| FirstDay |
Returns the first day of the parent period. |
Month.FirstDay (Month-1).FirstDay |
| LastDay |
Returns the last day of the parent period. |
Month.LastDay (Month+1).LastDay |
| FirstHour |
Returns the first hour of the parent period. |
Day.FirstHour (Day-1).FirstHour |
| LastHour |
Returns the last hour of the parent period. |
Day.LastHour (Day+1).LastHour |
| FirstMinute |
Returns the first minute of the parent period. |
Day.FirstMinute (Hour-2).FirstMinute |
| LastMinute |
Returns the last minute of the parent period. |
Day.LastMinute (Hour+2).LastMinute |
| FirstSecond |
Returns the first second of the parent period. |
Hour.FirstSecond (Minute-10).FirstSecond |
| LastSecond |
Returns the last second of the parent period. |
Hour.LastSecond (Minute+9).LastSecond |
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Next steps
To learn more about how to create a filter that uses Time Intelligence, see Create a filter by using a Time Intelligence template in Dashboard Designer.
To learn more about all the different types of filters that you can create using Dashboard Designer, see Creating filters in Dashboard Designer.
To learn more about the overall process of creating a dashboard filter, see How do I create a dashboard filter in Dashboard Designer?
