Missing values versus zero values
Missing values in the data source can mean two things in real business: either the data is zero or it is missing. For example, in the case of a sales transaction-based system, if there is no data for a product for a certain month, it means there was no sale of that product in that month. However, in some other systems, for example, yearly returns of different stocks missing data might just mean that data is not available for a certain reason. However, it certainly doesn't mean the return was zero.
Hence, it is important to clearly highlight the missing value as zero or missing in the report.
Getting ready
Create a simple crosstab report with all Product line on rows and Month key on columns from GO Data Warehouse (Query)/Sales. Choose Quantity and Unit cost as sales measures.
How to do it...
In this recipe we will see how to avoid missing values in the report by replacing them with more meaningful values like zero or N/A.
Firstly, we will run the report to see...
