Working with the Time dimensions
In the previous section you learned how to navigate dimension hierarchies. Date- and time-related dimensions are somewhat special because they are a part of nearly all business intelligence implementations, and much of the analysis focuses on examining the trends over time. MDX offers a number of functions for working specifically with date dimensions. In this section I will provide a couple of examples of the most frequently exploited time intelligence functions.
How to do it...
A very common reporting requirement is to display the running total of values for each timespan. Yet another frequent requirement is to compare the current values with that of an equivalent value during the previous week, month, quarter, or year. The following recipe shows the steps to display quarter-to-date and year-to-date running totals, in addition to reporting internet sales' values for each month. You will also learn how to compare the current measure's values with the corresponding...
