Clarity

Many thanks to Kathryn Ellis for providing the sources on this tip!

Fiscal time scaled values in places like cost plans and Chargeback allocations use the fiscal time periods defined within each entity. Non-fiscal time scaled values use calendar time periods prepared by the Datamart Extraction job.

An example of where standard, non-fiscal time scaled values are used is the Resource Planning > Weekly Allocation portlet

The job create new time periods by calling the stored procedure NBI_POPULATE_CAL_DIM_SP

When Datamart Extraction job is run for the first time it populates the NBI_DIM_CALENDAR table with 2 years worth of calendar structures: weeks, month, quarter, etc. Subsequent runs of the job will ensure that enough calendar periods will be created to cover as far as Clarity's data curves extend to. These data curves include information such as allocation, availability, actuals.

If the Datamart Extraction job has not been run for a while since it's first run, or if it has not been run at all, you can expect a problem with standard TSV (non Fiscal) not showing data even though the slice data exist.

Thanks for the tip Connie and Kathryn! :grin:

Thanks Connie and Kathryn,

Can you please give more examples where Standard Non Fiscal TSVs are used?

Also, why do we have two different methods, were there any special considerations doing in different manners?

Thanks,
Rahul

Thanks,

That definitely busts the myth that you need to run datamart extraction only once.
(It is now generally perceived that you have run it once in order to get data data to appear on some portlets.)

If you don't have the fiscal periods in NBI_DIM_CALENDAR when you when you open say a view with timescaled allocations you don't get any data, but you don get any error either.
The same way like when data from user configured sliced is displayed and when there is no data in the slices.

Unlike when data from the system slices is displayed and the periods are not there you get an error that "The timeperiods do not exist".


Would it be possible to list the OOTB items that use NBI_DIM_CALENDAR and the ones that use the system slices?

Martti K.

Martti

The fiscal time periods are stored in NBI_FISCAL_TIME which gets populated by the Datamart Extraction job based on what are defined in BIZ_COM_PERIODS. These fiscal periods are used in financial plans, chargeback (debit, credit, standard, etc) allocations, investment hierarchy tab>financial rollup>detail page, plus in v13 any custom fiscal TSV.

Other TSV such as resource allocation, use the standard calendars constructed by the Datamart Extraction job into the NBI_DIM_CALENDAR_TIME.

The Time Period Do Not Exist alert are often seen on resource allocation and similar portlets. They would be due to the limitation of internal time slice range, rather than the actual calendar periods being missing. Perhaps the message could be enhanced to be more descriptive saying something along the line of "The data you requested do not exist". :)

Connie

Connie_Fu wrote:

Martti

The Time Period Do Not Exist alert are often seen on resource allocation and similar portlets. They would be due to the limitation of internal time slice range, rather than the actual calendar periods being missing. Perhaps the message could be enhanced to be more descriptive saying something along the line of "The data you requested do not exist". :)

Connie

Telling a user that the data does not exist, is frustrating at least ("I know its there!"), scarey at worst ("What? Its gone?").

A better message won't completely remove these user concerns. Still, I might try a combination of things:

- add something to the portlet name that describes the time range covered by the porlet's timeslice and/or timeperiod source (try to set user expectations)
- change error message to "Requested Data lies outside the configured datasource range." (user expecations are beyond portlet's capabilities, the data hasn't been deleted)

Expect the user will then attempt to use the 'configure' action to get at more data (I tried this, before I knew better!), and be frustrated since he can't change the timeslice parameters in order to get what he wants. As long as we have timeslices, and closed time periods, we will have these user frustrations.

Dale.

Thanks Connie,

My comments relates to Weekly Detail portlet which did not display any data even if the project had data in the time range of the system slices.
I ran the Investment allocation and still no data.
The queries in SQL trace were to NBI_DIM_CALENDAR_TIME table so I ran datamart exraction, but still no data.
Then I looked the fiscal period which had ran out a year or two earlier.
After creating them and running the datamart extraction again the data appeared.

That must have been as you wrote the NBI_FISCAL_TIME which gets populated by the Datamart Extraction even though that table was not in the query from the SQL trace at which I looked.

Martti K.

Rahul

Standard calendar would be used in most places in Clarity that are not among the following

financial plans, chargeback (debit, credit, standard, etc) allocations, investment hierarchy tab>financial rollup>detail page, plus in v13 any custom fiscal TSV

I may have miss one or two.

In V13 when you create a TSV, it would be up to the specific business needs to decide which type to use. This could make a great discussion in the General area to see how other organizations approach this -_-