Hi,

I am looking for best practices related to relative date analysis and I have a few questions:

• For instance, is it possible to use 2 (or more) date column (let's say Order Date and Shipped Date) in the lookup reference? I assume Order Date and Shipped Date are not in the same table. Or is it a better solution to have only one date in the lookup reference for this data module?
• Is it possible to translate the default name such as Prior Year to something relevant for my customer's language?
• In a production environment, should I copy some files from the Calendar folder to my data module folder or any other recommended tips?

At this point, I am not trying to create new relative date filters.

I've read the "Relative date analysis" in the IBM Cognos Analytics with Watson Data Modeling Guide, and I would be happy to read your helpful comments.

Best regards,


------------------------------
Patrick Neveu
Positive Thinking Company
------------------------------

#CognosAnalyticswithWatson

Yes you can have more than one relative time date lookup reference. 

I have created one for order date and another for ship date.  Each is used in a measure.  One uses the order date lookup reference to have the relative time measures filtered by the order date.  The other uses the ship date.  

Here is a very simple report where I have the YTD relative time measures for Quantity, which uses the order date as the relative time filter lookup reference and YTD for QTY ship date, which uses the ship date as the relative time filter lookup reference.

• In a production environment, should I copy some files from the Calendar folder to my data module folder or any other recommended tips?
  
  You don't need to do anything such as that.  You need to have the calendar folder in the production environment, in the same location as in your development and test environments, so that the module will pick up the Gregorian calendar (or the other calendars).
  
  
  
  As for translation, I can't say off the top of my head as I have not tried it.  I can not provide guidance as to whether it would be a supported thing even if it worked.

------------------------------
IAN HENDERSON
------------------------------