The  Version dimension

Every model has a Version dimension. Version is a parent-child dimension. The members of this dimension are referred to as versions.

Unique member properties

The following properties are unique to members of the Version dimension.

• Version type

  A member of Version can have any of the following types:

  •  Plan

    For versions that contain current-year actuals and forecast data.

    For example, a two-year mid-year forecast might contain six months of actual data and 18 months of planned data.

  •  Actual

    For versions that contain actual data. They can contain a combination of actual data, historical actual data and previous year budget data. The administrator specifies how many years of each type of data the version can store.

  •  Folder

    Not a true member but a node for organizing the dimension members.

  •  Calculated

    For versions that contain historical and planning data.

    For example, these can be used for variance versions. By using variance versions, the percentage variance is easily calculated.

  •  Prior Period

    Reports backwards one period from the currently selected time period, for a specific Version and Time level.

    You also need to select a Reference version (Plan or Actual) and a Time level that you want to base the reference value on (the drop-down lists the levels from the Time dimension—for example Day, Week, Month, and so on).

  By default, every Version dimension contains one  Plan and one  Actual. The administrator creates and maintains the members of Version, such as original budget, approved budget, last-year actuals, or first quarter re-forecast.

• Status

  If Version type is Plan, Status must be set as well:

  • Active – Users can enter data to the version and can create reports.
  • Complete – Users can only report from the version, data changes are not allowed.

  The administrator controls the Status setting of each Plan version, and thus can prevent users from adding or editing data.

  For example, before a first-quarter forecast is updated, the administrator typically locks the approved budget and last-year actuals.

    Note:  When a version (such as a first-quarter forecast) contains both actual data and budget or forecast data, the actual data is automatically protected.

• Rule set

  If the Version type is Actual or Plan, you must select a rule set, a Start date, and (optionally) an End date.

  All versions refer to the same Account dimension. However, accounts can use different calculation methods for different versions. To manage the different calculation methods, calculation rule sets are used.

    Example:  

  Sales Revenue is a calculated account in Plan versions (Units Sold x Unit Price) but is an input account for Actual versions (where Unit Price can be calculated as Sales Revenue/Units Sold).

  Another example: in a new budgeting model, you may need to create multiple iterations of the budget or plan. In addition, your requirements may evolve over time and therefore require more versions. (You may also want to use rollover versions and to add calculation rule sets.)

• Carry forward from

  Use this property to create a rollover version. (Rollover versions are planning or actual versions that span more than one year.)

  Select a Start date, then from Carry forward from, select the version from which the first month of the current version will retrieve its data.

    Caution:  The calculation definition for Carry forward from is designed to work only with Time's Default hierarchy. If you try to use Carry forward from with a Time alternate hierarchy, your calculations will return incorrect results.

The Standard members

When you create a cube,Version always has the member All.

  Note:  For this dimension, in Member Selector, you can only dynamically select the All member for inclusion in Selected Members.