Version 2021

About consolidations

Consolidations allow you to group attribute elements in new ways without changing the metadata and warehouse definitions. You can use consolidations on a report just like regular attributes. Consolidations allow you to qualify a report on a row-by-row basis.

Consolidations serve two powerful functions that can greatly enhance your reporting abilities:

  • You can create a virtual attribute, which is a new grouping of attribute elements, and use it on reports. For example, you can create a consolidation to display each season as a separate row on a report, even though Season does not exist as an attribute in your project.

  • You can perform row level math between rows on a report.

A consolidation is composed of at least one consolidation element, which appears as a row on a report. Each consolidation element contains at least one consolidation element expression, which is usually attribute elements combined with a mathematical operator. The expression is the formula defining the consolidation element, which determines what is included on the report.

For more details and examples, see the Custom Groups and Consolidations chapter of the Advanced Reporting Help.

To create a consolidation

  1. Open the Consolidation Editor. (How?)

  2. Add a consolidation element by doing one of the following:

    1. Drag and drop an attribute element from the Object Browser into the Elements for this consolidation pane. The expression is completed automatically and the consolidation element is named based on the attribute element. You can rename the consolidation element and edit the expression, by adding additional attribute elements, for example.

      • In the Elements for this consolidation pane, click Click here to add new consolidation element. Type a new name to replace the default of New Consolidation Element. The corresponding expression is empty, so you must complete it.

        There are additional ways to add an element, such as importing elements from an existing consolidation. See Creating consolidation elements for more options.

    2. Create a consolidation element expression for the element, or modify it if it was created automatically but is still incomplete. The expression is the actual condition that determines what is included in the element. Examples are {Region = Northeast} and ({Month=Jan 2023} + {. For detailed instructions, see Creating consolidation element expressions.

    3. Continue adding elements and expressions until the consolidation is complete.

    4. You can format the elements of the consolidations. For more information and instructions, see Formatting consolidations.

    5. By default, subtotals for consolidations are disabled. This means that while you can subtotal a consolidation on a report, you cannot subtotal an object placed to the left of the consolidation on the report. For steps to enable such subtotals, see Enabling consolidation subtotals.

    6. Save the consolidation. (How?)

      You cannot save a consolidation that contains an empty expression. Delete any element containing an empty expression before attempting to save the consolidation.

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