Dashboards and dates

In Business Intelligence, dates are an essential part of analysis, and they are an important part of Business Intelligence projects. Data warehouses, for example, have a Date dimension as a way of helping business users to describe their data by date. People's business questions often include a when element. Additionally, dashboards will often reference dates.

Comparison is fundamental to analysis. Time is a fundamental part of comparison. Dashboards will often display comparisons between periods of time, so time is an essential part of the dashboard display. It is easy to envisage the following business questions that involve time:

  • What are my numbers compared to last year?
  • How did my sales region perform this month as compared ...

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