Characteristic Relationships for Time Characteristics

The BW system contains various time characteristics. When you create a planning model, you have to select an appropriate time characteristic for the planning-relevant InfoProvider. The choice of time characteristic depends on the planning application. You can use the Fiscal Year Period characteristic 0FISCPER (12.2005 + 1 = 1.2006) for rolling planning, for example. However, if you want to build query views that contain Periods in the rows and the Fiscal Year in the data columns, it makes more sense to use the Periods and Fiscal Year time characteristics. You should avoid using redundant time characteristics in a planning-relevant InfoProvider. However in some cases, like the example given above, this may be useful.

If a planning-relevant InfoProvider contains redundant time characteristics, at runtime, the system uses the characteristic relationships that are required by the input-ready queries or planning functions for the corresponding time characteristics. These characteristic relationships have type "derivation".

The system uses the derived characteristic relationships for the time characteristics (as with the other relations) for derivation purposes and combinations checks.

You cannot create derivations that contain a time derivation that is used automatically in the system.

The following table offers an overview of the derivations that are automatically supported by the system: