exact_period

tip

Holistics has also supported Period-Comparison on UI via dashboard-level Period Comparison and widget-level Period Comparison which use exact_period() and relative_period() behind the scenes

Definition

Calculates a metric within a custom period, it can be used to compare how a metric performs in a specific period compared to another period.

Syntax

exact_period(metric, time_dimension, time_range)

Examples

exact_period(orders.total_orders, orders.created_at, @2022-07-01 - 2022-09-01)

// with pipe
orders.total_orders | exact_period(orders.created_at, @2022-07-01 - 2022-09-01)

Input

• metric: A metric that you want to calculate within a custom period
• time_dimension: A pre-defined datetime/date dimension that is used for shifting
• time_range: A datetime literal that specifies an exact time range for shifting. E.g. @2022-04-01, @2022, @(last 2 weeks) (see Datetime Literals for more details)

Output

The same metric calculated in a custom period.

Combine with dimension

Categorical dimension

When combining with categorical dimension, exact_period() is similar to the where() function. The difference is that exact_period() will override any applied time filter, while where() will add the new filter with using AND operator logic.

Time dimension

Similar to Dashboard custom period comparison, when combining with another time dimension, exact_period() will add the equivalent period specified in time_range argument alongside to the other measures of that time dimension

For more examples on the differences between the two use cases, please check the Sample Usages section below.

Sample Usages

tip

Use filtering in reporting to apply your time condition, then use exact_period() to compare it with. For all the examples below, the filter on reporting is set as orders.created_at last 3 months

Let’s say we want to compare total orders from an arbitrary period to the back-to-school season (from July to September).

First, creating measure count(orders.id) with custom period from 2022-07-01 to 2022-09-01

count(orders.id) | exact_period(orders.created_at, @2022-07-01 - 2022-09-01)

On time-series dimension

Compare week-by-week the last 3 months of count orders to the back-to-school season in

Plot as line chart

On categorical dimension

Compare the last 3 months of count orders to the back-to-school season for each continent

Plot as bar chart