Design and Troubleshoot Calculations and Workbooks40% of the exam
Fiscal calendars, ISO-8601 weeks and date math
Set a fiscal year start for a data source or a single date field and predict which date parts change, switch to the ISO-8601 week-based calendar for retail and financial weeks, build 4-4-5 style segments, and write DATEADD, DATEPART and DATETRUNC calculations that respect fiscal and ISO rules.
Implement advanced date functions, such as fiscal calendars.
~8 min read · 7 practice questions ·
What the exam expects
- Choose where to set a fiscal year start (the whole data source or one date field) so existing views show fiscal values without being rebuilt.
- Predict which date parts and truncations change under a fiscal calendar, and how fiscal years and quarters are labelled.
- Decide when a reporting calendar needs the ISO-8601 week-based calendar rather than a Gregorian calendar with a different week start.
- Split ISO quarters into 4-4-5 or other week patterns with a calculation.
- Write row-level fiscal and ISO date math with DATEADD, DATEPART and DATETRUNC, including the
start_of_weekargument.
Key terms:
- Fiscal year start: the month a data source or date field treats as the first month of the year.
- ISO-8601 week-based calendar: a calendar of ISO years, quarters, weeks and weekdays with Monday-start weeks that never span two years.
- Date truncation: rounding a date down to the start of a level, as DATETRUNC does.
- start_of_week: the optional function argument that overrides the data source's Week start.
Key facts
Data source fiscal start
- Detail
- Date Properties > Fiscal year start, applied to the data source overall
Field fiscal start
- Detail
- Default Properties > Fiscal Year Start; applies to all instances of the field in the workbook
Fiscal data source type
- Detail
- Relational data sources only
FY prefix
- Detail
- Year and Quarter levels only
MM/YYYY and M/D/Y
- Detail
- Always show calendar dates
ISO year length
- Detail
- 52 or 53 weeks
ISO quarters
- Detail
- First three have 13 weeks; the last has 13 or 14
ISO weekday numbers
- Detail
- Monday 1 through Sunday 7
iso-week start- Detail
- Always Monday
start_of_week omitted
- Detail
- The data source decides
- Why can't a consultant set Week start on a multidimensional (cube) data source?
- When a custom date format uses only the "y" and "q" placeholders on a fiscal date field, what appears?
- Why does truncating an ISO-8601 date at 'month' still return a week start?
- Which number does ISOWEEKDAY return for a Sunday?
The questions are free to read. Answers with their sources and self-grading are included with the pack.
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