Understanding Two-Pass Calculation

You can use a two-pass calculation on member formulas that must be calculated twice to produce the correct value.

Whenever possible, Essbase calculates two-pass formulas at the data block level, calculating the two-pass formulas simultaneously as the main calculation. Thus, Essbase need not do an extra calculation pass through the database. However, in some situations, Essbase needs an extra calculation pass through the database.

How Essbase calculates the two-pass formulas depends on whether there is a dimension tagged as time as well as a dimension tagged as accounts and on the dense-sparse configuration of the time and account dimensions.