Generating Symmetric Reports

When using Report Writer, if report processing time is of primary importance, consider making all reports symmetric. Symmetric reports provide better processing performance than asymmetric reports.

With a symmetric report, the Report Extractor uses one pass to compose the member list based on all possible member combinations. In the following example, the data values (Actual Jan and Feb, and Budget Jan and Feb) are retrieved in one pass.

Symmetric Report Member Combinations Supporting One Pass

                        Sales South

                 Actual              Budget
              Jan       Feb       Jan       Feb
         ========  ========  ========  ========
100–10        757       773       930       950
100–20        450       487       550       590
100–30   #MISSING  #MISSING  #MISSING  #MISSING
  100       1,207     1,260     1,480     1,540

With an asymmetric report, the Report Extractor must retrieve and process each block of possible member combinations separately. In the following example, the data values (Actual Jan and Budget Jan) are retrieved in two passes.

Asymmetric Report Member Combinations Requiring Multiple Passes

              Sales South

           Actual    Budget
              Jan       Jan
         ========  ========
100–10        757       950
100–20        450       590
100–30   #MISSING  #MISSING
  100       1,207     1,540

See Report Extractor.