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.