What’s New with Inforiver Reporting Matrix: Variables, Time intelligence formulas, RTL Support, and more

The highly anticipated Inforiver Reporting matrix release is packed with new capabilities and enhancements that will take your BI analysis and reporting to the next level. In this 3.3 version release, we've introduced powerful features like variables and date-based data selection and added key enhancements in formatting, data analysis, aggregation, and export settings. 

Features like variables and support for right-to-left (RTL) languages address some of the most requested functionalities by Power BI users. Recent additions like new scripting functions, date-based functions, pie and donut charts, and date-based data selection and filtering ensure that you can meet your data analysis and reporting requirements with Inforiver. 

We have also resolved a few issues reported by users to ensure a smoother experience. Thank you for your feedback, which inspires us to continuously improve and innovate our product.  

Let’s dive into the key updates in this release: 

1. Introducing Variables

2. Date-Based Data Display & Formatting

2.1. Show/Hide Measures by Date Range

2.2. Filter Data by Date

2.3. Date-Based Conditional Formatting

3. Right-to-Left (RTL) Support

4. Localization Settings

5. Time Intelligence Formulas

5.1. Access Upcoming/Previous Time Periods

5.2. Select Rows Based on Date Range

6. On Data Change Scripts

7. Performance Mode Enhancements

8. New Index and Period-Based Functions

1. Introducing Variables  

Variables, the key feature of this release, enable user-driven data navigation, filtering, scripting, and much more.  

• They act as in-built slicers, allowing you to seamlessly filter and navigate through your data hierarchies.  

• They can be used within formulas to perform dynamic calculations, top N ranking, and other filtering for instant data interpretations. 

• With variable-based scripting functions, you can run scripts to apply specific formatting, font, and row/column total position changes with just a click of a toggle button. 

You can refer to this detailed blog post, which explains the various capabilities of variables, their use cases, and the steps to set them up in the report and use them for calculations, running scripts, and filtering data.  

We will introduce further controls in the upcoming releases that would make variables indispensable for drawing instant interpretations from your data.   

2. Date-based data display & formatting 

In this release, we have included a date-based selection interface enabling you to analyze your data within specific periods.  

2.1. Show/hide measures by date range 

Inforiver offers a range of time intelligence formulas to display your data for specific periods. If scripting is not your cup of tea, you can use the new Show Measures interface to display the required measures for a particular period of time. You only need to select the date range from the date picker.  

You can also hide measures for a specific time range by turning off the Show toggle.  

 
2.2. Filter your data by date  

You can now filter your data by date with Inforiver. If you have a date dimension in your report, Inforiver provides a date picker option in filters, which allows you to select the required date range and apply filters for date fields.  

When you have a date dimension in your rows, you can use the Date Period option to filter your row data between 2 specific dates.  

2.3. Date-based conditional formatting  

You can use date range conditions, such as the order date being in the last ‘n’ days or the ship date being in the next ‘n’ days, as a conditional formatting rule.   

3. Right-to-left (RTL) Support  

We now provide RTL-style reporting to enhance users' experience of RTL languages (such as Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Urdu, etc.), making navigating, understanding, and interpreting the information presented easier. When the right-to-left option is enabled:  

• Data is arranged from right to left; notice how the months are arranged from December to January.   

• The row categories are displayed on the right-hand side.  

• Toolbar options are arranged from right to left.  

• The header is positioned at the right end of the report. 

4. Localization Settings 

You can configure translations in Inforiver based on the language settings saved in Power BI. This is especially valuable for global report distribution.  

When the language is switched, you just need to create the required translated entries and configure calculated rows/columns or column groups to display the dimension categories in pre-defined translations.  

Navigate to Display Settings > General > Localization Settings to create translation entries.  

Use the GETLOCALELABEL function in the Title field and pass the Key specified in the translation configuration.  

You can notice that the row categories and column groups below are implicitly changed to French and German.  

5. Time intelligence formulas 

We have introduced a few time intelligence formulas that support time-based access to data and enable calculations to compare and aggregate data over time periods, such as days, months, quarters, and years. 

5.1. Access upcoming/previous time periods 

This release includes new time intelligence formulas, allowing you to access the forthcoming/previous periods: COLUMN_PERIOD.NEXT/ COLUMN_PERIOD.LAST. 

Please remember that a date dimension should be added as a column parameter to use this function.  

When you click on a cell, Inforiver highlights the cells contributing to that value. Notice how the Actuals from the previous quarter have been highlighted in this example.  

5.2. Select rows based on date range  

In business reporting, you may need to apply formulas to a specific range of data. For instance, you could calculate the average for a week or a fortnight. When you have a time dimension in your rows, you can use the SELECTROWS formula to fetch the rows for a particular period.  

6. On data change scripts  

You can now execute scripts on changing the data selections in an external slicer/filter. For instance, you can enhance the relevance of data by drilling up/down or mask data in response to a specific selection. The exact scripting functions used in variables, or the ‘On-Load’ option can be used for data changes.  

• We have introduced a new SETCOLUMNSORT scripting function to sort columns in ascending or descending order.   

7. Performance mode enhancements 

The Inforiver architecture provides extensive support for hierarchical data. In performance mode, you can perform drill-down and roll-up operations on large datasets with over 100,000 cells. 

In earlier versions, you could switch to performance mode only when there are at least three dimensions, but in the latest version, you can use performance mode even with two dimensions. 

You can also use the filter and data input (except numeric) capabilities previously restricted in performance mode. Note that the current version does not support named filters in performance mode.  

Find below an example where data input and filters are supported in the performance mode:  

8. New index and period-based functions 

This release includes the following functions that allow users to access certain measures or columns based on the index and period. 

- GETMEASUREBYINDEX: The GETMEASUREBYINDEX() formula will fetch measure values based on the index. For example, the first measure can be referenced using its index of 0, the second will have an index of 1, etc.  

- GETCOLUMNBYINDEX: Similar to GETMEASUREBYINDEX, you can use GETCOLUMNBYINDEX() to fetch column values based on the index.  

- SHOWMEASUREBETWEENPERIOD: The SHOWMEASUREBETWEENPERIOD script now accepts multiple measures. You can use a single script to display various measures in between specific periods instead of repeating the script for each measure. E.g., SHOWMEASUREBETWEENPERIOD(LASTNMONTH(5),[[2024 Actuals], [2023 Actuals], [2022 Actuals]])  

Other Key Features:

In addition to the above, there are a few other features and upgrades you might not want to miss:  

• Absolute moving average option in Moving Averages 

• Pie and donut – a new addition to row-level charts 

• First and Last – New aggregation types  

• Row groups in the KPI explorer 

• Creating custom column groups with field parameters 

• Configuring conditional formatting & decimal precision only for exports 

• Option to suppress null visual columns 

• Converting native measures to visual columns 

• Accessing the measure name in the formula  

• Template rows being retained despite removing the base rows  

• Minimum and maximum threshold for outliers 

• Upgraded filter interface and much more. 

Please refer to our release notes for a comprehensive list of requirements, features, and enhancements.  

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