Time Rollup Types: What's the Difference Between Sum, Average, and Balance?

Time Rollup Type - What does it mean?

Time Rollup Type is an optional field within the Account Dimension which determines how individual months' values are summarized at Quarter- and Year-end.

Please Note: the Time Rollup option is only applicable to Account Dimensions. 

Cube supports 3 types (Sum, Average, and Balance) as shown below:

What is the difference between the 3 types? 

• Sum: This option sums up each month's values at quarter-end or year-end. It is generally used for Income Statement Account dimensions.
• Balance: This type retrieves the last month's value at quarter-end or year-end, showing the ending balance for the quarter or year-end. This option is used for Balance Sheet Account dimensions. 
• Average: This option takes the average of the month's values. This function can be useful for operational metrics Account Dimensions. 

Optional field? - When are these functions useful, and what are their effects on parent rollups?

As mentioned above, the Time Rollup is a component of the account dimension and is particularly important when setting up parent dimensions in the hierarchy. Indeed, if you omit to set it up, no data will populate in the parent dimension when fetching for data. 

Please note, if a parent dimension has the Time Rollup set, all child dimensions nested under that parent will automatically have the same Time Rollup. 

Example

In this scenario, the "Revenue-Products" dimension is parent to "40100 Revenue" , and its Time Rollup is not set up. 

When fetching the data, no data is populating for the parent dimension "Revenue - Products".

As a result, in order for the data to populate for the parent dimension, a time rollup type must be selected.