Creating ad-hoc ratios from dimensions in dashboard

[#1]

Hello all,

I'm building a financial reporting Dashboard with a number of pre-defined ratios that are calculated based on the dimensions selected (year, country, firm, etc). However, I would like the ability within the Dashboard to have two drop-down menus to create new ratios as an exploratory tool.

Let's say as an example that I have ratios like Return on Stockholder Equity (net income X average stockholder equity) and Return on Sales (net income / net sales) in a list. At the bottom, I would like to have two dropdown boxes with my available dimensions, and as an example, I want to check Price-Earnings Ratio. I select Market Price per Share and Earnings Per Share from my available dimensions, and click a button. Ideally, this would simply be added to my list of pre-selected ratios, so I can have multiple new calculated ratios. If not that, even one dynamic box in which I could see these ad-hoc ratio calculations one at a time would be superb.

Is there a way to do this? Being able to come up with new metrics while sitting down with clients or other stakeholders would be an excellent extension to my current dashboard.

Thanks!

[Gysbert_Wassenaar]

Check out this document: Customisable Straight (and Pivot) Tables - more food for thought

It uses separate tables for dimensions and expressions to let users select from those. These tables also include an Inputfield to allow users to change the order in which the chosen dimensions and expressions are shown. You could also make the %Measure_Expression field an Inputfield so you can modify the expressions on the fly. You can't add expressions (well maybe you can with Dynamic Update actions), but you can add N extra placeholder expressions that you can use to try out your ad-hoc metrics.