What's new? 

We've released the first iteration of our transformations editor that will improve your experience when writing formulas and performing transformations. Before, you didn't have feedback on which formulas and syntax were available when making data transformations. Also, the limited space to edit and review formulas made it difficult to interact with the editor. 

In this release, we'll now show you a pop-up within the editor that will allow you to:

• Have an improved experience to visualise your transformations
• Have more space to write, edit and review formulas
• Search and filter through a library of Abacum's transformation formulas
• Access formula descriptions to better understand their usage

Just like before, you click on the + symbol in transformations. In the new pop-up, you can select the column you want to overwrite or type to create a new column. Type your formula in the editor window, and copy and paste the example syntax from the formula library. Once you click "Continue" your transformations will show in the side panel, like before.

For more information, you can check our Academy page.

We are happy to introduce you to our new feature that allows you to Show only relevant dimension filters on spaces!

What's new?

Previously, our filters on spaces showed all possible dimensions users have in the system.

Now, our filters are narrowed down to only the relevant ones (in use) in that space. 

Why does it matter?

🔍 Clarity and Simplicity: Say goodbye to the confusion of seeing irrelevant dimensions cluttering your view. 

🎯 Effortless Navigation: Locate and select the ones you only want to use.

It also represents a relevant performance improvement.

How does it work?

It's simple. Whenever you use the filter on your spaces, you will only see available those dimensions that are in use in that same space.

Considerations:

• If the Space content is modified(add/remove a metric card, add/remove a table), the available dimensions will be refreshed.
• If any of the table variables are changed, the available dimensions will be refreshed.

What's new?

MONTH_FIRST_DAY is a function that calculates the first day of a month based on a given date which has to be a column name.

Why does it matter?

Unlock a new transformation to perform critical date calculations directly in the Web App.

How does it work?

Syntax -> MONTH_FIRST_DAY (transaction_date)

Unifies the dates in the transaction_date column to return the first day of each month.

Considerations:

To learn more about it, please visit this Abacum Academy article. 

What's new?

DATEDIFF is a transformation to compute the difference between two dates, especially useful for cohorts use-case.

Why does it matter?

Unlock a new formula to perform critical date calculations directly in the Web App.

How does it work?

Calculates the delta between two dates in days, months, or years.

Start_date: column name where the column is of the type date or number. Can also be a written date or number. End_date:  column name where the column is of the type date or number. Can also be a written date or number.

Unit: A string containing one of the following options, always denoted in double or single quotes: “D”, ”M”, or”Y”. The computed delta will be returned in the same unit.

Syntax

DATEDIFF ( start_date, end_date, unit )

Example

DATEDIFF(22/08/2023, current_date, “M”) 

// Returns the amount of complete months between 22 August 2023 and the current date column.


DATEDIFF(hire_date, termination_date, “Y”) 

// Returns the delta between the hire and termination date in years. If no termination date is present for an employee, a negative value will be returned. This is as empty values are stored as 1970-01-01.

For more information you can check our Academy page

What's new?

Templates serve as a starting point to create new content and easily find back content you want to reuse.

Why does it matter?

Finding the tables & charts you want to re-use is not always easy. The list becomes very long and there is a way to organise it.

In addition, tables you want to reuse are mixed with all the other ones you had no intention of ever using again.

Templates will allow you to differentiate the tables and charts you know you'll want to use again and ensure anyone in your organisation can easily find the one they're looking for.

How does it work?

You can use templates to create new tables and charts. You can organise them by category and give them a description. When you use a template, you are creating a new table or chart. This way, you can be sure you're not accidentally editing other tables.

You can create a template from any table or chart via the new “Save as template” option in Table Builder.

Learn more about how to use templates here. 

We are happy to introduce you to our new feature that allows you to change dimension items from anywhere!

What's new?

Change a dimension item on any row, BOTH in Module Builder and in Spaces

Why does it matter?

Previously, you could only modify a dimension item by (1) downloading the version file and making the adjustments in the downloaded Excel file or (2) adding a new row. This means that when you made a mistake or simply wanted to make any modification, there was no intuitive way to do so.

How does it work?

It's as simple as 1-2-3! Just navigate to the row where you need to make a change, select the dimension item you want to modify and choose the correct one from a drop-down list, and voilà!

Unlock a new universe of possibilities together with Abacum by using our new MATRIX function 🚀 

The new MATRIX function allows you to multiply a variable by another variable without losing dimensionality.

Let's look at a simple example:

- Variable 1 displays data by Tier.
- Variable 2 displays data by City.

As a result of using MATRIX, variable 3 displays data by BOTH Tier and City.

Considerations

The following is a collection of considerations to ensure the correct best usage of MATRIX:

• If you are only using the MATRIX method in a formula, SUM and FUNCTION dimension aggregation will return the same result.

  The system will auto-assign the SUM dimension aggregation, and we recommend you keep it this way since it will be more performant than using FUNCTION.

Also if you want to find out more about how to use this and other functions, click here.

We've exciting news for you!

Easily transform data in Abacum with our new concatenate transformation 🚀

Effortlessly connect text columns with the & operator - as in Excel or Google Sheets.

To learn more about concatenating columns, please visit this Abacum Academy article.

MANUAL INPUT PANEL is now available on Tables in Spaces too 🧮

Previously, we could only use the Manual Input Panel in the Module Builder. Enabling it for Tables allows Budget Manager users to also enjoy this seamless forecasting experience 🚀

When in either a Tree or Tabular Table used for forecasting, simply double/right-click on any version cell of a manual input line to bring up the panel and edit the underlying values with the input type that the admin has set on the selected variable.

Additionally, you no longer need all dimensions visible for editing forecast inputs ✨
Keep your visualisation nice and clean by customizing your table's dimensions in the Table Builder's Grouping menu. The Manual Input Panel displays all dimensions when opened to allow you to select or create new items as needed.

Finally, if you wish to visualise your output in a quarterly or yearly view, even though the underlying values are set with a monthly input, no problemo, the table timeframe is no longer relevant 📆
Set the table's timeframe that suits your data analysis best, and budget owners will still be able to add their inputs.