Use a global parameter#

A global parameter is a value defined once for the workspace that any job can reference instead of declaring its own. Timberline has exactly one, and it exists to make a specific demo moment possible: roll the reporting year forward in one place, and watch everything follow.

The one that exists#

Current Year: defined as the CY subset of the THC_Time dimension on Planning Sample Demo.

Four pieces of content reference it:

Because the definition points at a subset, not at a literal year, the value tracks the planning model. Roll CY forward in the model and every consumer follows on the next run without anyone touching Reportworq.

How to demonstrate it#

1. As an administrator, open the workspace global parameters screen.
2. Show Current Year and what it points at, a subset in the model, not a typed value.
3. Open Financial Statements, look at its Year parameter, and show that it is a reference to the global rather than its own definition. Do the same in the Segment & Channel Budget Input campaign, so the audience sees that campaigns reference it too.
4. Change the global, or roll CY in the model, and re-run. Both the report and the campaign pick up the new year.

The point to land: three reports and a whole planning campaign re-point from one change. Without this, that is four edits, and one of them gets forgotten.

The deliberate contrast#

Not everything uses it. Board Packet declares its own Year, reading the same CY subset directly. Sales Rep Scorecard reads the year out of the THC_Control cube with its own MDX expression.

That is not inconsistency, it is the demo showing both options so you can talk about the trade-off:

• Reference the global when several pieces of content should always agree, and should move together.
• Declare it locally when a report legitimately needs its own scope, a prior-year comparison pack, a fixed historical statement, a report whose year is chosen at run time.

A useful question for the room: "which of your reports should always be on the same period, and which genuinely need their own?" That is the decision the global parameter exists to express.

Where else the year shows up#

Once a job has a Year parameter, the value is available everywhere parameters are:

• in output file names: {Year}-{Market} Financial Statements
• in email subjects: {Year}-{Market} Financial Statements
• in destination folder paths: the SharePoint variant files output into …/Timberline/{Market}/{Year}, creating the year folder as it goes
• in the workbook itself, wherever the Year named range is referenced

So rolling the year does not just change the numbers. It changes the file names, the subject lines and the folder the output lands in, which is usually what people actually wanted.

A caution#

Changing a global parameter affects every consumer at once. That is the feature, and it is also the risk: check the consumer list before changing it on a shared environment. In Timberline the list is short and above; in a customer's workspace it may not be.

Related#

• How parameters work
• Customer guide: Global parameters