Dynamic variable %YEAR% not working

Question

Hi experts.
We are running a project on SAP BPC NW 7.5 in which we are having issues regarding the %YEAR% variable in script logic.
For instance we have the following RUNALLOCATION code which should be dynamically setting up the time dimension, however %YEAR% always returns 2010, although I for test purposes have forced the TIME dimension to 2009 by XDIM_MEMBERSET.
*XDIM_MEMBERSET TIME=2009.JAN
*RUNALLOCATION
*DESCRIPTION=Allocate scrap value to the first month with new capital expenditures
*NAME=ALLOC_SCRAP_VALUE
*FACTOR=USING
  *DIM P_DATASRC              WHAT=DS_INPUT;                      WHERE=<<<;                              USING=<<<;
  *DIM ASSET_CLASS          WHAT=BAS(AC_ALLCLASS);      WHERE=<<<;                              USING=<<<; 
  *DIM CAPEX_ACCOUNT     WHAT=CAPEX_SCRAPNEW;     WHERE=<<<;                              USING=CAPEX_FLAG_FIRST;
  *DIM TIME                          WHAT=%YEAR%.INP;                       WHERE=BAS(%YEAR%.TOTAL);         USING=<<<;
*ENDALLOCATION
*COMMIT
When running the code the package log looks like this:
ALLOCATION DATA REGION:
ENTITY_SAG:10919000
TIME:2009.JAN
P_DATASRC:WHAT:DS_INPUT,WHERE:<<<,USING:<<<,TOTAL:
ASSET_CLASS:WHAT:BAS(AC_ALLCLASS),WHERE:<<<,USING:<<<,TOTAL:
CAPEX_ACCOUNT:WHAT:CAPEX_SCRAPNEW,WHERE:<<<,USING:CAPEX_FLAG_FIRST,TOTAL:
TIME:WHAT:2010.INP,WHERE:BAS(2010.TOTAL),USING:<<<,TOTAL:
--Read WHAT region
[CAPEX_ACCOUNT] =CAPEX_SCRAPNEW
[TIME] =2010.INP
[ENTITY_SAG] =10919000
[ASSET_CLASS] =AC_10000,AC_10100,AC_10200,AC_10400,AC_10500,AC_10700,AC_11
--Time to load WHAT :0.186285 second(s).
Does anyone have any idea of what is being the reason for this strange behavior ?
Your help is mostly appreciated..
Regards,
Mogens Nielsen

Answer 1

Hi,
As SAP would say, this is "working as designed". %YEAR% always populates with the current calendar year. The documented behavior in the NW version is here, at the bottom of the page: [http://help.sap.com/saphelp_bpc75_nw/helpdata/en/59/f145f708724b9c86d8a65dd57d5e4f/frameset.htm]
However, that wasn't very helpful, so let's actually try to solve your problem
You want to populate a variable with the value of the year 2009.JAN. In this case it is relatively easy, as others have mentioned:
*SELECT(%YEAR_VAR%,YEAR,TIME,"ID=2009.JAN")
You can then use the %YEAR_VAR% in place of the %YEAR% variable in your script.
You could also make this work for %TIME_SET%, but you'll need to be careful to only allow the user to select a single time member in the member selector:
*SELECT(%YEAR_VAR%,YEAR,TIME,"ID=%TIME_SET%")
This will get the year for whatever time member the user selects when running the Data Manager package.
It is also worth noting that if you know what year you want to use compared to the current year, you can use offsets from %YEAR% as described in the link above. For example %YEAR%(-1) will give you 2009 (but only for another couple of months!).
Hopefully that gets you where you want to go!
Ethan