Does anyone know if you can change the default sort order of months so that you do not need to use BY ROWS...OVER or ACROSS COLUMNS...AND? Being in the government much of what we want to show should be shown in fiscal year order which starts in OCTOBER. I want to be able to perminately change the sort order of Smart Dates with the M format so that the sort always starts with OCT(10) and ends with SEP(09).

I think that might be a tall order!

I always have an extra BY or ACROSS on a field that's formatted YYM:

ACROSS PERIOD_YYM NOPRINT
ACROSS PERIOD_M   AS 'Month'

This probably doesn't help.

Francis was a big faster, that would have been my answer two.
The only problem is that it will not work in a graph.

Is there a way to make this work in a graph? Or are we just limited to explicitly defining the order in the BY/ACROSS statements?

When it comes to graphing you could save the output and then read in the values, so that you can force them into the required order within the Java code for the graph (GRAPHSTYLE statements). A bit "hammer and nut" but it would work without having to specify ACROSS value AND value etc.

Mickey,

I do not believe that is possible for smart dates.

The method that I would use is to have a field (physical or implied) that holds the fiscal year and month number in a A6YYM format e.g 2007 October would be 200701 etc. That would enable you to sort as you required. Of course, the problem would come when you wanted to decode that month number back to October .

Good luck

T

Thanks for all the responses. I usually use the "SORT BY YEAR NOPRINT and then by month" trick to accomplish this. I just wanted to know if there was an easier way.

Mick. i just create a fake date that is month - 3 and then BY fake NOPRINT. I have the FAKE calculator as a function in my edasprof (along with set behaviour = abnormal
For graphs, i use COLUMNS, a trick one of you taught me. There was another thread on this very topic. i'll see if i can locate it for you...
ah if you do a search on the term 'fiscal year', you'll come up with some previous thoughts on the subject.

For graphs and fiscal year was a challange but this might be a solution

My problem is showing the legend, it seems as if the across display does not let me do that.

-* File fiscyear.fex
-SET &FSTART1 = '891001';
-SET &FSTART2 = '901001';
-SET &FSTART3 = '911001';
-SET &F1=EDIT('&FSTART1.EVAL','99/99');
-SET &F2=EDIT('&FSTART2.EVAL','99/99');
-*SET &FSTART4 = '20061001';
-*SET &FSTART5 = '20071001';
DEFINE FILE SALHIST
PLOTDATE/YYM=
IF EFFECTDATE GE '&FSTART1' AND EFFECTDATE LT '&FSTART2' THEN EFFECTDATE ELSE
IF EFFECTDATE GE '&FSTART2' AND EFFECTDATE LT '&FSTART3' THEN DATEADD(EFFECTDATE,'Y',-1);
SALEM3/D12=IF EFFECTDATE GE '&FSTART1' AND EFFECTDATE LT '&FSTART2' THEN OLDSALARY ELSE 0;
SALEM2/D12=IF EFFECTDATE GE '&FSTART2' AND EFFECTDATE LT '&FSTART3' THEN OLDSALARY ELSE 0;
md/TRM=EFFECTDATE;
END
TABLE FILE SALHIST
SUM
 SALEM2 SALEM3
-*BY EFFECTDATE
BY PLOTDATE
BY md
ON TABLE HOLD
END
DEFINE FILE HOLD
PM/M=PLOTDATE;
END
-* will give

GRAPH FILE HOLD
SUM SALEM2 AS 'Sales FY &F1' SALEM3 AS 'Sales FY &F2' 
ACROSS PLOTDATE
ON GRAPH SET LOOKGRAPH VLINE
ON GRAPH SET GRAPHEDIT SERVER
ON GRAPH SET BARNUMB OFF
ON GRAPH SET 3D OFF
ON GRAPH SET VZERO ON
ON GRAPH SET GRID OFF
ON GRAPH SET VAXIS 400
ON GRAPH SET HAXIS 800
ON GRAPH PCHOLD FORMAT PNG
ON GRAPH SET GRAPHSTYLE *
setUseTimeScaleAxis(true);
setLevelInterval(0,6);
setLevelTextFormat(0,1);
setMarkerDisplay(true);
setConnectLineMarkers(true);
setConnectScatterMarkers(true);
setO1LabelDisplay(true);
setO1AxisSide(0);
setO1MajorGridDisplay(false);
setO1MinorGridDisplay(false);
setAxisAssignment(0,0);
setAxisAssignment(1,0);
setY1LabelDisplay(true);
setY1AxisSide(0);
setY1MajorGridDisplay(false);
setY1MinorGridDisplay(false);
setTextFormatPreset(getY1Label(),-1);
setTextFormatPattern(getY1Label(),"#.##");
setPieFeelerTextDisplay(1);
setPieLabelDisplay(0);
setTextFormatPreset(getPieSliceLabel(),1);
setRiserBorderMode(1);
setSeriesDefaultTransparentBorderColor(true);
setUseSeriesBorderDefaults(true);
setLegendDisplay(true);
setTitleString("Fiscal year starting &F1.EVAL \nand starting &F2.EVAL");
setTextJustHoriz(getTitle(),1);
setFontSizeAbsolute(getTitle(),true);
setFontSize(getTitle(),12);
setFillColor(getTitle(),new Color(0,0,128));
setTextRotation(getTitle(),0);
setTextWrap(getTitle(),false);
setTextJustHoriz(getLegendText(),1);
setFontSizeAbsolute(getLegendText(),true);
setFontSize(getLegendText(),12);
setFillColor(getLegendText(),new Color(0,0,128));
setTextRotation(getLegendText(),0);
setTextWrap(getLegendText(),false);
setFontSizeAbsolute(getY1Title(),true);
setFontSizeAbsolute(getY1Label(),true);
setFontSizeAbsolute(getY2Title(),true);
setFontSizeAbsolute(getY2Label(),true);
setFontSizeAbsolute(getO1Title(),true);
setPlaceResize(getTitle(),0);
setPlaceRotate(getTitle(),0);
setPlaceAlign(getTitle(),0);
setPlaceWordWrap(getTitle(),0);
setPlaceResize(getLegendText(),0);
setPlaceRotate(getLegendText(),0);
setPlaceAlign(getLegendText(),0);
setPlaceWordWrap(getLegendText(),0);
setPlace(true);
ENDSTYLE
ON GRAPH SET STYLE *
     PAGESIZE='Letter',
     LEFTMARGIN=0.250000,
     RIGHTMARGIN=0.250000,
     TOPMARGIN=0.250000,
     BOTTOMMARGIN=0.250000,
     SQUEEZE=ON,
     ORIENTATION=PORTRAIT,
     TITLETEXT='Fiscal year starting &F1.EVAL',
$
TYPE=REPORT,
     GRID=OFF,
     FONT='TIMES NEW ROMAN',
     SIZE=10,
     BACKCOLOR='NONE',
     STYLE=NORMAL,
$
ENDSTYLE
END

I hope you like this...