How month to date works
Typically, when you compare sales in the current calendar month with sales in the corresponding month 'last year', the previous month will have sales for the whole of that month, while the current month will only include transactions up to 'today'.
When you select Options > Month to date only the transactions from the previous month up to the same day of the current month are included. So for example, if today is the 7th of the month, the current month would only include transactions from 1st to 6th of the month and so only the transactions from 1st-6th of the comparison month would be included.
This only has an effect in summary view, variance mode and stream mode and only when the displayed periods include the actual current month. For example, if the actual date is the 15-Nov-2014, activating 'month to date' will only have an effect if November 2014 is being displayed.
In summary view both the current and previous periods need to include the same month for each respective year. For example, if the actual date is the 15-Nov-2014, 'month to date' will only work if both the current and previous periods include November.
Month to date only has an effect if the end month of the current period is the current month and current year.
Administrators may set some databases to turn on the Month to date option by default.
If you don't see the Month to date option, it may mean you don't have permission to use that option.
Example: Compare data for part of a month
In this example, the user wants to compare data for the first few weeks of June with the same part of the month in the previous year. We will assume today's date is 15 February 2017. We want a like-for-like comparison with the first 15 days in February last year (2016). We do this by using 'Month to Date'.
- Set your date range. Here we want to display data from this February vs last February. Select Period > Custom. Set the current period to start and end in February 2017, and the previous period to start and end in February 2016, as shown. Apply.
- Select the 'Customer' dimension and select Mode > Variance. The grid will display results for the entire month of February 2016, and the first 15 days of February 2017. This does not give us a 'like for like' comparison.
- Select Options > Month to Date.
Data in the 'previous' column will change to display data for the first 15 days of February 2016.
You could save this (as a favorite or as a dashboard widget), and share it with other users. The Month to Date setting (whether on or off) will also apply to the shared user.
Month to Date will remain on in your current session. Note warning below.