Date Picker & Period Over Period Chart Enhancements

We have end users who want to set a date range and see the change compared to the corresponding previous period. Currently, in PoP cards, you can:

Set a comparison period on the cards that overrides the dashboard date picker

OR

Use variables and Beast Modes to create current and previous period calculations and add the Variable Control to your dashboard.

Note that there is no date picker style Variable Control, so you have to also set start and end date variables and use those in your Beast Modes.

If you try to set a custom date range / period for your PoP cards at the dashboard level, the comparison breaks.

PoP cards set to MoM:

PoP cards set to MoM, but user selects a date range with the dashboard level date picker:

Another example where a different date range is selected. In this case, the cards are set to Current Month, but still show the correct values when you select a different date period in the Date Rnage. Selecting the corresponding Chart by has no effect, and PoP breaks:

On top of the inherent complexity for a dashboard developer, this is clunky for end users and dramatically limits the self-serve utility of a dashboard, for a few reasons:

- PoP comparisons break when you use the dashboard level date picker
- PoP comparisons are locked into the setting on the card, inflexible
- Why is there a date picker, and why can I set a Graph By option, but I still have to enter the dates I want to compare in these control boxes?

It would be much more intuitive and user friendly if the dashboard level date picker could set the current period and then show the corresponding previous period change.

This might be accomplished a few ways:

- by a setting on the cards themselves that allows dashboard date picker override
- inherent override without a setting

There are some elegant examples in the BI application space. Data Studio solves the problem well, by basing the comparison period on the dashboard date picker selection:

In all 3 screenshots, the end user selects the date period they want to view data for, and the scorecard tile natively understands to compare to the previous period.

There is no additional programming required for the dashboard developer, and the end user can self serve by viewing all the data for a given time period.