Use the following table as a reference when you write scripts that use a time series. Generated column names are often the summary name followed by the range abbreviation. If the time series is named, the label becomes part of the column name as well.
Default Component Suffixes
| Base | Current | To-Date | All-X |
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| Day | D |
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| Week | W | WTD |
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| Month | M | MTD | M01 ... M12 |
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| Quarter | Q | QTD | Q1 ... Q4 |
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| Tertile | T | TTD | T1, T2, T3 |
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| Half | H | HTD | H1, H2 |
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| Year | Y | YTD |
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Variations
| Previous-year | LY | Previous-years <count>* | Y--# |
| difference | TY Diff | difference | Y--# Diff |
| percent-difference | TY % Diff | percent-difference | Y--# % Diff |
| Previous-range (rolling) | LR | Previous-ranges <count>* | R--# |
| difference | TR Diff | difference | R--# Diff |
| percent-difference | TR % Diff | percent-difference | R--# % Diff |
*NOTE: If you anticipate expanding your data beyond the previous year, use the format with the count for previous years. That is, use "previous-years 1" rather than "previous-year" as the variation. This format ensures consistent naming of columns when you expand back additional years.
When other options are in use, generated column names default to the pattern:
<series> <summary> <range> <variation>
Additional notes on the naming scheme
You might be confused by the previous-year variations, that is, LY versus TY. For example, with a Cost column, the "Cost YTD TY Diff" is "This Year's difference". If the difference is a positive number, then "this year" is greater than "last year".
Likewise, for the previous-years variation, "Cost YTD Y-0 Diff" is used for the same information—it is the difference seen zero years ago, that is, current year minus last year.