Fill calendar outputs

The values of calendar outputs are determined before model components are processed so that calendar values are available for rule conditions.

The outputs are generated from the current state of the periods. If Include current is selected in a calendar configuration, the currently processed transaction is taken into account before the period values are written to the outputs. For more information, see Update periods.

Calendar outputs can be stored in MDC/DDC together with other transaction data. Do not confuse this with the automatically managed index storage that holds all of the period values per index node, which are omnipresent even when you select Not stored for the calendar outputs. Selecting Not stored means that the calendar outputs are not stored together with the transaction, but the calendar periods with their values still exist in a different storage layer. Storing the calendar outputs in MDC/DDC can be useful, for example, to see the historical values of the calendar outputs in query results.

As previously mentioned, calendar outputs are always calculated at the beginning of the transaction processing. When Include current is cleared, so that the periods are updated at the end of transaction processing, and when the calendar outputs are stored in MDC/DDC, the saved calendar output value will be the one from before processing the transaction, although the calendar has internally updated its periods at the end of processing.

Consider the following example:

Calendar defintion with Amount attribute, period is daily, number of periods is 30. A frequency condition is defined.

For this calendar configuration, the value of Number of transactions today for the first transaction that arrives in the system shows 0 in the query results. Internally, the frequency increased by one at the end of transaction processing.

Past calendar periods

The Past calendar periods setting in the calendar outputs configuration determines which periods are considered when average amount, total amount, and frequency are calculated. Calendar period 0 is always the period of the most current transaction timestamp (with regard to the configured timestamp attribute in the calendar configuration) that has been seen by IBM® Safer Payments. Periods 1, 2, 3, and so on refer to 1, 2, 3, and more periods before that.