Calculations

The engine supports several types of calculations that can be classified by complexity or execution type.

Calculation Types by Complexity

Type	Description
Formulas	Simple expressions that calculate a single member from a dimension/hierarchy
Calc Scripts	Complex scripts that can calculate multiple cells in a model and can be scoped to impact only a certain area of the model
SQL Calcs	Stored procedures written by hand in T-SQL, for work a calc script cannot express; authored by users with Relational Access, run like any other calc
Model Calcs	Calculations Una generates from the model definition — Retained Earnings (with CTA), Currency Conversion and the submodel calculation — driven by model settings and Account tags; read-only, run like any other calc

See Formulas vs. Calc Scripts for a feature-by-feature comparison.

Calculation Types by Execution

Type	Description
Dynamic	Calculation executes at query time; results are not stored in the database
On Demand	Calculation executes when specifically run: from the Calculations screen, from a dashboard event (e.g., on save) or from a workflow; results are stored in the database. See Running Calculations
Automatic	Calculation executes every time data is saved into the associated model; results are stored in the database

Supported Combinations

	Formulas	Calc Scripts	SQL Calcs
Dynamic	✅ Supported	❌ Not supported	❌ Not supported
On Demand	✅ Supported	✅ Supported	✅ Supported
Automatic	✅ Supported	❌ Not supported	❌ Not supported

Performance Considerations

Dynamic Calculations

All dynamic calculations execute for every query. Having many and/or very complex dynamic calculations will result in performance issues for all database queries.

Automatic Calculations

Automatic calculations execute every time data is saved to the database. It is imperative that these calculations are designed to only run on data that is impacted by the current save operation.