Custom Graphing: Historical Charts (love these...)

While you toil away at your Jedi training, I am (probably) enjoying a view of the Swiss Alps. At least that's the plan. I'll let you know the reality when I'm back State-side on Thursday.

Ok, today's lesson: History tables. There are two...and a great way to access data that you can export to excel to manipulate (for good....not evil...keep repeating.) I demonstrate a way to use this report to calculate quarterly values for accounts reported YTD in a previous blog post.
With the first option, Single CU/PG History, you create a table of values for multiple accounts for a single entity over time.
The second option, All Comparisons History, creates a grid of historical values for a single account for all your comparisons. WARNING: Do NOT select "Include all comparisons that comprise the selected comparisons" on the Account Selection screen unless you have a SMALL peer group selected or PLENTY of time to let Peer run. (I don't think the original specifications even meant for that option to be available ... )

Why would you use this? Couple reasons I can think of...As I said in a previous blog post, Peer can do a lot but sometimes you need to put data in Excel to create a specific graph. This report allows for a quick pull and export.

I use this report a lot to spot data inconsistencies. Example: I was helping a client pull data on mortgage sales on the secondary. There was a huge bump in one quarter so I pulled an All Comparisons Historical report to see the underlying data. Found that one CU had reported their YTD sales incorrectly back in 2003 by adding an extra zero (I verified against NCUA's report--it's still wrong there too).

How do you use these reports? Would love your feedback. Please comment.

Custom Graphing: An Overview

Ok, for those of you ready to go beyond the built-in graphs, the next week will be devoted to custom graphing. The chart above is intimidating but once you get the hang of it, you'll be a Peer Jedi Master (I have 5 & 6 year-old boys...our world revolves around Star Wars the Clone Wars).

To become a Jedi requires the deepest commitment and most serious mind. It is not a venture to be undertaken lightly. As such, Jedi instruction is rigidly structured and codified to enforce discipline and hinder transgression. First, you are a Padawan; then you advance to Knight. The next level of rank in the Jedi order is the Jedi Master, reserved for those who have shown exceptional devotion and skill in the Force. May the force be with you.

Today: A quick overview of each "section" of the custom graphing.

Tomorrow and beyond, I'll do sample graphs from each section. (yes, I'm trying to spread out my posts...after all, I don't actually get paid for this but I may start negotiating with the software team! My motto: "I work for food").

To get to the custom graphing feature, go to "My Displays" on the left navigation pane. Click on Create New. You will be presented with the screen at the top of this post.

Single Credit Union or Peer Group
Use this set of graphs when you want to look at the performance of 1 credit union or 1 peer group on a graph or chart. The first set, Single/Current Cycle, allows you evaluate how you did in one particular quarter (by default, it's this quarter, but you can "cycle back"). The second set, Historical/Over-Time, allows you to see how your CU or PG performance changed over time, on multiple facets, for example loan growth v. share growth v. member growth.

All Comparisons
This set of graphs will plot your primary v. however many comparisons you selected. So, let's say you have 1 credit union as the primary and 4 peer groups (a standard asset based one, a geographic one, a FOM-based one and maybe a hand-selected set of CUs). The first set, Single/Current Cycle, will show you data points for all 5 comparisons for a single performance quarter. As above, the second set, Historical/Over-Time, allows you to see how all your selections performed over time, but this time in just a single facet.

So, quick example: The difference between the line chart under the top row and the line chart in the second row is this:

Top row: you can show multiple "lines" (eg accounts) for the same CU or PG on a single graph (loan growth v. share growth v. member growth). 3 Lines all for the same CU or PG. The middle row graph will also show performance over time, but rather than each line representing a different performance measure as above, this time, each line represents a specific performance attribute for each comparisons (share growth for the 1 CU and 4 PGs in the previous example.)

(Don't give up...the Force is with you...)

Detailed
Detailed graphs are similar in a lot of ways to the middle row, but rather than show the 5 comparisons selected in the previous example, these charts/graphs will show the data for ALL the credit unions within those 5 comparisons. So, Peer looks at your asset-based peer group and includes all those CUs in the table or chart; then it looks at your geographic one and throws the missing CUs on the chart; then it looks at the FOM and the hand-selected ones and adds any other CUs that are in those groups and not yet included. So, each PG might have 20 CUs (4 x 20 = 80), but collectively it's really just 60 different ones, not 80 when dupes are excluded. So these charts/tables will show 60 CUs.

One more confusing point: you can chose to include the Peer Group averages or not. That's what those options at the top of the account screen are for...more on that later.

Perfectly clear? Probably not...but until you start playing with these graphs, it won't be easy. Stay tuned, my young Padawan.