More on Peer Groups: Simple v. Custom, Dynamic v. Static...

On Friday, I described the difference between a Dynamic and a Static Peer Group. How does this relate to Simple v. Custom? Let's take a look.

Simple Build: this is great for credit unions that want to hand-select a list of credit unions to use as a Peer Group. This is pretty common...a CEO has a set of credit unions s/he likes to keep an eye on. Use simple build to just select them one-by-one.

What does this have to do with Dynamic v. Static? Well, all Simple Build PGs are considered "static" because the only criteria you chose was the credit unions themselves. The program stores the secret-ID and you're off to the races.

Now, with Custom Built PGs, you have a choice. You can save the criteria (all CUs between $20 and 50 million, in California, who use Fiserv as a DP) by choosing "Dynamic"; or you can chose "static" so you can compare the performance of these same 28 credit unions over time, even if at some point they grow above the $50m or chose a different Data Processor. (Try to build this group...see if you get the same answer...)

One thing to note: when you save a Custom Built PG as a Static PG and you decide to edit it at any point in the future, Peer 2.0 will open the PG using the Simple Build feature. (Confused?) That's because when you chose "Static" it just saved the secret-IDs...so the next time around, Peer doesn't remember the criteria you originally selected. It would be cool if it did (eg. It still opens in Simple Build but says "the original criteria was..." But that's for the upgrade list. Daniel? are you listening? :))

One last thing: custom peer groups are saved with a (D) or an (S) after the name...can you now guess what that stands for?

Tomorrow....Custom graphing.

Dynamic v. Static

What's a dynamic v. a static peer group? This is a question that stumps a lot of people. Here's an example...

A dynamic peer group will update its "members" each quarter. So, say you built a group of credit unions over $1 billion in assets back in February when 4Q data was the latest cycle. At that point, Peer built you a group of 146 credit unions and calculated their average performance to show on the charts and tables.

If you saved it as a "Dynamic" peer group, when you loaded 1Q09 data, Peer took at look at the new data and said "hm..there are now 153 credit unions." At that time, it recalculated the average performance of those 153 credit unions so your graphs/tables displayed the current $1b+ credit unions' performance.

If you had saved it as a "Static" peer group, Peer stored the super-secret-never-changing-ID-number for those 146 credit unions. When you loaded 1Q data, it took the new data for those 146, whether or not they fit the original criteria of being larger than $1billion, and recalculated the peer group performance.

Ok, now that that's clear... (ha ha) More on Dynamic v. Static and Simple v. Custom on Monday. Have a good weekend.

Funny Error Message: "List that this enumerator..."

This is for all you Peer 1.0 Users who may remember some truly bizarre error messages encountered over the years.

First, I have to admit that this error was prompted by User (my own) error--I tried to delete a Peer Group that I was using in my comparison set. Peer didn't like that and told me so with a nice straight forward explanation. But then I got this explanation, in case the original "you can't delete a peer group in your current comparison set" wasn't clear:


Have you encountered any good ones? Tell me! (Regrettably, your confession may come at the expense of others not being able to enjoy a good laugh because the programming team is monitoring this blog. They will end up re-writing the error messages.)

Share your custom peer groups

Peer 2.0 comes with 10 standard (ie. asset-based) Peer Groups already built-in. Usually though, credit unions build a custom peer group against which to benchmark their performance (isn't this the reason you bought Peer after all?). Rather than make every analyst on your team go through the effort of re-creating the Peer Group, simply share the one you already built! Here's how.

(Assumption: You've already created the Peer Group). Go to the Peer Groups menu and Select Share.

Here you will see a list of Peer Groups available in your desktop version of Peer. Select the one you wish to share with others (Peer will show you the credit unions in the group in the window below).

Now, you have a couple of options. If you want other analysts to import the Peer Group into their version of Peer, select either Export .p2p (this exports the .P2P to a location of your choice) or Email (which attaches the .P2P file to an email message in your default email program). Done!

Want to import a Peer Group someone else created? On the Peer groups menu, select Manage OR from the File Menu select Import --> Peer Groups. Either way, you'll get a new window with one option being Import. Click on it.

Find the .P2P file you received from someone else (I assume here you already saved it somewhere). Click Open and you will be prompted to name and save the Peer Group.

Done!