RelativeDate function enhancement, not yet

[nscheaffer]

We recently upgraded our BusinessObjects environment from 4.1 SP02 Patch 2  to 4.1 SP06 Patch 2.

One enhancement I was looking forward to is listed on Page 56 of http://help.sap.com/businessobject/product_guides/sbo41/en/sbo41_whats_new_en.pdf. The content at that link seems to get updated with each support pack so here is the information related to the improved RelativeDate function...

You can now have more date options with the RelativeDate() function in your calculations, including Year, Semester, Quarter, Month, Week, Day and Hour, thanks to an additional period parameter to specify the period to add.

Previously, you could only calculate in days and had to convert every units (week, month, year etc) in days before using the RelativeDate() function.

Unfortunately, it doesn't work. The description of the function does not match the documentation.

I thought it was very odd that the "num" and "period" parameters were separated by a comma (,) rather than a semi-colon (;). I have tried all sorts of variations using the comma as shown, using a semi-colon like everywhere else and guessing what some possible period values might be all with no luck.

This sort of thing troubles me and calls into question SAP's quality and testing standards and practices. There is an SAP note on this stating that documentation on this function is not correct...

http://service.sap.com/sap/support/notes/2237360

However, in my opinion this is more than just a documentation issue. I want to point out that the RelativeDate function still works if you use the RelativeDate(start_date;num_days) syntax. I hope they are able to fix this soon.

Noel