Patent ID: 7747564

Claim:
A method of providing comparative analysis of business intelligence data represented by a multi-dimensional model, the method comprising: independently defining, by a definition manager in a comparative analysis system, a plurality of dimensional members of a data source; receiving, by an operation manager in the comparative analysis system, user input selecting a set of dimensional members of interest and at least one operator to manipulate the selected set of members based on the selected at least one operator, wherein the set of dimensional members of interest comprise a first dimensional member of interest having a given dimension and a given level in a hierarchy of the given dimension and a second dimensional member of interest having a different dimension from the given dimension or a different level in the hierarchy from the given level in the hierarchy; applying, by the operation manager, the at least one operator to the selected set of dimensional members of interest to form a manipulated set of dimensional members of interest; and placing, by a display manager in the comparative analysis system, the manipulated set of dimensional members in a report so that the manipulated set of dimensional members are displayed adjacently based on the operator to facilitate comparative analysis, wherein defining a plurality of dimensional members of a data source comprises translating a multi-dimensional model defining a report layout as a binary operator tree into a layout oriented object model that defines the report layout in a positional operator tree.