Business Objects (BO) evaluates formulas and variables based on the context of their location in the report structure. This limits the data that BO uses to calculate the value. It's particularly important to keep this in mind when you use aggregation formulas.

BO evaluates most measures in this manner. Unless specifically built not to, they will automatically sum in accordance with their context. This makes them functionally equivalent to the formula: =sum (<A Measure Object>).

Context by Location

Example	Location	Context
Header or the general body of a report (outside of any sections)	The entire report	Report Total
Section header/footer	For each value of the section	Section Total
Table break header/footer	For each value of the table break	Break Total
Row of a table	For the dimensions included in the table (including hidden dimensions)	Row Total

Cautions

Be careful what values you aggregate. Be aware of the dimensions that determine the context, in particular for the rows of a table. Some aggregations that can produce incorrect values include:

• Snapshots for a time period (i.e. to date or running totals)
• Overlaps over time. For example, the same value occurs in different time periods so that the total for both periods is not the sum of the individual periods.