[Publishing and Visualizing Data] You are asked to produce a Prism data source, which is going to be used in a matrix report that should display the minimum, maximum, total, average, and the median purchase order amount by location and month. What should you do to achieve the desired result?

The central requirement is to display the median purchase order amount in the final matrix report. Standard Workday matrix reports do not have a built-in summary function to calculate the median; they are limited to aggregations like Sum, Average, Count, Minimum, and Maximum. Therefore, the median and other required aggregations (min, max, total, average) must be calculated before the data is used in the report. The correct method is to use a Group By stage within the Prism derived dataset. This stage can group the detailed purchase order data by location and month and apply multiple aggregation functions, including Median, to generate the required summarized values. The resulting summarized dataset is then published and used as the data source for the matrix report.

A. This is incorrect because a standard matrix report cannot calculate the median. Publishing detail data would fail to meet this specific requirement.
C. This is incorrect because the question explicitly states the output should be a matrix report, which is designed for multi-dimensional analysis, not an advanced report.
D. This is incorrect because a single Group By stage is the correct and efficient way to group by multiple fields (location and month) simultaneously.

1. Workday Prism Analytics Documentation, "Prepare and Blend Data": The section on the Group By stage in derived datasets explicitly lists "Median" as an available aggregation function. This confirms that complex statistical calculations not available in the standard report writer can be performed within the Prism data preparation layer. (Reference: Workday Community, Prism Analytics: Prepare and Blend Data, Section: "Group By Stage Aggregations").

2. Workday Report Writer Documentation, "Create a Matrix Report": The documentation detailing the configuration of summary fields and data columns in matrix reports lists the available summary operations as Sum, Count, Count Distinct, Average, Minimum, and Maximum. Median is not included in this list, confirming its calculation is not a native capability of the reporting tool. (Reference: Workday Community, Report Writer Reference Guide, Section: "Configuring Matrix Report Summaries").

3. Workday Courseware, "Prism Analytics: Advanced Topics": Course materials often highlight the design pattern of leveraging Prism's advanced transformation capabilities to pre-aggregate data. This simplifies the final report build and enables the use of calculations, like median or standard deviation, that are beyond the scope of the standard reporting tools. The guidance is to perform complex calculations in Prism and use reporting tools for visualization of the prepared data. (Reference: Workday Learning, Prism Analytics Course Manual, Module: "Optimizing Data for Reporting").