The Process Guides provide an introduction to the elements of BUworks via introductory videos and workflow visualizations categorized by business functions.
Getting Started with BUworks
Ordering Goods and Services
Please visit the
Sourcing & Procurement website for systematic guides and video tutorials on the procure-to-pay process. Requisitioners and Approvers should attend both
Purchase Requisition and Approval Training and
Invoice Approval and Exception Training to be successful in
Guided BUying. Sign up for training on the Sourcing & Procurement
Training page.
Requisitioners and Approvers can stay up to date on training and helpful hints by subscribing to the Sourcing & Procurement newsletter here. If you have any questions about purchase requisitions, please submit a ticket to Sourcing & Procurement via the Financial Affairs Customer Service Portal and browse our knowledge-based articles. Questions about the invoice payment process or invoice status should be directed to the Accounts Payable Department via the Financial Affairs Customer Service Portal.
BW Reporting
The Introduction to Business Warehouse Reporting video series provides an overview of the BW reporting environment.
Viewing the entire series (approximately 60 minutes in total) is a prerequisite to attend any of the introductory-level BW training workshops.
Topics include:
- BUworks Portal Landscape: an overview of the BUworks Portal home page layout; describes help links, functions (tabs), and the panes containing system information;
- BW Reporting Environment: an exploration of the Business Warehouse (BW) portal;
- BW Report Folders and Folder Contents: a tour of a generic BW reporting folder – the folder list, report descriptions, and the context-sensitive help link.
- What is a BW Report? Distinguishes between a Business Warehouse report and a report produced when working in one of the transactional systems;
- BW Data Basics and Data Access: explores the basic characteristics of BUworks Business Warehouse data, including extraction from transactional systems, data load into BW, and the impact on business roles and security permissions on data visible to employees using reports;
- How to Run a BW Report: describes the steps involved in running a BW report, from determining the data you need through selecting a report which provides that data, specifying variable values and, finally, executing the report;
- Understanding the Elements of a BW Report Layout: explores the essential elements of a generic layout of a Business Warehouse (BW) report. This includes Characteristics, Free Characteristics, Key Figures, subtotals, grand totals, and pagination icons.
- Understanding the Role of Mouse Buttons in Reporting: describes when to use the left or the right mouse button when operating on a report.
- How to Add, Remove, or Move a Column of Data: the ability to add, remove or move data within a report is one of the most common ways to customize Business Warehouse reports to suit your needs. This video describes (1) how to remove a characteristic, (2) how to add a characteristic from the Free Characteristics list, and (3) how to move a column from one position to another within a report.
- How to Organize Report Data According to Column Position: the ability to organize or group and sort data within a BW report provides tremendous flexibility and power when using a report to answer a business question. Column position, from left to right, determines how your data will be organized. The left-most column has the highest degree of influence, and the impact on data organization diminishes for each column position to the right.
- How to Filter Report Data (PDF): filtering is the most commonly-used function with BW reports. This is a must-read to understand an essential tool.
- How to Add or Remove a Report Subtotal or Grand Total: learn how to: add a subtotal across the rows of a report; add a subtotal across the columns of a report; add a report grand total; remove a subtotal or grand total from a report
- How to Export Report Data to Excel: this Guide is important to read because printing any BW report usually requires exporting data to Excel and printing there
- How to Save and Use a View: a “View” is a customized report you can use over and over without the need to go through all the steps you followed to create the View initially. It’s also possible to share a View with colleagues, so this can be a valuable time saver.
- How to Use the Online Help Search Box: describes how to access and use the Techweb Online Help Search box to easily find any of the myriad available BW Help resources.
- Changing Data Display Characteristics: explains what is meant by “display characteristics” of report data and explores the various ways in which text descriptions and numeric keys can be modified.
