July, 2015
From the Editor
Summertime is vacation time for a lot of BUworks report users. The newsletter isn’t taking a vacation, but it is taking things a little slower. This month our focus is on Tips & Tricks and introductory-level training. Intermediate-level training, a huge success over the past two months, will ramp up again in August and September. Stay tuned!
A question that constantly comes up when deciding what content to include in the newsletter is this: what do you need/want to know about BW reporting? Only a handful of readers have taken the time to provide feedback since we went live with the first newsletter in March of this year. This is your chance! Do you have any thoughts or ideas you want to share related to newsletter style or content? Concepts that you want to learn more about? Questions that you struggle to answer? You can use this form to send us your ideas. We look forward to hearing from you.
I hope you find this issue of the Newsletter informative.
Bill Stewart
With the end of the Fiscal Year upon us, there was a lot of report usage in June and that trend has continued thus far in July. Many users need to see detailed transaction data for the entire year, and that means the load on the Business Warehouse has been very high. As a result, you may be experiencing delays in running your go-to reports. On Friday (July 10), we will implement some index enhancements that should help with some common reporting performance issues.
The BW development team has been busy, but we don’t have any shiny new reports to show for their labors. So, rather than bore you with technical details, suffice to say that you will be pleased when this work is ready for prime time. A few of the items in the works include speedier Funds Management detail reports (target: summer), a reconfigured BW Reporting environment that should improve performance as well as the look and feel of the reporting portal (October time frame), and a new set of SRM reports (targeted for late fall).
Some of these Tips may be new to you, while others may be familiar. Regardless, we hope you find value in these and future Tips, even if we do no more than remind you of the existence of tools you once knew about but had since forgotten.
Note: all of the Tips posted in our newsletters are archived on this page.
Filtering Report Characteristics
The process of filtering data – restricting displayed data based on parameters you specify – is the number one mechanism used to answer questions related to data in users’ BW reports. For that reason, it is worth taking a few minutes to examine this command more closely.
Virtually any report Characteristic can be filtered. For example, you can filter by:
Account numbers or text associated with Funds Centers, Internal Orders, or G/L’s,…
… detailed descriptions,…
… or dates.
Once you have identified the Characteristic(s) to be filtered, either of two types of filter can be applied:
| Filter Type | Description |
| Inclusive | Only those records that match the (one or more) parameters specified by the user are displayed. Filtering by inclusion is the default mode when applying a filter |
| Exclusive | Filter by exclusion: any record that matches the parameters specified is excluded from the display, i.e., all records except those records that match are shown |
Furthermore, there are different ways to implement a filter. A common process involves right-clicking on a column heading (i.e., on the name of a Characteristic) and setting up the filter, like this:
In this case, you are essentially saying “show me a list of all the values for Grant in my report. I will look through this list and select the value (or values) on which I want to restrict my view.” This is the long form of establishing a filter.
There is also a filtering shortcut you can use, although you need to keep two requirements in mind: first, you may only apply the filter to a single value, and second, the value on which the filter is to be applied must be visible on the report page you are currently viewing. Suppose, for example, that you want to view activity involving grant number 50115736.
Here’s how you would use the shortcut method: right-click directly on that grant number, slide your cursor down to Filter, then move right and select Keep Filter Value on Axis. The resulting display would show activity for only that one grant.
Just as there is a shortcut for filtering by inclusion, there is a shortcut for establishing a filter to exclude data. Full details on this method – and for filtering in general – is described in the Help guide BW How to – Filter Report Data. If you haven’t read this document for a while, we recommend that you take 10 minutes to read/re-read it. Your time will be well rewarded!
Filtering Report Key Figures (Show or Hide a Key Figure)
In the March newsletter, we demonstrated how to use a Condition to filter a Key Figure based on a threshold value. Another kind of filtering operation you can perform on Key Figures is showing or hiding one or more of them.
Hiding
Why might you want to hide a Key Figure? For the same reason that you might remove Characteristics from a report – to streamline output to display only data that is essential to answering a particular question. Tip: unlike removing Characteristics, which you must do one at a time, this technique is a great way to remove multiple Key Figures all at once.
Showing
Did you know that some reports contain more Key Figures than are initially displayed when the report is run? In those cases, you may want to make visible one or more of those “hidden” metrics.
Showing or hiding a Key Figure relies on the Filter command, and this Help guide describes the process: BW How to – Hide or Show a Key Figure.
July Training Opportunities
Introductory Workshops offered this month
As always, an assortment of introductory workshops will be offered this month. These sessions present to new employees – or employees assigned a new business role – the fundamentals of reporting for a particular subject area. The sessions are a great way to review material, too. Even if you previously attended an intro session, you are likely to learn new things about reporting – or to be reminded of concepts that you had forgotten.
Click on any of the following links for a course description and/to register for an upcoming session:
Supplier Resource Management Reporting
Labor Distribution (Payroll) Reporting
Please visit this page to view a schedule of all upcoming BW sessions. If you don’t see a date or a location scheduled for the course you are interested in, send email to the BW trainer and let him know of your interest. If sufficient interest is registered, additional sessions will be scheduled.
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