October, 2015


I’m excited about the BW upgrade, which was completed over the weekend of October 3. In addition to the obvious change in look and feel, the upgrade brings the BW reporting environment up to the most-current major system release, thereby positioning us to more easily take advantage of future developments in the SAP reporting space. More details about the upgrade are outlined in the News section below.

I want to call out one change implemented  during the upgrade that I consider to be huge, and one that I think you will find especially useful: the release of the restructured BW Document Library. Each reporting folder now contains a Help link to a Web page populated with Help Guides that are specific to the functional area associated with that folder. For example, clicking on Help within a Grants Management report folder will direct the user to Guides related to GM reporting. Similarly, the Supplier Relationship Management Help link resolves to a page containing SRM Guides. The same behavior is true for HCM and finance Help links.

I am in the process of developing a video to provide a closer look at the reorganized Document Library. My aim is to complete the video in time to announce it in next month’s newsletter, so stay tuned.

As always, I hope you find this issue of the Newsletter informative. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments.

Bill Stewart

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The big news with reporting this month is the completion of the Business Warehouse upgrade, which has resulted in a number of changes and new features.

A brief overview video provides a closer look at the new environment. If you haven’t yet seen it, I encourage to take just a few minutes and watch the video.

General change highlights include these items:

  • The Reporting environment now has an entirely new look and feel
  • The Help button in each folder has been replaced with an inline Help link that navigates to relevant BW Help guides
  • Folder list widths are adjustable, so report names are easier to read
  • The report name associated with a Variable Entry screen is displayed in the browser tab containing the screen

These elements are among the technical changes:

  • The timeout for report execution was increased from 400 sec to 600 sec, which should help reduce failed runs
  • The max number of returned cells (called “safety belt”), was increased from 350K to 500K, allowing larger reports to be executed
  • The maximum idle time permitted between navigation steps increased from 30 minutes to 6 hours. This makes it more likely a user can pick up where they left off to change variables, characteristics or otherwise adjust analysis and re-run without starting over, even if they have not saved a report. The previous idle time of 30 minutes was easy to eclipse, given normal daily interruptions, delays to review/merge exports with others sources, etc.

We have also added a Web page associated with the upgrade, which contains a link to the overview video as well as resolution information regarding two issues that Firefox users may encounter:

  1. Pop-up blocker may prevent display of report output
  2. Clicking on the Reporting tab results in the generation of a new, fixed-width (narrow) window. Within BW, clicking to run reports generated additional narrow windows

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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 BW newsletters are archived on this page.

Job Aids: what are they and why should I care?

The revised BW Document Library now contains a new Job Aids section. As the name suggests, Job Aids are intended to help you do your job. They are Guides that target specific business questions commonly asked by report users in various functional areas. Topics addressed include finding open commitments, P-card information, Limit Order information, etc. A list of Job Aids is available on this Web page.

Aids are currently available for topics related to jobs performed by grant administrators, payroll coordinators, shoppers/approvers, and financial administrators.

As to the “why should you care?” question, the answer is this: Job Aids have provided the basis for many of the items appearing in this Tips & Tricks section of the Newsletter. If you’re looking for help you can use when performing your job, investigating existing Job Aids is a great place to start.

Got ideas for additional Aids? Drop me a note via email or give me a call at 617-353-6382 and let’s discuss your idea.

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September 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/or to register for an upcoming session:

Funds Management Reporting

Grants Management Reporting

Supplier Resource Management Reporting

Labor Distribution (Payroll) Reporting

Intermediate-level Workshops offered this month

We just offered Funds Management and Grants Management sessions in September. Going forward, the plan is to offer these sessions every 2-3 months. You can see whether or not one of these sessions has been scheduled by periodically visiting these pages:

Grant Management Reporting

Funds Management Reporting

Custom Training Sessions

Have you ever thought that it would be really useful if you could get members of your department together with a trainer to focus on BUworks functionality that is specific to the work your department does? I’m happy to work with any department or group that would like to develop and conduct a custom basic- or intermediate-level reporting training session. There are only two requirements for such a session: (1) input from the group is necessary to develop a relevant agenda, and (2) the group should include four or more employees. If you’re interested in discussing the development of a custom session for your department or school/college, contact me via email or give me a call at 617-353-6382.

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