XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

51
Version 2007a Exercises 1

description

A manual to used during training classes to illustrate advanced uses of XL Reporter.

Transcript of XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

Page 1: XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

Version 2007a

Exercises

XL Reporter -SAP® SBO® Edition

1

Page 2: XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

2

Page 3: XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

Table of Contents

Additional Training Resources........................................................................................................3Exercise 1 – Logging On................................................................................................................. 4Exercise 2 – Report Organizer........................................................................................................5Exercise 3 – Creating an Excel Template.......................................................................................6Exercise 4 – Report Composer: Trial Balance................................................................................7Exercise 5 – Report Composer/Designer/Organizer: Sales Report..............................................11Exercise 6 – Report Composer/Designer/Organizer: Sales Order Report....................................15Exercise 7 – Report Composer/Designer: SO..............................................................................18Exercise 8 – Report Composer/Designer: PM HATB Report........................................................19Exercise 9 – Report Composer: Project Summary Report......................................................20Exercise 10 – Report Designer..................................................................................................21Exercise 11 – Report Composer/Report Designer: GL Grouping by Account Number in Excel............................................................................................................................................ 29Exercise 12 – Report Designer: Create a Balance Sheet.........................................................31Exercise 13 – Report Composer and Advanced Report Writer: Creating a Dashboard.......34Exercise 14 – Report Organizer: Packages/Jobs/Books.........................................................37

3

Page 4: XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

Additional Training Resources

1. Website for Excel users and Excel questions: www.MrExcel.com

2. XL Reporter University: http://www.xlreporter.com/xluniversity/menu.htm.Includes a variety recorded sessions to assist you in learning the various components of XL Reporter.

3. User Guide: Help file in XL Reporter (Main menu – Help – About).

4. FAQ’s for XL Reporter is available at http://support.solverusa.com.

5. Report examples that you can import into your own XL Reporter installation: http://support.solverusa.com.

6. Appendix A: Helpful Hints

7. Yahoo Groups: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/xlreporter/ This is a free chat group for end-users of XL Reporter. Members share questions, comments, suggestions, etc. As of 7/1/2008 we have approx 680 members.

4

Page 5: XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

Exercise 1 – Logging On

In order to log on to XL Reporter you must first log in to SBO. After you have logged into SBO go to the tools menu and select XL Reporter:

The following screen should appear:

Did you succeed? If so, the future is bright!

5

Page 6: XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

Exercise 2 – Report Organizer

The Report Organizer has the look and feel of Windows Explorer.

Go to the Report Organizer and create the following folder system (hint: Right click in the right window pane to create a new folder). The grey folders that already exist are for published reports. Reports stored in the grey folders will be available to run in the SBO menu system:

6

Page 7: XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

Exercise 3 – Creating an Excel Template

Open Excel (from your Windows desktop) and create the following template to be used later when you design reports:

Hints: Make row 7 your last header row, and format rows below this with account descriptions and

numbers in mind. Add a system date by adding a NOW or DATE function Also go to print preview and page setup and adjust your margins and add a page number.

Also make the first 7 rows repeat by using the sheet tab in the page setup Save the file as an .xlt file. It will automatically be saved to a specific Excel template

directory. After saving the file, go to File, Properties and in the Summary tab, check the box for ”Save

Preview Picture” Also templates are saved in the following file (example) "C:\Documents and Settings\Dean

Bellville\Application Data\Microsoft\Templates\Report Template 21.xlt" which is a hidden file. Note: change the user name above to the user that logged on to the computer.

If you are using Office XP, make sure that you have Service Pack 2 installed or you will not see your templates.

7

Page 8: XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

Exercise 4 – Report Composer: Trial Balance

A) Overview of the Report Composer

Go to Report Composer and use the following instruction to create the report below:

Data Area The data area is displayed in blue at the top of the window and consists of the modules with data fields within them. This may also be referred to as the module tab.

Based upon the data schema in SBO, the module tab data fields are broken down into dimension, light dimension or measure categories. Each of these items has a name similar to the name utilized in SBO and are displayed by category, then alphabetically.

The difference between the categories is what you can choose with them, and is more evident when you add them to your query. The data fields are described with the following three icons:

Dimension - similar to cards in SBO and have a lookup function in the Selections area. Additionally a dimension has attributes that supplement it. For example, the AccountString dimension includes the Account Number, Segment 1, Segment 2 and Account Description attributes. You can also do filtering of data (in

8

Page 9: XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

the Selections area) based upon the dimension or attribute.

Light dimension - data that is transactional in nature but is not calculated (see measures below). An example would be General Journal Number or Transaction Date. Light dimensions do not have a lookup function. If you drag the light dimension to the Selections area you will see that you do not have a lookup icon.

Measures - data that is quantitative in nature and can be calculated. An example is Qty or Amount. A measure is required in your query if you move it to Excel. You cannot drag measures into the Selections area. If you need to filter or refine a measure, you can do so in Excel via the Advanced Report Builder.

Additionally with version 4.0 there is a new function called tool tips. Tool tips are a feature that offers balloon help and further information on the data field when you hover over the name.

SelectionsThe selections area is where you filter or refine the data by dragging and dropping the data fields from above. If there is no selection, then all data from the Report View area will be included.

Another concept you must understand is the data object and how it works in XL Reporter.

Based on your selection criteria, XLR creates a data object that combines posted and unposted entries and open and historical years. Business rules and formulas in Microsoft Dynamics are prewritten in XL Reporter so that amount = debit – credit.

Tech Tip:Ensure that you include a selection or filter when you refresh your first query. If you do not, you will query all the module records in the database, and your query will take much longer to run. It could also have an effect on your production system as it could be a very large data query.

Report ViewThe Report View area consists of two parts that display your report data.

The blue area is for grouping or summarizing by dimension or light dimension.

The bottom area is your data. You populate this area by refreshing the query.

Another process in XL Reporter that is different from other report writers is Aggregation. This is a process that aggregates, or combines, dimensions and measures to determine results. This means that if you choose GL Account and the Amount measure and refresh, you will derive the summation of this account throughout the history of the database. Other report writers would require a query by transactions to determine the summation. This means you will return one row instead of 1000s of rows for your desired result.

Toolbar

New - will clear the selections from the current query.

Load - will open any existing .rcr query.

Save - to save your queries as an .rcr extension which is saved as a hard file in a directory within XL Reporter. If you want to change the directory this can be done thru a Registry Entry; refer to the help files on how to change this directory. Generated reports in Excel are stored on the server which will be covered in detail later.

Print - to print the results of your query.

Generate - moves your query to the Advanced Report Writer in Excel.

9

Page 10: XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

Undo - will step back to your previous action.

Refresh - retrieves your data. If you do not see data after clicking this icon, then either there is no data for the fields included or you have been disconnected from the database.

B) Detailed Trial Balance Report

Now we are ready to create a report. Go to the Report Composer and select the Financials tab. Ensure that you include a Selection when you do your first query. If you do not include a selection you will query all the module records in the database, so that your query will take much longer to do. Also business rules and formulas are prewritten so that Amount = Debit – Credit. We will demonstrate this by creating a trial balance report for year 2005 and group it by department.There are three basic portions of the Report Composer, one is the Module Tab, two is the Selections area and three is the Selected Dimensions and Measures area. Dimensions or Soft Dimensions can be dragged and dropped into the Selections area. See XLR help for an explanation of Dimensions and Measures.Hints:1. Drag Financial Period into the Selections area and select 200501 to 200512. This is done

by left clicking and holding down on first period 200501 and dragging thru the last period 200512. Note that 200501 is the first period in the year 2005. So, if your fiscal year starts on Oct 1st 1999 your 200001 would be equal to Oct 99. If you want to see the calendar periods, click into column and choose PeriodStart and your calendar period will appear.

2. Drag G/L Accounts, and Amount into the Selected dimensions and measures screen.3. Right click in the G/L Accounts column and from Display more attributes select Account

Name. Notice that you can only do one attribute at a time. The header label will only be Account but the Account Code attribute will be on the left and the Account Name attribute will be on the right hand side. Just click it and you will see part of the Account and then drag and drop it.

4. Click the refresh report button on the tool bar to execute the report.5. Notice the amount field. This represents the amount totals for the total fiscal year 05.6. Drag down Financial Period to the Selected dimensions and measures and you will see

amount by period for Fiscal Year 05.7. Group by Account Code by dragging the Account Code column header up to the blue area

above 8. Right click on any part of the selected area and choose Totals. You will see Totals by

Account Code and Grand Totals. Your report Grand Total should be zero.9. Next change the period selection to 200503. You will see the selection change to 200503.10. Change the Selection Formula for periods to Code = YTD(200503) and refresh and you will

see the amounts for the periods up to and including 200503.11. Next change the Formula to 200603-12. It should bring up 200503 data. 12. Then combine the two previous formulas with a Code = YTD (200603-12) and you will see

YTD of the previous fiscal year.13. Next change to Formula to Yearall (200506) and refresh and you will see the all periods

within the year.14. Next change to Formula to YearFirst(200506) and refresh. You will see period 200501. 15. Right click on periods and delete the column.16. Drag down Number (JE Nbr) into the Selection area and refresh the report. You will see

one journal entry per line. You can also enter Document Date and Details. This allows you to drill down to the transaction level into SAP Business One. Delete the Number or any other detail fields that you dropped into the report.

17. Save the report by clicking the Floppy Disk button from the tool bar. Name the report Trial Balance.

C) Trial Balance Report with 6 Months Across in Columns

10

Page 11: XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

Clear your Report Composer by clicking on the New button. Then click the Open button and choose the pervious report. Modify the trial balance report from the last exercise to include 6 periods across in the columns.

Hints:1. Change the filter you created on Periods to include the first six months in 20052. Drag Financial Period down from the Financials tab and into the column next to Amount3. Group by Department4. Right click anywhere in the report and select Expand Financial Periods as columns5. Refresh the report

11

Page 12: XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

Exercise 5 – Report Composer/Designer/Organizer: Sales Report

Clear the screen from the report in the prior exercise by clicking the New button on the tool bar.

A) Create a sales report with the Report Composer

Click on the Sales – A/R tab

First, review the Business rules with the SOP Data Object. The Object contains all open and closed SOP Objects. This includes all AR document types.

Create a sales report by doing the following:1. Drag Business Partner down to the Selections area and click the dimension lookup

button. Choose all Customers that their name begins with B. Go to the bottom of the dimension lookup window and change the attribute to BP Type. Add BP Type to the list by clicking the Column button and placing a check mark in the square next to BP Type. Then choose a Business Partner with the BP Type of C to limit your select to customers only. On the second row of the Selections choose “And” in the first column. This means both statements have to be true in order to return the record. Then change the attribute on the second row to BP Name. Change the operator to “Begins With”. Then type a “B” into the value cell. (See Figure SOP 1).

2. Drag Business Partner down into the Report View window pane.3. Then drag down Item/Service Description, Document Number, AR Document Type,

Document Status, Quantity, Unit Price and Row Total.

4. Bring up numbers by clicking on the Refresh on the tool bar.5. Right click on the Business Partner column and select Display more Attributes then select

BP Name. 6. Group the report by Customer by left clicking and holding on the BP Code column header

in the report view and pushing it up to the light blue grouping area. Once you have grouped by something you can right click in the face of the report and select Totals. This will add subtotals by customer.

7. Refresh the report.

12

Page 13: XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

Figure SOP 1

The report shows Customer Totals for Inventory items that are from all AR Document Types and have a status of Open and Closed. It also shows data from all periods. Next we are going to extract data just for Open Invoicing and the first quarter of 2005.

1. Drag down AR Document Type to the Selection area and choose Invoice.2. Drag down Document Status and choose O (This is Open status in SOP)3. Drag down Financial Period and choose 200501:2005034. Refresh the report. ( See Figure SOP 2)

13

Page 14: XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

Figure SOP 2

Save the report as “Sales Report” by clicking on Save As on the tool bar.

14

Page 15: XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

B) Transform the Sales Report into an Excel Report Definition

Create an Excel report definition of the Sales Report you just created in the Composer in the last exercise.

Hints:

1. Click the Generate button on the toll bar.2. Choose Use Excel Template and enter a name for your report. Choose Edit Definition

and click OK3. To get nice formatting from the start, use the Excel template we created in Exercise 34. Save the report definition to the 1. Definitions folder in the Organizer5. Once the report is in the Excel Report Definition you should see a floating toolbar called

Report Designer. We will cover this toolbar in detail later. If you can’t see the toolbar check behind the report or on the toolbar menu of Excel. If you are on Excel 2007 or later it will be on the Add-Ins tab.

Once the report definition opens in Excel, you can format it and add totalsHint: To add totals, use the fx button to apply XL Reporter’s special total functions.

Go back to the Report Composer and perform various Grouping and filtering exercises (like dragging Sales Employee and Item/Service Description into the report window and group by both of them by dragging them to the blue area above the column headers)

15

Page 16: XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

Exercise 6 – Report Composer/Designer/Organizer: Sales Order Report

Use the report Composer to Create a Sales Order Line Item Detail report. Use the following fields (hint: if you hold down the control key you can select them before dragging them down to the report view:

Business Partner (right click on the column after you dragged it down to add a column with BP Name)

Document No. Item (right click on the column after you dragged it down to add a column with Item

Description) Quantity Unit Price Row Total Row Gross Profit

Refresh the report.

Now add Document Total to the Selected Dimensions and measures. You will notice that the summary field Document Total is grayed out. This is a function of trying to match a summary field with the detail fields.

16

Page 17: XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

Then click the Generate button on the toll bar. Name your report, select a folder to store it in and click OK. The report will now be in Excel.

17

Page 18: XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

Your executed report should look similar to this (you can add logos, date and time using standard Excel functionality)

18

Page 19: XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

Exercise 7 – Report Composer/Designer: SOSummary Sales by Year

Now are you going to do a report by that shows summary period balances of sales by year.

1. First choose the Sales – A/R Module and drag the Business Partner (BP Code & BP Name), Financial Period, and Document Total Fields. Refresh your data.

2. Next Right Click on Financial Periods and choose expand by column. Then drag AR Document Type into the Selections area and choose “Invoice” for Invoice. Next bring over the report to Excel and format as you want.

19

Page 20: XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

Exercise 8 – Report Composer/Designer: PM HATB Report

Now are you going to do a report by that shows AP Historical Trial Balances.

1. First choose the Purchasing – A/P module and drag the Busines Partner (BP Code & BP Name), Document Number, AP Document Type, Document Date, Financial Period and Document Total. Drag the BP Code Dimension to Grouping. Drag the Financial Period Dimension to the Selection Area and choose your period. Change the operator to a < and refresh. Right click and add Totals and you have a PM HATB.

2. Next Right Click on Financial Periods and choose expand by column. Choose and select Business Partners that you want. Next bring over the report to Excel. When the report is in Excel, limit the financial period by selecting a parameter and then select your aging periods based upon your parameter. This is covered in the later exercises.

20

Page 21: XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

Exercise 9 – Report Composer: Project Summary Report

This time we are going to create a report for Projects in the report composer. Drag the Project Code (Project Code & Project Name), G/L Accounts (Account Code & Account Name), Financial Period and Amount from Financials to the Report View area. The report will show all the projects you have set up. Also, the Account is required to show the different accounts that where posted to for a project.

21

Page 22: XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

Exercise 10 – Report Designer

This time we are going to create a report in the report composer and then modify it in the Report Designer.

Create a Profit & Loss Report in the Designer

1. Go to the Report Composer and drag and drop G/L Accounts from Financials and then right click on attributes and add Account Name and Natural Account. Also drag G/L Accounts to the Selection area and choose all the P&L accounts.

2. Drag and drop Financial Period down to the Selection area and choose all 2005 periods. Then go back to the Report View and delete the Account Code. This is done for performance reasons and has data pulled from one instead of two dimensions. Refresh your data and execute the report definitions to Excel. Resize your columns.

Your report should look like PL Figure 1.

PL Figure 1

3. There are three different parts of the report writer interface: Advanced Report Writer, the Excel Spreadsheet and the XL Reporter Toolbar. First the Advanced Report Writer (ARW) has an interface to change your report types and selections. If you make changes in the ARW you will see the changes in the Syntax in the Complete Selection area. Second is the Excel spreadsheet. The Spreadsheet acts actually like a regular Excel spreadsheet except it can have XL Reporter Formulas in the cells. Click on any cell in a completed report and you will see

22

Page 23: XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

the XL Reporter formula. When you execute your report you will see the Excel value within the cell. The last part is the XL Reporter Toolbar. The toolbar is called Report Designer in the toolbar list. There are two buttons that are important on the toolbar. First is the Generate

Report button which executes the report with the XL Reporter Formulas and then forms the resulting Excel spreadsheet. Next we are going to get familiar with the Advanced Report Builder (PL Figure 2)

PL Figure 2

The tabs explain what part of the spreadsheet you are working with.

The dimensions are used for record selection and have the same function as they did in the Report Composer.

The Complete Selection shows the Syntax code from the above selections.

23

Gro

up

and

se

lect

ion sy

mbo

ls, d

elet

e an

d

Gro

upi

ng/

Sor

t

Dimensions

Parameters, Drill Down and Apply

Syntax, Result of selections

Page 24: XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

Next, click on row 8 of the report which by default (can be changed at any time) is the data line. (See Figure PL 2)

This is the data row and it has a group symbol. The difference between the group symbol and the selection symbol is that the group symbol will group your data so that if you group by Department it will show all data values of the Department group that are unique per segment number. This is done in conjunction with the Group/Sort Button. If you click on the Group/Sort button you will see that Account and Department are grouped together. So if you choose a range of Department of three GL accounts you will have three rows in Excel with the Expanding Groups. If you use the selection and choose the same accounts you will have one row in Excel with the total of all three accounts. First, we go to Account in which you will see the values that you used in the Report composer. This means all P&L records from the Account within the segment are chosen. Click the selection button in the Account selection Column. This will bring up the Dimension Lookup window. Change the operator to Begins With and type in “4”, which are the Revenue Accounts. Once you have made the changes, ensure that you click on the Apply button. If you do not click on the Apply button your changes will be lost. Check the Group Sort and check that Account – Natural Account is selected. Look at the syntax box and you will see the selection that you just made.

Next click on row 7 and you will see that the syntax disappears, click back on row eight and it is back again.

Reformat the data with a currency mask, check properties and add totals and group the data line. The reason to check properties is to ensure that you have drilldown capability. Go to Properties in the ARW and click on properties. The checkbox for drilldown needs to be checked. To add totals just click into the cell that you want the totals and then go to the Formula Builder and choose Column Totals and double click. Also, if you didn’t use the template created earlier add a title by using the merge function in Excel, just select your cells and right click and go to alignment and choose Merge Cells. Also put in a system date by going to functions and choosing the NOW function. Execute your report in the report designer and your report should look like this.

24

Page 25: XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

What we have is data for Fiscal Year 05. Notice that these amounts are negative, indicating a credit balance. To change the sign, go back to the Report Designer and multiply the data value in Excel by -1, which will reverse the value. Next, we are going to add Department in column C. Insert a column into column C and use the Formula Builder and you should see the Dimension that you are using. Add the Department to the Excel Cell on the data line.

Next, we are going to restrict the data by column for the current month by using a parameter (variable). First we need to do an Excel Formula in Column F by taking Amount divided by Total Revenue and Labeling it % of Total Revenue. To do so we will use the following Excel formula, =IF($E$9=0,0,E8/$E$9) and format it as a percentage. This regular Excel formula takes in account any DIV/0 errors.

Next, we are going to add a parameter for the current month. One thing to keep in mind when doing parameters is that you probably will run reports together in Report Packages. If you label your parameters the same (including the same upper case/lower case) then you only have to update one and it will update all the reports. Go to the Advanced Report Builder and Report Default and clear out the Financial Periods data. This was only used to restrict the data query and will no longer be used. Next click on Parameters and enter values in the fields as shown in Figure PL 3. Note in the Category entry, you have a choice of Dimension, Expression or Literal as String. The Dimension means one value and is always used with periods, the Expression is a range of values but can’t be used with YTD and other syntax and the String is a set Value entered by the end-user and is not a database value like Dimensions and Expressions. With Dimensions you can use the listed attributes on the parameter and with Expressions you can use the attributes with ranges in the selection. The Expression selection has the same functionality as the Report Composer with regard to columns and use of attributes.

25

Page 26: XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

Figure PL 3

Now that you have the parameter we are going to Group the Amount, Budget Amount and Variance and apply the parameter. This will give us data from the rows that are restricted by the parameter that the user chooses.

First, click on column E and add a column summary. The reason that we want this is to restrict data in Column E to the parameter value. Next go to the Period Dimension and click the selection button and you will see the list that we have worked with before. Choose the parameter tab instead and choose the parameter (vCurrentMonth) that you made in the step above. Click on Apply and you will see your selection in the Complete Selection area.

Your report should look like this.

26

Page 27: XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

Execute your report and your parameter will popup by using the dialog button and you will see the data list and use the value of 200502 and you should see data for February 2005. Click on any transaction amount on your report and right click on drilldown which will take you to the Drilldown function. You should see February 2005 Transactions.

Next go to cell E6. From the formula builder pick the PeriodEnd2 attribute of the Financial Period dimension. This date can be shown by formatting by Month and Year or it can be shown as the last day of the month. This syntax allows you to show the selection period that you are using. Next, go to the cell under the title and add the following Excel formula, ="Report End as of "& TEXT((E6),"mm/dd/yyyy"). This formula references the E6 month formula and will give you the last day of the month. Other period syntax examples can be found in the help files and there is also a period syntax example on the iLytix Partner website.

Next, we are going to show data from the last fiscal year for the same month. Copy column E to F and paste them in Columns H to I. Once that is finished, select column H. Go to the Financial Period dimension and select the lookup button. Reselect the vCurrentPeriod parameter. Then select the lookup button from the Value cell. Select Current Period of Previous Year from the list of period functions. When complete, your formula should look like this: FACT PER( Code = @vCurrentPeriod-12 ).

Your report should look like this.

Execute your report and you will see no data and a REF error. There is no data for Feb 05 so to fix this, uncheck the “Do not Display Blank Records” in the Advanced Report Builder and run your report again.

Next we are going to add YTD and LYTD columns. We are going to use the same formulas that you used in the Report Composer in Exercise 4, except we are going to use them with a parameter instead of Period. Use the same procedure as above by copying and pasting except

27

Page 28: XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

for grouping, you are going to be adding a selection instead of a grouping. For YTD change the formula to PER( Code = YTD(@vCurrentMonth) ) and for LYTD change the formula to PER( Code = YTD(@vCurrentMonth-12) ). Hint: Use the Financial Period function lookup to easily create these formulas. See Figure 3. Change your heading to YTD and LYTD and execute your report. Change the parameter to 200503 and you use the same value to filter the other columns.

Figure 3

At this point we have completed our columns for the PL Report but we must finish the rest of the rows for the other parts of the P&L. To do this we will use the same concept for rows that we did for columns except that we will change the segments from Revenues to the other Categories.

First insert a row above row 8. Then add the label “Revenue” in cell A8 and the formula =”Total “&A8 in cell A10. Then copy and paste row 9 thru 11 to row 13. Click on row 14 and check to see the selection criteria formulas were copied from row 9 to row 14.

Next, go to row 11 and the G/L Accounts dimension and enter Account Code Begins With "5" which are your COGS accounts. Click your report and change your labels to COGS and execute your report.

We are now going to make a Row that takes the totals from Revenues and subtracts COGS and gives a Gross Profit. This is done by the familiar Excel function of adding the two totals in the column.

The rest of the PL Report is a matter of using the same technique as above and formatting in Excel. Additionally, you might want to use a check figure concept to ensure that your PL

28

Page 29: XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

balances. To do a check figure go to any row and copy a selection formula and go to the bottom of the report and click on a row. Go to the Advanced Report Builder and choose Selection instead of grouping. This will put in all your results in one row instead of multiple rows. Apply and run your report and then check figures should match your Net Income if you have included all of your Segments Correctly. Your final report should look something like this.

29

Page 30: XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

Exercise 11 – Report Composer/Report Designer: GL Grouping by Account Number in Excel

Next, we are going to do an exercise that fully uses the functions of XL Reporter and Excel. You are going to do a multi grouping with Drilldown to the Transaction Level.

1. First go to your Report Composer and add G/L Accounts, Transaction Number and Amount from the Financials module. Add Attributes for G/L Accounts (Account Name and Department) and Transaction Number (Original Journal Description). Drag and Drop, Financial Periods and G/L Accounts into Selections and Choose Period 200502 and Department range 01 to 99. Refresh and then group by Department and Account and add totals. See Figure 1.

Figure 1 GL Grouping

2. Next bring over the report to Excel. Format the Report and Group with Excel Row 10. Review the previous exercise if you forgot how to Group with Excel. Add an Account Description to Row 3. Next collapse row 10 and then Group line 9 to 11. What you should have is three expansion groups. See Figure 2. Then copy the account number from cell B9 to B11. Add a description to C11 if you want. Execute your Report.

30

Page 31: XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

Figure 2 GL Grouping

4. You will notice that you now have totals per Department and G/L Accounts in your Reports. Now take columns C thru E and Group them. Collapse your report rows (which one do you think makes most sense to collapse? 0 and run it and you have a multi detail drilldown report.

31

Page 32: XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

Exercise 12 – Report Designer: Create a Balance Sheet

This time we are going to create a report in the Report Composer for the Balance Sheet and then modify it in the Report Designer. This is very similar to the exercise that you just completed for a Profit Loss Statement.

A) Create a Balance Sheet report in the Report Composer/ Designer

1. Go to the Report Composer and choose Financials and drop G/L Accounts and then right click on attributes and add Account Name. Also drag Amount to the Report View area. Also drag and drop Financial Period and choose the first period in the list thru 200502. Then go back to the Report View and delete the Account Code. This is done for performance reasons and has data pulling from one instead of two dimensions. Refresh your data and execute the report definitions to Excel.

2. Your report should look like PL Figure 1.

Figure 13. Delete the formula in the Report Default and click apply. Click on Row 8 and add totals and titles and format your data. Add Assets as your title and copy and paste and change row selection for the following Groupings. Remember to Copy and then go to the row you want to paste to and then add a grouping and then paste the formula in the Complete Selection area and then paste.

a) Current Assets - FACT ACC( Level2 = "Current Assets" ) Group By ACC.Level3Nameb) Fixed Assets - FACT ACC( Level2 = "Fixed Assets" ) Group By ACC.Level3Namec) Long-Term Assets - FACT ACC( Level2 = "L/Term Assets" ) Group By ACC.Level3Name d) Add Totals of A to C with Excel Label it Total Assets

32

Page 33: XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

e) Current Liabilities - FACT ACC( Level2 = "Current Liabs" ) Group By ACC.Level3Name f) Long-Term Liabilities - FACT ACC( Level2 = "L/Term Liabs" ) Group By

ACC.Level3Name g) Add Totals of E+F with Excel Label it Liabilitiesh) Stock Equity - FACT ACC( Level2 = "Stock Equity" ) Group By ACC.Level3Namei) Current Year Net Income - ACC( AcctCode >= "400000000000000" )j) Add Totals of Total Liabilities + Total Equity + Current Net Income with Excel Label it

Liabilities and Equity

5. Next we are going to do a selection by Column instead of by Row. First Add a month Parameter.

6. Next Click on column B and choose Summary Column instead of Expanding Column. Add the following formula in the Complete Selection, FACT PER( Code = 200501:@vCurrentMonth ) and then click Apply. This formula will give you the account balances at the end of the period you select. Also remember to uncheck the “Do not display blank records”, this must be done to ensure your Excel Formulas work.

33

Page 34: XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

Figure 2

34

Page 35: XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

Exercise 13 – Report Composer and Advanced Report Writer: Creating a Dashboard.

1. First go to the Reports composer and add the following fields, Sales, Quantity, Row Total and Row Gross Profit. Choose A/R Document Types Invoice (AR Invoice) and ARReturns (Returns) and Select periods 200501 to 200512. Refer to earlier lessons with Report Composer if you need help with this. Execute into Excel and do not use a template and save into AR Reports.

2. Next, add a parameter for StartMonth and EndMonth change the periods selection to 200501 to 200512 in the Report Default to Code = @StartMonth:@EndMonth.

3. Next format your report it like Figure 1.

Figure 1

4. Next, we are going to use the charting wizard to create three charts. First cut and paste rows 5 and 6 to rows 28 and 29 and insert a new column in front of column A to allow enough room for the charts on top. Then highlight C28 to E30 and click on the charts. Follow the wizard and place the chart. When you are in Data Range, click on Series. Change the values to Figure 2.

35

Page 36: XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

Figure 2.5. Go through the same process and add a chart for Revenue and Gross Profit. Add the Now function and parameter and your report should look like this.

36

Page 37: XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

6. Next we will add DrillDown Functions. The Drilldown function is done using Hyperlinks in Excel. You cannot use Hyperlinks in the actual report because it doesn’t have worksheet names. To accomplish this you need another Excel workbook and install dummy worksheet with the worksheet names and create the hyperlinks there. The worksheet names will be the names of the reports. Copy and paste the hyperlinks to the XL Reporter report and save your report. Next build a Sales Person Report with detail that has Customers and Items. Since this is a detail report, use the Line Total and Line Gross Profit. Add the hyperlink and save in the Dashboard Reports, make sure that you name the report the same name as the Hyperlink you created. Next, you will be ready to build a Report Package for your Dashboard.

37

Page 38: XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

Exercise 14 – Report Organizer: Packages/Jobs/Books

A) Creating a Report Package

With this exercise we are going to create a Report Package. The function of the Report package is to group reports together. Each report within a Package will be a worksheet within Excel and the name of the Package will be the Workbook Name. If you want to control were in the workbook the reports/worksheet appears it is best to name the reports with a number. Also you can use Excel forbidden characters in the Report and Package names. Omit / or & or # or any other special characters. Also you have a limit of 15 characters for name. Additionally the package has to be in a different folder than the book as when you create the report the book will be named after the package and you will receive an error. Create a Report Package and call it “Sales Person Sales Package” and save it in the Dashboard Package Folder.

To create the package right click in the folder and choose add package. Then drag and drop your reports onto the package. Click on your package on the left side of the Reports Organizer and you should see links to your reports. Also, if you rename or move your reports it will invalidate the links to your package and the package will not longer function.

Hint: Right click in the right pane of the Report Organizer to create a new Report Package and then drag and drop report definitions Sales Person Dashboard first and then Sales Person Dashboard Detail.

B) Creating a Report Job

Jobs give Packages functionality like scheduling and e-mail distribution. You must have parameter to set up a job. The job can combine reports and it controls distribution or printing of the report package(s). If you go to the properties of the Job there are Five tabs.

The first tab is General and you and you can enter a description for your job.

The second tab is Packages and here is where you control your parameters. If you expand the package you should see your reports. To update your parameters click on the package and click Set parameters. If you do not see all of your parameters click on Update Parameters. This is where naming your parameters comes in play. If you have the same parameter name across all your report then you can check Multiple and it will update all your reports.

38

Page 39: XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

The next tab is the output tab. The output tab controls where the report is distributed to. The book is stored on the SQL server in the Metadata database. The book must be stored in a separate folder from the package as they are both the same name. If you look at the select folder this will take you back to the Report Organizer where you can save the book. If you choose to overwrite the book it will have the same name but with a sequence number. If you check “Include parameters in report name” then all your Worksheets/reports will have an additional number, normally the period or whatever you used as parameters. The “Save to Disk” allow you to send you report to somewhere on your local network as an Excel Workbook. “Send by e-mail” brings up your email profile on that system and you can email copies of the report to multiple recipients. Note that if you are on a Citrix system you will have to setup an e-mail profile per user.

39

Page 40: XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

The next tab is scheduling. This is pure Windows NT scheduling. The key thing with the scheduler is that you have to set the password per schedule. Also your User ID must have permissions to schedule on that computer. This is sometimes an issue with Citrix servers.

The last tab is log. Within the log you can see if your Job was successful and all errors are logged in the job.

Create a Report Job that contains your Report Book defined above and call it “Territory Sales Job”

Hint: 1. Right click in the right pane of the Report Organizer to create a new Report Job and

name it Sales Person Sales Job and then drag and drop Report Package Sales Person Sales Package into it.

2. Set up a folder called Dashboard Books.3. Set up the properties for the Job by right clicking on “Sales Person Sales Job” and

choose Properties.a. Enter a description (e.g. “My Daily Reports are run every day and sent out to

Peter, Torhild and Eric”) in the General tabb. In the Output tab, choose Store in Report Book, select the folder Dashboard

Books , click ok to exit.

4. Also if you have parameters in your report, refresh your parameters within the job.5. If you want to schedule your report with Windows NT Scheduler, make sure that you use

authenticate your schedule or it will not run.

40

Page 41: XLR XL Reporter SBO Training Manual

C) Creating a Report Book

Start the report job and when is has finished go the Dashboard Books folder and open the file that was created.

If you want to save an Excel spreadsheet to a book, have your book located on the left side of your Report Organizer and on the right side, right click and choose your Excel workbook.

Click on the Sales Person Sales Book and choose open in Excel, Drill down through the hyperlinks that you have installed.

41