Using Application Settings

Overview

Applications Settings are defined based on Planful Structured Planning, Consolidation, or Reporting applications you are accessing. These settings provide the integration between Dynamic Planning and Planful Structured Planning, Consolidation, or Reporting applications . They also provide Guard Rails, which are limitations to optimize your interaction and user-experience with Dynamic Planning.

Description of Fields

The table below describes each of the fields on this page.

Global Settings for View and Report Properties

Power users can set default values for key properties available in Views and Reports, which provides flexibility for Power users to define the default behavior from a centralized application page for key properties available in Views and Reports. Power users can also either allow or restrict Contributor and Reviewer users from updating the key properties.

Select the Manage task and the Application Administration, Application Settings subtask.

Defining Default Behavior for View and Report Properties

Under the View and Reports sections, there is a field called Default Value where you can set default property values for Views and Reports.

For Views, a Power user can set the default values, such as Display Label or Code, Indent Row Members, Show Hidden Members, and Enable Save properties. Power users can also select the Data Locking property and Analyze - Tab Color.

For Reports, a Power user can set the default values, such as Display Label or Code, Hide Gridlines, and Hide Headers properties. Default Value for Save on Model and Calculation on Save properties are not applicable. Power users can also select the Data Locking property and Report - Tab Color.

In the example below, under View, Code is selected for Display Label. That means that for all new Views created from the date and time the setting was saved, all Views will display member Codes instead of Display Labels by default. And, under Reports, the Power user selected No for gridlines and headers, which means that any reports created from the date and time the setting was saved will not show gridlines and headers by default. Individual views and reports can vary from these defaults.

Restricting Contributor and Reviewer Users From Updating View and Report Properties

Navigate to Manage > Application Administration > Application Settings. “Allow Contributors to Update Properties” and “Allow Reviewers to Update Properties” fields are located under the View and Reports sections.

Select properties for Views and Reports that you want to allow or disallow Contributor and Reviewer users to update. For example, you might not allow Contributor and Reviewer users to update the Display Code for Views. For Reports, Contributor users might be able to update the Display Code as well as hide or unhide gridlines and headers.

Defining Default Tab Color for Views and Reports

Under the View and Reports sections, Analyze-Tab Color and Report-Tab Color properties allow you to set the default property values for tab colors in Views and Reports.

• For Views, a Power user can set the default tab color
• For Reports, a Power user can set the default tab color

For example, in the View and Analyze sections, consider Blue is selected for Analyze-Tab Color and Red is selected for Report-Tab Color respectively. This means that whenever a user creates new sheets under Views/Reports, tabs will appear in Blue for Views and Red color for Reports.

Users can override the default color defined by the Power user by changing the tab color in a specific View/Report sheet. Color defined by the Power user in Application Settings will be applied only if the View/Report tabs have no color.

This feature provides a visual differentiation between View sheets and Report sheets and will be very helpful for users when they use multi-tab analysis and reporting.

Application Settings - To set the default tab color for Views and Reports.

How to Provide Calculation Access to Contributor Users?

1. In SpotlightXL, navigate to Manage > Application Administration > Application Settings.
2. Scroll down to the Calculations heading as shown below.
3. Set the Enable User Group Permissions property to Yes.

Power users can assign Groups to the Calculation. Only Contributor users belonging to the assigned Groups will be able to access, modify, and run the Calculation.

Running Calculations in the Background for Views and Reports

Views and Reports can run a calculation when the user clicks Save. By default, when a calculation is run from a view or report, it runs in the foreground, which prevents users from continuing to work. However, Power users can set an application-wide setting to run calculations in the background for all views and reports that trigger calculations. Those calculations must have been created with the Run in Background field set to Yes. After the calculation has completed its processing, an email is automatically sent to the user that triggered it.

Our recommendation is to set this option to Yes.

1. In SpotlightXL, navigate to the Manage > Application Administration > Application Settings. Scroll down to the Calculation Property section. After making changes, click Save. Then log off and login again to see the effect of the changes.
   
   
   
2. Select Model > Calculation to ensure that the calculation was set up with Run in Background set to Yes.
   
   
   
3. You can see a list of all calculations and their current background setting by choosing Model > Setup. Select the model, then scroll down to the Calculations section.
   
   
   
4. Verify that the calculation is set up to run when the user clicks Save from a view or report by reviewing the view or report properties.
   
   
   
   
   
5. When the user clicks Save in the view or report, they see the following message:
   
   
   
   Note:

   The view or report does not refresh the data automatically after the user clicks Save.

Calculations Execution Delayed and Batched for Better Performance

Views and Reports can run a calculation when the user clicks Save. Power users can set an application-wide setting to run calculations that are triggered from commonly used views or reports once every few minutes during heavy usage. This setting is dependent on Enable Calculation Execution in Background for Views and Reports being set to Yes.

This setting optimizes calculations by running them at a set interval rather than every time a user triggers them. This is useful for common reports or views that are accessed and used by multiple people who are saving data and triggering calculations to be run frequently. If users are not saving data, the calculation is not run.

For example, during budgeting season, 10 department heads are inputting their plans using the same report.

• Every time they click Save, a calculation is run. This is inefficient because the calculation is being triggered to run frequently.
• When Smart Batching Interval for Calculations is set, the calculation is not automatically run when the user clicks Save. It is delayed.
• Instead, the calculation runs at its next interval.

This setting is effective with the following conditions:

• The users are using the same application and model.
• The users are running and saving data using the same report or view.
• The users are using the same parameters or variables for the calculation in the report.

When you specify a delay time, choose from None, 1, 5, 10, 15, 30, or 60 minutes.

The audit log shows that users are saving and triggering calculations to be run, but the calculation does not run until it is scheduled to do so. In the example below, it is set to run every 5 minutes.

After the calculation runs, each user that triggered it receives an email confirmation that the calculation is completed.

The Power user can see the details of the calculation and the users that have triggered the calculation by selecting Manage, Application Administration, Process Management.

Application-Level Data Locking for Views

This application setting lets Power users enforce locked dimension members for all views at the application level. Power and Contributor users can specify which dimension members are Locked using Model, Model Administration, and Data Locking. Locked members do not allow their data to be modified by user input or calculation.

See Also: How to Lock Dimension Members

To lock dimension members across all views at the application level, select the Manage task and the Application Administration, Application Settings subtask. Under the View Property called Data Locking, select Application Level.

Selecting Application Level applies data locking to all Views for all Models for all users in the Dynamic Planning application.

For the Data Locking property, select from the following options:

• Application Level – This is the default. This option turns on data locking in Views. This option is globally applicable for all the Views and all Models in the Dynamic Planning application and for all users.
• None – This option turns off data locking in Views. Although dimension members may be set up as locked, None specifies that these members are not locked in Views.

Application-Level Data Locking for Reports

This application setting lets Power users enforce locked dimension members for all reports at the application level. Power and Contributor users can specify which dimension members are Locked using Model, Model Administration, Data Locking. Locked members do not allow their data to be modified by user input in reports.

See Also: How to Lock Dimension Members

To lock dimension members across all views at the application level, select the Manage task and the Application Administration, Application Settings subtask. Under the Report Property called Data Locking, select Application Level (shown below).

Selecting Application Level applies data locking to all Reports for all Models for all users in the Dynamic Planning application.

For the Data Locking property, select from the following options:

• Application Level – This is the default. This option turns on data locking in Reports. This option is globally applicable for all the Reports and all Models in the Dynamic Planning application and for all users.
• None – This option turns off data locking in Reports. Although dimension members may be set up as locked, None specifies that these members are not locked in Reports. If you want to specify individual cell-level locking within a report, you can use Report Design and Format Manager as shown below.

Indenting Dimension Members

You can display dimension members on the Model Dimension page with indentations based on the level as shown below.

Power users can change the settings from the Application Settings page shown below.

• None (no indentation)
• Member Code (indents only member code column)
• Member Code & Parent (indents both member code and member parent columns)

Hiding Empty Folders for Views and Reports

This is an Application Setting that lets you choose whether or not you see empty folders in the list of views and reports. Only Power users can change this setting, and it takes effect for all models in the application, for all users.

For example, if you have a long list of reports and some are organized into folders, you can hide excess empty folders.

To change the setting, Power users must do the following steps:

1. In SpotlightXL, navigate to the Manage > Application Administration > Application Settings.
2. Next to Hide Empty Folders for Views and Reports in Run Mode, select Yes or No.
   1. When set to Yes, folders with no views or reports in them will be hidden from view in the folder structure.
   2. When set to No, all folders will be visible at all times. This is the default.
3. Save your changes.
   You must logoff and login again to see the effects of the changed setting.