Configuring Ivy

Ivy is Planful’s proprietary framework for unified, smarter, and faster data handling across data integrations, planning, consolidation, and close processes within Planful. Ivy engine simplifies data collection, validation, processing, and reporting while ensuring security, accuracy, and consistency.

Limitations:

Ivy is currently not supported for applications where the configuration for Fiscal periods per year is greater than 12 periods or when Shared Mode is enabled.

Guiding Principles

Ivy applies the following guiding principles for calculations:

• Ivy applies built-in computation to derive account balances across time periods in conjunction with the Scenario used. The balances are recomputed accurately for all the future periods when the data is entered in a non-chronological order. This is a major advancement over the legacy functionality.
• Ivy recognizes the significance of no-activity periods on specific account balances and brings out a unique way of handling the built-in calculations for no activity periods. The computations set MTD = 0 or YTD = 0, honoring the data input type property or Load type for Data load Rules. The account balances are calculated for the applicable periods within the fiscal year.
• Ivy computes and manages currency conversions depending on the currency configurations and exchange rates set up in the application. Currencies are calculated only when the exchange rates are provided for the scenario in Planful. It honors any currency exception configurations for the legal entity or account and the Currency computations are maintained for both MTD and YTD balances, depending on the account and the data input type.
• Ivy uses a new Translation engine for faster data processing while using translations within data load rules. Note that when you have overlapping translations that qualify for the different mappings to your Planful chart of accounts, the new Translation engine leverages the last mapping for the data load. For details on the Translation setup, click here.
• Ivy maintains an improved precision up to the 6th decimal value of all the numbers and calculations.
• In addition, Ivy enables Planful to offer more advanced features and functionality in the future.

You can use the Ivy option and update to the Ivy framework on your own.

How to Configure Ivy?

To enable the Ivy framework, follow the steps below:

1. Navigate to Maintenance > Administration > Configuration Tasks.
2. Select the Ivy option from the Configuration Tasks list page.
   
3. Select the Enable Ivy checkbox. The Automatic Data Refresh checkbox appears.
4. Select the Automatic Data Refresh checkbox. It is mandatory to go through the Ivy summary and instructions.
5. Select the acknowledge checkbox after the summary. This enables the Agree and Apply Changes button.
6. Click the Agree and Apply Changes button to enable the Ivy framework.

Planful customers who have upgraded to the Ivy framework will have a few additional functionalities supported in the application. The functionalities include:

• Currency Conversion in Process Flows
• History in Drill Through reports
• Automatic Data Refresh
• Dynamic Journals MTD data posting support

Currency Conversions Option in Process Flow

The Currency Conversions option is available as a new task type when creating a new Process Flow from the Cloud Scheduler > Process Flow screen. You must upgrade to Ivy to view the Currency Conversions option in the Task Type drop-down.

To learn how to schedule Currency Conversions in Process Flow, click here.

History Feature in Drill Through Report

This allows users to view the history of the data changes on the source data. From the Drill Through report, users can double-click on any record to view the history, including who changed the data, the timestamp of the data change, and the details about the changes.

To learn how to access history from Dynamic Reports, click here.

How to Access History from Dashboards?

1. From the left menu, select the Dashboards option. 
2. Click on any dashboard to view the related chart details.
3. Right-click on any parameter of any chart and click Drill Through to view the related Drill Through report.
4. Double-click on any record in the report.
5. The History of the record is displayed, or an appropriate message is displayed if the record has no data change history. Disable the History toggle to stop the detailed view.

Automatic Data Refresh

The Automatic Data Refresh functionality for Dynamic Reports updates data whenever data is modified in templates. This avoids manual processing of data. The functionality is applicable only for Financial cube.

The modified Run icon is displayed whenever the data being displayed in the report is not up to date. A call-out displays the time at which the data was updated. Once you click the Run icon, the report is updated with the latest data.

Prerequisite: Ivy needs to be enabled in the application. Contact Planful support or your customer success manager to get access to this functionality.

Automatic Data Refresh is triggered for the following situations:

• When data is modified in templates
• When data against the reference account column is deleted or the template column is deleted from the template

Manual Cube processing is required for the following situations:

• When data is updated through the Simulation Engine
• When data is refreshed for Actual or Closed periods
• Data Seeding
• When a Scenario is edited for the History or Closed periods
• When a template is deleted
• When an entity is mapped or unmapped within the template
• When employee processing is done in the Workforce Planning templates
• Global Fields input
• Data loaded via DLR but Automatic Cube Refresh Setting not selected in Rule Settings
• Clear Data in DLR
• All Consolidation Processes except Standard Journals, Dynamic Journals, Elimination, Reclassification, and Non-Controlling interests
• Deletion of Journals or Journal lines needs manual processing

The following table displays detailed information about the Automatic Data Refresh functionality.

Dynamic Journals MTD data posting support

With this release, the MTD (Month-to-date) posting type entries enable you to post Dynamic Journals based on the month’s activity. The MTD posting type entries for Dynamic Journals evaluate entries based on the month’s activity, whereas the Year-To-Date (YTD) posting type entries evaluate the entries based on the cumulative balance for the line items.

To learn about Dynamic Journal, click here.