Office Reporting in SpotlightXL

With the Setup subtask, you can create a template that acts as a placeholder for each report that will be published and made accessible to users. One template can be used for either an Excel Report, Word Report, or PowerPoint Report. Each template reserves a spot for only one report in the Dynamic Planning cloud.

For step-by-step instructions, see Publish the Report.

To login to Spotlight for Office, you can begin from Excel, PowerPoint, or Word. Once you are logged in from one of the Office applications, you are logged in on all three of them. Similarly, if you logoff one of the Office applications, you are logged off on all three of them.

1. Open Microsoft Excel or PowerPoint or Word.

2. In Excel, click the SpotlightXL tab. In Word, click the SpotlightWord tab. In PowerPoint, click the SpotlightPPT tab.

   

   

   
   

3. Click Login. You must have a document open before you click Login or you will see an error message.

4. Enter the URL to connect to your tenant (as given to you by Planful Support or your Power user).

5. Enter your Username and Password.

   • Optionally, click the Reset Password checkbox to change your password.

   • Enter a new password in the New Password and Confirm Password fields and click Login.

   • Optionally, select the Remember Me checkbox to retain your Username for future logins.

6. Click Login.

7. If requested to do so, select your application from the drop-down, then click Select.

Spotlight's reporting capabilities extend to Microsoft PowerPoint and Microsoft Word in addition to Microsoft Excel with Spotlight for Office. You can use Excel, PowerPoint, and Word to retrieve data from Planful Dynamic Planning or Structured Planning, Consolidation, and Reporting (PCR) applications. Within the Office applications, you can take advantage of all the native formatting capabilities that Microsoft offers for formatting and presenting the data and prepare board-ready reporting packages.

Spotlight for Office is available for all Spotlight and Dynamic Planning users.

Benefits

• Ability to access both Dynamic Planning and PCR data from Excel, PowerPoint, and Word.

• Ability to use the full power of Microsoft Office for reporting.

• Ability to create board books and presentations with complete control over the format.

• Ability to refresh the data points in Excel, PowerPoint, or Word with one click.

• Eliminates the need to copy and paste data points into your presentations and reports.

• Ability to place the Spotlight formula once and then Refresh the data as needed.

• Reduces financial reporting processing time.

Spotlight for Office uses the power of user-defined functions to connect Excel, PowerPoint, and Word to Dynamic Planning. All data and metadata from Dynamic Planning are represented in formulas for each cell copied into the Office application. This is similar to the way Excel Reporting uses Spotlight formulas for metadata and data. With a live connection to the model, Office users can just click Refresh to update the data.

• Embedding a workbook in PowerPoint or Word gives you the ability to use Excel formulas and formatting within the object in PowerPoint or Word while still having access to the latest data with the click of the Refresh button. 
• With the Spotlight for Office Add-In, you can refer the data directly in PowerPoint and Word, however, you may also have a need to use Excel formulas and formatting. This is accomplished by embedding the workbook.
• To embed the Excel workbook, use the Excel Reporting feature in SpotlightXL to lay out the report according to your needs, then use Spotlight for Office to insert it into a presentation or document.

Best Practice Recommendations when Embedding an Excel Workbook

• Have only one worksheet in the workbook. That worksheet must use Excel Reporting formulas to display and retrieve data and dimensions.

• Have only a few columns and rows in the workbook.

• Have data references from only one model.

For information on creating Excel Reports, see Creating Excel Reports.

How to Embed a Workbook in PowerPoint

1. In SpotlightXL, create an Excel Report and save the workbook.

2. Start PowerPoint or Word. In this example, PowerPoint is opened.

3. Click SpotlightPPT.
   

4. On the SpotlightPPT or SpotlightWord menu, select Insert.
   

5. From the Open dialog box, find and select the workbook and click Open. The report from the workbook appears in a box.

6. To add formulas or formatting, click the Edit button. The selected document opens in Excel, giving you the ability to utilize the power of Excel.

   

   
   

   To return to PowerPoint or Word, close the Excel window when modifications are complete. click Refresh.

   Whenever you want to get the latest data, click Refresh. When you click Refresh, the cells with references to Spotlight formulas (Excel Reporting cells) are refreshed from the model, and the cells with regular Excel formulas are recalculated. Any formatting that is applied on the embedded sheet is retained.

How to Add a POV (Point of View)

1. First insert the workbook into the PowerPoint presentation or Word document. The workbook should contain Excel Reporting formulas from only one model.

   Notice that this report has no POVs.

   

2. Click outside the box containing the embedded workbook, then click Design Manager.

   1. Click the POV button.

   2. Select the model and dimension from the list boxes. The model must be the same model that is used in the embedded workbook.

   3. Select a member of the dimension to display first. By default, the root of the dimension is displayed.

   4. Click Update to insert the POV into the document.

      

3. The POV is inserted near the top of the embedded worksheet. Use the mouse to place the POV above or to the left of the worksheet. Use the formatting options in PowerPoint or Word to set the font and size.

4. Double-click the POV to open the member selection box. Select a department from the Department dimension and click Select.

   
   

5. Click Refresh. Notice that the data in the embedded workbook changes to display the data for the selected member.

How to Embed a Workbook in Word

1. Click Insert and select the workbook you want to embed. The worksheet appears with a box around it.

   
   

2. Click Edit to manipulate the data formatting or add formulas.

3. Use the word processing features inside Word to add headings, commentary, or callouts to the data for a polished summary.