Summer 17 Release Notes

Currency Translation Adjustment (CTA) Account Sets

With this release we are providing functionality to calculate CTA on a specific group / set of accounts, instead of the current method of calculating CTA as a whole. This functionality provides the option to calculate and post CTA to a specific set of accounts only. For example, Cash and Cash Equivalent accounts used in Cash Flow statements.

Prior to this release you defined target income statement and balance sheet CTA accounts in Consolidation and this functionality still exists, however, you now have the option to use CTA Sets.

When CTA Sets are Required

CTA Sets would be required to generate values for Cash Flow statements using Reporting currency. You might set this up as follows:

• Configure the Reporting currency will all accounts being converted using the same rate and same calculation type.

• Create exceptions for Cash and Cash Equivalent accounts to be converted using End of Month rate and Balance Type calculations.

• Configure CTA Sets to calculate CTA only on Cash and Cash Equivalent accounts.

The setup above results in the application calculating the CTA effect only on the accounts selected in the CTA Set.

CTA sets may be required for international businesses that choose to translate functional currency balances into another currency for reporting purposes. For example, a company's home currency is euros, but the company operates in dollars.

As part of converting all transactions to a selected currency, the need to exchange currency for use in the foreign market can result in various gains and losses. Currency values fluctuate, changing how one currency is valued against another. To account for these changes, the CTA Set is used to account for the gains or losses solely related to changes in the exchange rate.

Using the example above, you have a company whose home currency is euros, but the company operates in dollars. The company will have to record the CTA to compensate for currency value changes. If the rate for euros to dollars changes from a 1 to 1 value to a 1 to 2 value, a gain results. On the other hand if the value changes from 1 to 2 (dollars to euros) to 2 to 1 (dollars to euros) then a loss results.

To take advantage of this functionality, set up CTA account sets (or a group of accounts) to handle the gains or losses that have occurred by participation in foreign currency business.

Setting up CTA Sets

There are 3 areas in the application where CTA Sets need to be defined or setup:

1. CTA Set Definition in the Maintenance menu - define the accounts where you want CTA calculated and the account where the CTA will be posted.

2. CTA Set setup in Consolidation - specify the account sets defined on the CTA Set page in the Consolidation Administration pane.

3. Hierarchy setup in the Maintenance menu - configure reporting currency to calculate the currency and cash flow conversions with CTA Sets.

CTA Set Definition in the Maintenance Menu

This is where you will define the accounts where you want CTA calculated and the account where the CTA will be posted. For example, set the account of your CTA account to an Owner's Equity account to create a translation adjustment on your balance sheet. Or, set the account to a Revenue or Expense account to create a translation gain/loss on your income statement.

Access CTA Sets by selecting Maintenance, Overview and clicking the CTA Sets link as shown below.

If you already have CTA Sets defined, they will be listed as shown below.

Otherwise, click the Create a CTA Set button shown below.

Two panes are enabled. The left pane displays CTA Sets created, those that are in process of being created (Unsaved Sets), and provides the ability to search for and delete CTA Sets. You can also sort on CTA Set Code in ascending or descending order.

A description of all fields on the page above is provided below:

• Select the Base Rate in which the CTA will be calculated. Base rates are set up on the Currency Type page, which can be accessed by selecting Maintenance, Currency, Currency Setup and then clicking the Currency Type tab.

• Manage - select the accounts to include in the CTA Set that you want CTA calculated for.

• Source Accounts - click to add accounts to the set. Once clicked, the Manage Source Accounts page appears. Expand and collapse the hierarchy or search for accounts. Selecting the checkbox next to the account adds it to the Selected Accounts pane as shown below. To remove an account from the Selected Accounts pane, click on the account.

• Target CTA Setup - click the Browse icon next to each dimension to select an account. The accounts selected here is where CTA will be posted.

See Also: Currency Type

CTA Set setup in Consolidation

Specify Target Balance Sheet and Income Statement CTA Account Sets in Consolidation by selecting the Consolidation icon, and clicking the Consolidation Setup link under the Administration pane of the Consolidation Control Panel. Specify CTA account sets defined on the CTA Set page.

Hierarchy Setup in the Maintenance Menu

Access the Hierarchy Management page by navigating to Maintenance, Hierarchy, Hierarchy Management to configure reporting currency to calculate the currency and cash flow conversions with CTA Sets. Access your Financial hierarchy and your Reporting Currency Dimension / Hierarchy.

In the example below, a reporting member has been created called Cf (cash flow) Currency. Notice the checkbox selection called Overwrite default CTA. Select this checkbox to overwrite the default CTA calculation. This means that if you select this checkbox, the application will not calculate the CTA as it has been doing prior to this release. Instead the system will calculate the CTA based on the specific accounts defined on the CTA Sets page and selected on the Consolidation Administration page.

Once Overwrite default CTA is selected, CTA Sets is enabled in the lower portion of the pane as shown above. Click Add Sets or Manage to add sets defined on the CTA Sets page or manage existing sets. The options are shown in the image below.

Once you click Add Sets or Manage, the CTA Sets page is enabled (as shown above). On this page you can search for and map CTA Sets. Click Save to commit selected CTA Sets.

Now, when you run the Consolidation Process on the Cf currency reporting member, the CTA calculation will be performed on the accounts specified here (2 source accounts that belong to Cash Equivalent CTA Set) and posted to the Target CTA account mapped for each specific CTA Set (under Target CTA Setup).

Consolidation Access Control Enhancement

Use the enhanced Security page to provide users with the ability to perform specific workflow actions for all Processes (such as, journals, non controlling interest, eliminations) in Consolidation. This workflow is similar to the Planning application workflow. Prior to this release, user workflow security was not granular for Consolidation; meaning that you could not define specific users who could or couldn’t perform specific workflow actions.

In the Consolidation Control Panel, select the Security link under the Administration pane as shown below.

Select a user. Then, select appropriate workflow actions and security. See the quick reference table below for detailed information.

For comparison purposes, the legacy Security page is shown below.

This quick reference table provides information on each action/security as it applies to each process.

It is important to note that entry and approval actions that users don't have access to will display in the actions pane, however, these users will not be able to perform the displayed actions. When an action a user doesn't have access to is selected by that user, a message will display indicating so (as shown below).

Delta Simulation Engine Processing of Workforce Planning Templates

With this feature, you can opt to have Simulation Engine process only those Workforce Planning templates where a change or update has been made; reducing processing time by eliminating the need to process templates that have not changed.

To use delta processing:

1. Access Maintenance, Admin, Configuration Tasks, and open the Define Detailed HR Budgeting Criteria task.

2. Select Yes for Enable Delta Processing as shown below. Click the Applicable Scenarios option to specify scenarios where you want to tell the application to process only those employees for that scenario with a process status of unprocessed. You can select from Locked scenarios, Unlocked scenarios, or All scenarios.

3. After you've selected scenarios, click Select then click Save on the Define Detailed HR Budgeting Criteria page.

The option to select scenarios to mark employees as unprocessed is also provided on the Security Administration and Pays Setup pages.

Specify scenarios where you want to process only those employees with a process status of "unprocessed" on the Security Administration page:

1. Access the Security Administration page by navigating to Maintenance, Admin, Security Administration.

2. Uncheck the Enforce changing the account properties when data is available option as shown below. Click the Applicable Scenarios option and select scenarios.

3. After you've selected scenarios, click Select then click Save on the Security Administration page.

Specify scenarios on the Pays Setup page:

1. Access the Pays Setup page by navigating to Maintenance, HR, Detailed HR, Pay Plans, and click Pays Setup.

2. Click Applicable Scenarios as shown below.

3. Click Applicable Scenarios and select the scenarios where you want to process only those employees with a process status of "unprocessed".

4. After you've selected scenarios, click Select then click Save on the Pays Setup page.

Delta Simulation Engine Processing of Operational Planning Templates

This feature enhances the processing time of Operational Planning templates by reusing historical data. History data is reused when a change has not occurred for a specific Operational Planning template. Not having to process a template with data that has already been processed decreases Simulation Processing time.

NetSuite - Data Connector Enhancements - Transaction Loads

The NetSuite Data Connector recently released allows you to integrate NetSuite with Planful. With this release, we enhanced the connector by providing additional functionality to load transaction data in addition to GL Data and Segment Data from Netsuite to Planful. You must define mandatory segments to load for transaction data.

To access the Netsuite Data Connector:

1. Navigate to Maintenance, Admin, Configuration Tasks, then select Web Service Access.

2. Click Cloud Services, NetSuite. Note that Enable NetSuite Integration must be selected.

3. Click Configure to enter information for a new profile, or, select an existing profile. The first image below displays the legacy options available (GL Data and Segment Data). The second image displays the link to the new Transaction Data page.

You must create a Transaction Data Load Rule and specify NetSuite as the Load Type. An example is provided below.

Now, create a Cloud Scheduler job to load data from NetSuite. Select Admin, Administration, Cloud Scheduler.

Global Search

With global search you can search for any application page and go directly to that page. This allows you to find specific pages in the application without having to click through the navigation path.

To perform a global search:

1. Click the magnifying glass shown below.

2. Enter search criteria in the search box.

3. Select from results and click to launch the selected application page.

Bookmarks

Use the Bookmark feature to create bookmarks for specific Planning templates that you frequently use within the application. Bookmarks allow you to access specific application pages with one click.

To create a new bookmark: 

1. Navigate to the template you want to bookmark. In the example below the a template is open. Click the Bookmark icon.

2. Select Bookmark this page.

3. Enter details for the bookmark (title, description). A name and description is populated by default. You may keep the auto-populated name and description or modify.

1. Click Save.

When you are on a page that is bookmarked, you can edit or remove the bookmark, if needed, via the Bookmark Manager .

When you click the Bookmark icon and select Bookmark Manager, the Bookmark Manager page appears. Use this page to edit the location of your bookmarks within the folder structure, as well as manage the folders themselves.

The Bookmark Manager page is displayed below along with a description of each of the fields.

• Recent - click to view the most recent bookmarks created or edited.

• My Bookmarks - this user-specific folder stores all bookmarks created.

• Select All - click to select all bookmarks.

• Bookmarkcheckbox - select to view and / or edit bookmark details as shown in the page above. Once edited, click Save and then refresh to view the latest changes.

• Title - click to view bookmarks alphanumerically (ascending or descending) based on Title.

• Delete - select a bookmark and click delete to remove the bookmark.

Dynamic Reports Toolbar Enhancement

We've reorganized the Dynamic Reports toolbar for an improved user experience. More specifically:

• We've consolidated Suppress and Drill Through options into the Format pane.

• The toolbar buttons for Format, Add/Edit/Delete Formulas, Exception Formulas, Rank, and Output are reorganized or consolidated under the More option.

• The toolbar button to Show/Hide the Formula Bar is enabled from the More option.

• The icon to reveal or hide Dynamic Report parameters (such as dimensions, report sets, page, row and column selections) with one click is now in the upper right-hand corner of the screen.

File Cabinet Export to Excel

Now, you can run a report on all properties of all folders and on reports themselves in the File Cabinet, which is then made available for download and can be opened in Excel. Click the More list box in the File Cabinet and then select Save As Excel as shown below in the image on the left.

A process will be submitted in the cloud and, once complete, a message will display (shown below) with a link to download the report to Excel.

Once downloaded, you can open the report, add filters, or create graphs and charts to more easily interpret the data. The report provides information on:

• Report Type

• Reporting Area

• Report Code and Name

• Location of the Report

• Page, Row, and Column Dimensions used in the Report

• Formula Exception Status

• Document Type

• Version (for Report Sets)

• Report Size

• Date the Report was Last Opened and Name of User

• Date and User that Created the Report

• Date and User that Last Modified the Report

Example output is shown below.

Report Collection Bursting for Multiple Dimensions and Multiple Members

We've added a Bursting Method called Multiple Dimensions, Multiple Members with this release. Using this method, multiple dimensions can be selected. For each dimension, multiple members can be selected from the hierarchy in a bursting tab. A single Excel or pdf file is generated for each bursting tab where the Multiple Dimension, Multiple Members bursting method is selected. If Generate Single Output File is selected in Settings, one Excel or pdf file is generated across all bursting tabs in the Report Collection.

One the report is generated for every distinct combination of members across all dimensions selected for bursting, if there are multiple reports added in the bursting tab, all reports are run for different combinations of the first member in the dimension and then the next member is picked. This means that the number of reports generated in the Excel or pdf file is equal to the number of reports selected times the number of members in dimension 1 times the number of members in dimension 2 times the number of members in dimension 3 and so on. Please read the example below, which depicts this explanation.

Example:

Lets say you create a Report Collection and select the Multiple Dimensions, Multiple Members bursting method as shown below. In this example, the Report Collection has 2 reports, 2 bursting dimensions.

Now, save the Report Collection and run it. When the Report Collection is processed, 8 reports are generated for the above combination of reports, dimensions and members. And, they are generated in the order shown below.

Report Collection Drag and Drop to Reorder Bursting Tabs

You can now drag and drop the bursting tabs in a Report Collection to reorder them. Tabs can be moved in between 2 existing tabs or to the last or first positions.

Launch Report Sets from Dynamic Reports Interface

While in a Dynamic Report that uses a (Dynamic or Static) Report Set, you can now open the Report Set directly from the Dynamic Report by clicking it from the Column or Row axis. This eliminates the need to return to the File Cabinet to open the Report Set.

In the image below, the Report Set in on the Row. If you click the Report Set, a new lab is launched and the Report Set opens (the Member Selector interface with the Properties tab is no longer displayed). You can then click the Dynamic Report tab to return to it. There is a carrot icon (not available in prior releases as shown in the Spring 17 page shot). Click this icon to select and/or lock Report Set member properties.

In the image below, the carrot icon is selected and the Properties pick list is displayed along with the Lock checkbox. You can select multiple properties to apply to the Dynamic report. For all existing Dynamic Reports where Properties/Lock is already applied, they are displayed as 'selected' when the Properties pick list is launched. You may edit as needed. If there are no Properties mapped on the dimension, the pick list will be empty.

Report Collection Limitation

We're implementing a hard limitation for Report Collections to ensure the best possible performance. If the number of reports generated from a single report collection exceeds 100, the report collection cannot be saved or processed.

Scorecard Deprecation

The Scorecard module (including the Scorecard Homepage, KPIs, Custom Graphs) is deprecated as of this release. The scorecard cube (reporting area), which is available in Dynamic Reports is not affected.

If you have KPIs or Custom Graphs added to a Financial Package, you will not be able Preview or Generate that Financial Package. Sections with KPIs and Custom Graphs must be deleted prior to saving or generating the Financial Package.