How to Work with Model, View, and Report Folder and Organization Functionality

The folder structure functionality is available in SpotlightXL. It allows you to organize views and reports and is available from many application pages. To organize views and reports as well as run a report or display a view, click the list box as shown below.

Adding a Folder

1. Select a model and click the Add Folder button to add a new folder.
2. Enter a folder Name and click OK.

The new folder (named DW2) is now added under the Decision Works model.

Accessing Folders

Folders are not based on security role (Power, Contributor, and Reviewer). Any type of user can add a folder, edit, rename, or delete a folder. And, any type of user can and move reports and views they have access to from folder to folder.

Access to models, views, and reports remains the same. A user must have access to open a report or view.

Deleting Folders

To delete a folder:

1. Select the folder.
2. Make sure there are no views or reports in the folder as you cannot delete a folder that contains views and reports.
3. Right-click and select Delete as shown below.

Renaming Folders

To rename a folder:

1. Select the folder.
2. Right-click and select Rename.
3. Enter the new name of the folder.
4. Click OK.

Renaming Views and Reports

To Rename Views

1. Select the Analyze task and the Data subtask.
2. Click on the folder structure, select the view, and right-click.
3. Select Rename.
4. The Rename View dialog appears. Enter the new name of the view.
5. Click OK.

The folder structure automatically refreshes displaying the new view name.

To Rename Reports

1. Select the Report task and the Run subtask.
2. Click on the folder structure, select the report, and right-click.
3. Select Rename.
4. The Rename Report dialog appears. Enter the new name of the report.
5. Click OK.

Moving Views and Reports

Views and reports can be moved from folder to folder by dragging and dropping.

Searching for and Displaying Models, Folders, Views, and Reports

Use the Search functionality at the top of the screen to search for Models, Views and Reports. Use the up and down arrows to scroll through the results.

Click the Model, View or Report and click the Select button to display it in the SpotlightXL spreadsheet.

Favorites and Recent Folders

Use Favorites and Recent folders to quickly access your favorite Views or Reports, or recently accessed Views or Reports

Favorites and Recent folders are user-specific. The Recent folder displays 10 recently accessed Views or Reports by users across all Models. The Favorites folder displays 10 items. If you add more than 10 items, the most recent 10 are displayed.

Open the folder structure (as shown below) and scroll to the Favorites and Recent folders.

Recent is automatically updated based on the most recent Views or Reports accessed.

To add a View or Report to the Favorites folder, select the View or Report in the folder structure and drag and drop it into the Favorites folder. Or right-click on the View or Report and select Add to Favorites.

In the example below, the Data Review View is dragged from the November model to the Favorites folder.

To remove a View or Report from Favorites, right-click on the View or Report and select Remove from Favorites.

Report Collection

With this release, we have introduced the Report Collections feature for the Spotlight and Excel Reports. You can schedule or send multiple reports as an email attachment to specific users or user groups. Reports in the Report Collection will be generated and distributed in Excel format. 

Now, you will be able to schedule and distribute reports to end-users regularly without putting in hours of manual work.

Business Value

Currently, report distribution by the Power users is done manually, which is both time-consuming and also prone to errors. To eliminate this and ramp up report distribution to end-users, we have automated the process. With a report scheduler, you will now have the ease of report distribution daily, weekly, or monthly depending on the date, time, and time zones to specific user/ user groups. In addition, with this enhancement, end-users will now be able to access the latest report data via Excel output.

Dynamic Planning Report Collections feature would be available as part of the Reports screen.

In Practice: To Create Report Collections

1. Select Report Collection from the Add icon in the File Cabinet or Select Dynamic Planning Report Collection options displayed just above the File Cabinet in the side menu.

In Practice: To Identify report collection on the General Information page

1. On the Report Collection General Information page, enter information to identify your Report Collection (Code and Name).
2. Select Financial, Sales, or Dynamic Planning from the Reporting Area drop-down. Reporting areas must be configured and applicable to be displayed.
3. Dynamic Planning Report Collection will automatically be selected for the Select Folder drop-down. 

In Practice: To Select Reports

1. Click Reports to open the Report Selections page.
   
   
2. Click the Select Reports link to add reports to your Report Collection. 
3. Select the reports from the Select Dynamic Report pop-up window. You can select specific reports from the Spotlight or EBR reports.
4. Click Add to add all the selected reports to the Report Collection. Added reports are displayed in the Selected Reports pane.
5. In the Action column, you can move the reports up or down or delete the reports you no longer wish to include in the Report Collection.

6. You can add a new tab to the Report Collection by selecting the Tab drop-down. This opens the list box where you can select Add, Duplicate, or Delete the current tab.

In Practice: To Generate Output file

1. Click the Settings tab to select Report Collection output settings.
2. Select an Output File Name (Excel) for both the Spotlight reports and EBR reports. Select Include to display the Date and Time in the exported report collection.
3. Select Exclude to not display the Date and Time in the exported report collection.
   
   
   Spotlight Report:
4. Select the Generate Single Output File checkbox under Spotlight Reports to generate a single workbook with an individual sheet for each report in Excel. If None is selected, one output file is generated for each report.
5. Select Custom File Name to enter a name for the report. If this option is not selected the default report name will be updated.
   EBR Report:
6. Select Tab for EBR Report from the name drop-down list. 
7. Select Report Name from the name drop-down list.
   

In Practice: To Distribute Report Collection

1. Click Distribution Options to define Report Collection distribution preferences:
2. Select Send e-mail notification to user(s) to send an email to selected users or user groups. Click Compose email link to create the email draft.
3. Select Include reports as an attachment to attach generated Report Collection output to the email. 
4. Select report under File Name and Click Add/Remove User – User group to open a dialog page where you can identify Planful Users, Planful User Groups, and non-Planful Users (Other Users) to send the Report Collection with email or share the output file with the users/user groups selected.
      

In Practice: To Schedule Report Distribution

1. Select Start Date from the calendar pop-up.
   
   
2. Select Start Time from the Time drop-down list.
3. Select Time Zone, and you can select the Repeat checkbox if you want to repeat the email schedule for the same date, time, and time zone.
4. Select Repeats and Recurrence ends from the available options. 

5. In the Email Recipients text box, you can enter the email addresses of the users or user groups for whom you want to schedule the reports distribution

Pause or Unpause the Scheduler from Report Collections

You can now switch On/Off the schedulers from the Scheduled column on the Report Collections landing page. Additionally, you can select multiple reports and switch the scheduler On/Off for the selected reports.

In Practice: Switch On/Off Scheduler for Reports

• Navigate to Reports and select Dynamic Planning Report Collections.
• Select a single report and select On/Off from the scheduler drop-down list.
• Select multiple reports and choose On or Scheduler Off from the icon in the menu bar.