September20 Release Notes

Dynamic Planning: New Print Setup Option in Spotlight Web - Reports

Now, you have the ability to customize print settings in Spotlight Web-Reports. A new Print Setup option has been added to the Export list box available on the toolbar.

The new options provide ease of access and flexibility to apply the required settings with just the click of a button.

The image below displays the Print Setup option added to the toolbar.

When you click the Print Setup option, the Print Settings window is displayed as shown in the following image. You can select the required options based on your requirement and print the report. The selected print settings are applicable only to the corresponding report. Additionally, the settings are retained when you export the report to PDF.

For more information about Spotlight - Reports, refer to Spotlight User Guide: Report Task.

Dynamic Planning: Additional Text Functions

In this release, you have the option to use additional text functions when defining External Source Models.

Uppercase

This function returns text as an uppercase. This function is applicable only for Text type and ConstantText type only.

Syntax:

Upper([TextField])

For example, let’s say you want to convert the text fields to uppercase and you have created a model for it as shown in the following image.

This Text function will convert all the text fields to upper case as shown in the following image.

Lowercase

This formula returns text as a lower case. This function is applicable only for Text type and ConstantText type only.

Syntax:

Lower([TextField])

For example, let’s say you want to convert the text fields to lower case and you have created a model for it as shown in the following image.

This Text function will convert all the text fields to lowercase as shown in the following image.

Dynamic Planning: Comparing Text Fields in External Source Maps is now Case Insensitive

In this release, a comparison between the text fields is now case-insensitive by default. Earlier, a comparison between the text fields was case-sensitive. This change will be applicable to the existing models as well.

For example, you have created an expression using IF to compare text fields as shown in the following image.

The Text fields are compared with a case-insensitive manner as shown in the following image.

Dynamic Planning: Writeback Map Enhancement

Dynamic Planning models have the ability to track the leaf level data which is changed. Changes to the data can happen from various sources like users changing the data from a view or report or users loading the data or users running a map or users loading the data. In all these cases the leaf level data is marked as dirty. Next time when users run an aggregation if change data tracking for a given model is enabled then the aggregation engine will only aggregate the data that has changed (i.e. data that needs to be aggregated vs. aggregating entire data).

When users run writeback maps, the data will be moved from dynamic planning to structured planning based on map definition. With this enhancement instead of moving the entire data based on the map only the data that has changed will be moved from dynamic planning to structured planning. When users are working with large volumes of data and only a few data records have changed then this approach will significantly improve the writeback map performance as it’s only moving the data that has changed.

In terms of tracking the data that’s changing, the writeback process will use an individual cell. The data block will be defined based on the key dimensions of the model and even one cell within the data block is changed so that the entire block will be considered as changed.

In this release, we are extending the same change data tracking functionality for writeback where the tracking of individual cells is optimized. Tracking the changes at the individual cell level optimizes the writeback process. From a best practice, we always recommend having one writeback map step in the calculation.

To enable this functionality, please reach out to the Planful customer support team.

Dynamic Planning: Quick Access to View Formula Used for Calculation in Spotlight Web Interface

The ability to display to custom formulas in the formula bar is now extended to Views and Reports. Earlier, you were able to view only excel type formulas on Spotlight reports.

Now, when you can click on a cell in Spotlight Web Analyze or Reports, the formula is displayed in the formula bar instead of the number as shown in the following image.

Consolidation: Dynamic Journal performance improvements

We have made changes to improve the Dynamic Journal posting performance, and the automatic data refresh of the Financial reporting area upon the Dynamic Journal posting.

These improvements will be available on a new Dynamic Journal framework. Please contact Planful Customer support for the additional information and the process guidance on how you can take advantage of these changes.

Consolidation: Automatic Data Refresh enhancements for Consolidation

With this release, the Automatic Data Refresh functionality supports the following Consolidation areas:

• Standard Journals

• Dynamic Journals

To learn all about Automatic Data Refresh, refer to Process Reporting Area.