Dynamic Reports Best Practices

The following best practices and tips are recommended for best use of functionality, enhanced processing time, and decreased report set up and design time.

Row and Column Sets

• Scenario should be on the page. For example, if the column set has current year, prior year and budget, then Actual should be on the page and budget on the column.

• If one dimension (not the one that the row set or column set is defined on) is on many of the rows or columns, it should be moved to the page level and not mapped.

• If a Profit and Loss report is created, it will default to MTD (month to date) so there no need to map on the column.

• If a Balance Sheet is created, it will default to YTD (year to date) so no need to map on the column.

• If there are several chart strings that are to be combined on one line, it is better to list each of the accounts on a separate line, hide those lines, and then combine with an Excel formula in a row set.

Save As/Copy

Use Save As/Copy to quickly create reports with similar data.

Report Set Use

Use Report Sets as templates to create formatted and strategic reports.

Report Design

Design reports with dimensions for operational reports.

Lock Data

Before you run the report, check if Lock Data settings are appropriate for the period you want to view the report. Navigate to Maintenance > Reports > Lock Data and click the Lock Data tab.

Excel View

Use Excel view if the report you want to design is interactive (formula exceptions, insert formula columns, or sorting). Navigate to the File Cabinet and select a Dynamic Report. Open the report and click Excel . Return to the HTML view by clicking HTML .

Report Security

Apply Report Security to control user access to a report. From the File Cabinet, click Report Access for a selected report.

Report Output and Sharing

Use report output options for quality PDF output. Share the report with others via email.

Header and Footer

• When using large amounts of content in the header or footer cells, adjust the margins in print settings so that the content fits the page.

• When exporting a Dynamic Report to PDF, remove underlines and double underlines under the page number as this formatting is not supported.

• The alignment of an image in a header/footer cell is applied only when you move out of the cell.

• Page number must be used on the 2nd or 3rd column of the first header row. If page number is applied on any other cells, you might not get the desired result in PDF or Excel outputs.

• Use one image per cell. Image should not be used with text.

Logo Limitations

Max logo size: 64 (height) x 150 (width) pixels

Max physical size: 50 kb

Recommended file format: jpg

Drill Down

Using drill down functionality when you have selected + all children, selected + leaves, selected + parents, or selected + children is not recommended.

Tips

• Ensure that only required member selections are made on each axis.

• Organize segment hierarchies intuitively to get best results on drill-down. Drill-down works well with hierarchies on multiple levels, but is not functional when you have a flat hierarchy (for example, 300 members under a single node).

• Ensure that required transactions or translations of data are loaded into the application so that you can retrieve this data in