FSG Tips and Tricks By Melanie Cameron

About Melanie Cameron  14 years experience with EBS  Worked on every release since 10.6, oldest release was 9.x  20 years experience in Finance, including banking, mortgage, manufacturing, SOX compliance and IPO’s  5 year member of the AZOAUG Board of Directors  A Funcno Techno consultant who Prefers knitting over palm pilots

About MSS Technologies, Inc  Established in 1989  Located in Phoenix and Denver  Deliver business application solutions to the Mid Market: -ERP, BI, Data Warehousing, Application Development Services, Strategic IT Planning  MSS Vision: -“Innovate the way business management solutions are delivered and eliminate the word failure from the information systems vocabulary.”

Tip #1 If it works…….. Don’t change it

Anatomy of an FSG

Account Override Options  On Report – enter Segment Override  Add a Content Set  When running, add Segment Override or Content Set  On Column Set – Add Override Value Remember, a segment must be included at the Lowest level to be Overridden at a Higher level!

Row Sets

Define Row Sets

Account Assignments

Calculations  Using Row Numbers:  Using Row Names:

Row Tips  Number your Lines 10, 20, 30 -Leave Room for growth  Skip and Page Break – be consistent on Before and After -Easier to create consistent looking reports  Row Names in Calculates are easier to see what the calculation is doing -WARNING: sometimes this leads to inaccurate results when adding Rows that have Calculations in them

Row Tips  Use Display Zero to add proofing rows or columns to your report -They display only when there is a problem – Assets does not equal Liabilities plus Owners Equity, or a zero balance account is not zero  Using ICM? If this is an audited Financial Statement, or one that is linked to your controls, you may want to use Ranges instead of Parent accounts -ICM will not see all the Child accounts under a parent, only the Parent Account, which is not the account being audited nor the one that relates to the control

Column Sets

Define Column Sets

Budgets and Forecasts?  Define Control Values on the Report and select them on the Row and Column Sets to determine which budget numbers are used on the Report

What goes on a Column set vs Row set? Column Set  Company or Dept assignments for column breakout  Column Calculations  Format Options  Level of Detail  Control Values  Offsets Row Set  Row Titles  Account Assignments  Row Calculations  Format Options  Level of Detail

Build Columns

Column Tips  Make the Number formats at least one over the largest current number -Allows room for growth and formulas  When creating columns, assign them all a width of 10 -Use the Build Columns, you can adjust the widths in a graphical interface that gives a better visual image  Clicking on Build Column Set will override any previous column formats you had saved -Not bad or good – just something to be aware of

Content Sets

Content Set Tips  These are buggy! Sometimes they do not give you the results you expect – if it works, leave it alone  If a copied set gives different results, check the manual or a white paper, and only change the one that is wrong

Row Order

Row Order Tips  The Width on the row order sometimes needs to be 1 wider then the actual segment to display

ADI  Did you know you can define FSG’s in ADI?

ADI – Define Report

Maintenance  Auto Copy -Will not copy over the same name in the target database  Database Links -This requires the apps password – if you setup a new user name and password, ensure it has the proper Write access

FSG’s running slow  Remove any disabled companies from Content Sets  Ensure all segments of the Accounting Key Flexfield are setup to be Indexed  Run Program> Optimizer -Gather Statistics -Re-indexes the Segments, or Indexes them if it was just turned on  Work with your DBA if this is the first time using this report or turning on Indexing

Hierarchy of Data  Request overrides everything  Report overrides Components  Content Set overrides Column and Row Sets

Row always overrides Column  Amount Type  Offset  Control Value  Format  Factor  Display Zero  Level of Detail

Column always overrides Row  Calculation – when check box is checked  Activity (DR, CR or Net)

No Override Rules  Accounts – uses intersecting from Row and Column  Summary – must be same as Row and Column  Currency – must assign same currency for intersecting columns and row, or will display 0  Change Sign (and on Variance)– Defaults to No, Yes anywhere will override

Running and Publishing Reports  Options: -Concurrent Request  Formatting limited -ADI  Runs as Excel or HTML  Control questionable because it has 100% of Excel functionality  Allows drill downs on lines that are Parent Accounts or Account Ranges for analysis purposes -XML Publisher  Limits analysis available with ADI

Concurrent Request

ADI

XML Publisher

Differences?  ADI – Can drill down  XML – Can publish securely  Concurrent Manager – Limited space and formatting

What’s coming in R12?  FSG’s publish with Report Manager  Users are working with Oracle to have ADI like features available

Questions?

Contact Information To Download a copy of the FSG Tips and Tricks White Paper: and click on FSG White Paper