Sage 100 ERP 2013 Sage Intelligence Release Notes

Transcription

1 Sage 100 ERP Sage 100 ERP 2013 Sage Intelligence Release Notes

2 Table of Contents Enhanced Report Designer Mapping Tool... 3 Minor User Interface Update... 4 Ability to Add and Delete Row Reporting Groups... 4 Group from and Group into Fields Now Visible... 5 Improved Performance... 5 Mapping Tool section within Help File Improved... 5 Performing Mappings Now No Longer Mandatory Upfront... 6 Report Designer Layout Text Column Auto-size... 6 Report Designer Row Loading Indicator... 7 Report Designer: Retained Income Add-In... 7 Current Month layout... 9 Report Designer: Company Code added as an identifier...11 Report Designer: Notes Pages Change...12 The Financial Trend Analysis report has been updated...13 Performance Enhancement on Financial Reports...14 Financial Containers: 'Segment Code Description Expression...15 Financial Containers: New BudgetYTD fields Expressions...17 Financial Containers: New Prior Budget YTD fields have been added...18 Financial Containers: New YTD Excel Expressions added to Report Designer...19 Reports: Bulk Importing New Reports...20 Sage 100 ERP 2013

3 Enhanced Report Designer Mapping Tool Due to popular demand the Report Designer s mapping tool has been enhanced within this release of Sage Intelligence with the most notable enhancement being the ability for end-users to natively add and delete Row Reporting Groups from within the Mapping Tool s interface. Location: Run Report Designer Report with unmapped categories/accounts Select Mapping Tool from BI Tools ribbon tab after running out a Report Designer Report 3

4 Minor User Interface Update The Mapping Tool has been improved with a more descriptive explanation of the purpose of the Mapping Tool; research showed that new users often did not necessarily understand the reason for this tool popping up the first time a Report Designer report is run. Each of the column lists has been widened to accommodate longer values and the help icon has been enlarged and now links directly to an improved help file topic on the Mapping Tool instead of only popping up a basic textbox. In addition, a selected item within the Unmapped Categories list would previously lose its highlight once focus was given to another list on the form this has now been resolved and the item retains its highlight, making this form easier and faster to use. Ability to Add and Delete Row Reporting Groups Based on requests to give users more control of the Row Reporting Groups that the Report Designer uses to group GL accounts on a layout, end-users can now take full control of their reporting layouts by adding their own new reporting groups and deleting existing reporting groups. 4

5 Group from and Group into Fields Now Visible The Mapping Tool now shows very clearly that it has been configured to use predetermined fields from within your Report Designer report to perform mappings. The objective of showing the Group from and Group into fields is to ensure users understand that the Available Categories field list can be sourced from different fields within your report, like Account Number for example (allowing you to map account numbers to Row Reporting Groups instead of mapping standard grouping categories to Row Reporting Groups). Improved Performance The Mapping Tool now maps categories to Row Reporting Groups faster than ever, as we opened up the ability for users to add their own Row Reporting Groups we also made sure the Mapping Tool s internal logic was reviewed to handle larger amounts of Row Reporting Groups even quicker. Mapping Tool section within Help File Improved The Mapping Tool section has been reviewed and improved to ensure that the users can get access to the correct level of detail if required. Additionally, instructions on how to configure the mapping tool to use different Group from fields have been added to the same help file topic. 5

6 Performing Mappings Now No Longer Mandatory Upfront Previously users were forced to map their Available Categories to Row Reporting Groups before being allowed to run out Report Designer Reports. This rule has now been relaxed in favour of explaining the purpose of the Mapping Tool clearly and then giving users more control over when they would like to approach the design of their reports. The Mapping Tool can then be accessed via the BI Tools Ribbon tab once the report has run out into MS Excel. Report Designer Layout Text Column Auto-size Previously any text columns placed into a Report Designer layout would not automatically size according to the content within them, usually needing users to manually resize the second column like account description. The need for this manual action has now been eliminated and the Report Designer now correctly sizes each text column according to the longest value that the field contains, saving you the time needed to resize manually. Location: Generate a Report Designer layout with text columns. 6

7 Report Designer Row Loading Indicator In the event of many Row Reporting Groups being selected for use within a Report Designer layout, the edit layout manager may take a bit longer to load rows giving the impression of an unresponsive form. To avoid this perception, a circular progress indicator has been added to the Rows section of the Report Designer layout manager and will appear immediately if the software detects that loading rows will take longer than usual. Location: Load an existing Report Designer layout via the Launch button within BI Tools tab. Quick edit an existing Report Designer layout via BI Tools tab. Report Designer: Retained Income Add-In The Financial Report Designer report runs an add-in named RETINC during the execution of the report to calculate current year earnings or retained income, this add-in previously would prevent a user from removing Report Column fields which were not required for a specific report. If a user did remove a column from the Financial Report Designer Report, an error message would be displayed indicating that the removed column is required for report execution. Error message below: 7

8 This behaviour has been corrected and the retained income add-in will now allow users to decide which specific columns they would like to use for their financial report, enabling users to improve the performance of their reports by only reporting off the columns which are actually being used within their reports instead of the always reporting off the full set of default Report Columns. Location: Report Manager > Financial Report Designer Report > Properties > Columns > Remove Column > Run Financial Report Designer Report 8

9 Current Month layout This new current period layout has been added to all three report designers. This layout was created to allow users to see values for a selected period. The period can be changed by clicking on the Change Period button in the BI Toolbar. Current Period Layout 9

10 Please Note: When you install the new product update the new Report Designer Report which includes the Current Month layout will be automatically saved to a folder on your computer. C:\Program Files\SMI50\ReportUpdate\en The new reports will need to be imported into the Report Manager once you have installed the Product Update. Go to Home in the Report Manager right select > Bulk Importing/ Update Reports. New Reports will be automatically imported from C:\Program Files\SMI50\ReportUpdate\en 10

11 Report Designer: Company Code added as an identifier The formulas in the Report Designers are now set up to be identified by Account Company Code and not Account Company Name. The change was made because the company code cannot be changed whereas the company name can be changed in the source system. 11

12 Report Designer: Notes Pages Change The Notes pages in the reports have been given a new look and feel and now reflect the new Sage branding. 12

13 The Financial Trend Analysis report has been updated The Financial Trend Analysis report now shows YTD accumulative values instead of balance sheet movement values for balance sheet accounts. Example of GL Account code reporting on YTD values in the Financial Trend Analysis Report. 13

14 Performance Enhancement on Financial Reports A new filter has been added to the all of the Financial Report Templates called Active Account? This filter removes all non-active accounts from the report, therefore greatly enhancing the performance of the report and displaying only relevant data. 14

15 Financial Containers: 'Segment Code Description Expression Segment Code Description expressions have been added to the Financial Containers. These expressions can then be brought into the Report Designer reports and used in layouts if required. The Segment Code description field will allow the reporting user the flexibility of viewing Segment Codes and their descriptions or just the Segment Code. Displaying the Segment Description alongside the Segment Code will provide more meaning for the reporting user. 15

16 Financial Containers: New Prior Year Budget Movement Period Fields New Prior Budget Movement (1-13) expressions have been added to all the financial containers. The Prior Budget Movement fields can be added directly to the reports to report on the the prior year s budget movement values, thus allowing values to be reported on for a specific period. 16

17 Financial Containers: New BudgetYTD fields Expressions New BudgetYTD expressions for periods 1 to 13 have been added to all Financial Containers. These BudgetYTD fields can be added directly to the report to allow users to report on Budget YTD figures for a specific period. 17

18 Financial Containers: New Prior Budget YTD fields have been added New Prior Budget YTD expressions have been added to all the Financial Containers. These fields can be added to the reports to allow users to report on Prior YTD Budgets values. These fields operate independently of each, i.e. they do not require the use of any other fields in when the report is generated. The advantage of having Prior YTD Budget fields is that it will allow the user to compare current year budgets to Prior YTD budgets values. 18

19 Financial Containers: New YTD Excel Expressions added to Report Designer YTD Excel Expressions have been added to the Financial Container that can be used to calculate YTD values for Actual, Budget and Prior years. The XML fields have not been replaced and the new YTD excel expressions have only been added to the containers. Should a user experience performance issues with the XML fields, they can add these new YTD fields to the reports and then use them in the layouts. These new YTD Excel expressions will only work if the fields they require are currently in the report. Two of these fields, the Current Actual YTD and Current Prior YTD fields already have the fields they require in the standard Report Designer. The Current Budget YTD field requires the YTDBudget1-13 fields to be added to the report before it can be used in the report. The Current Prior Budget YTD requires the PYTDBudget1-13 fields to be added to the report before it can be used in the report. All these YTD Excel expressions can be used to create new layouts or replace the relevant existing XML fields in existing layouts. 19

20 Reports: Bulk Importing New Reports The new reports will need to be imported into the Report Manager once you have installed the Product Update. Go to Home in the Report Manager right select > Bulk Importing/ Update Reports. New Reports will be automatically imported from C:\Program Files\SMI50\ReportUpdate\en 20

21 Press the YES button. A message box will appear if the Bulk Import has succeeded. 21