How-to Guide SAP EPM

How To Maximize Advanced Formatting for BPC

Version 1.02 October 2008 Applicable Releases: SAP BPC 5.X

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1 Scenario
When implementing BPC for reporting or input of application data, the primary BPC Excel function is EVDRE. In order to maximize the customer and user experience with EVDRE, projects should always identify planned formats for the Reports / Input templates and document this in a framework called a Style Guide. The style guide should outline the expected format options for any and all combinations of data, headers, and blank spaces used in the BPC Reporting framework. The building of a style guide should precede the building of standard EVDRE templates to be used during the execution of a reporting framework using EVDRE. EVDRE is flexible BPC command that may be initialized from three different sources: 1. The Action pane, under Reporting and Analysis, Build a Report using Drag and Drop 2. A new blank worksheet, suing the command =EVDRE() 3. A new Blank worksheet using the command =EVDRE(1x2) The second option allows a project team and its users to take advantage of an Advanced format framework that may be initialized during every template build. The framework, along with defining standard baseline EVDRE templates will expedite the template build and creation process.

2 Introduction
This How-To guide leverages BPC 5.X and the application set called ApShell. ApShell is currently the default application set that is loaded with the BPC software and is often the beginning point for most customer designs. If this application set is not available at your customer, please discuss gaining access to a copy of this application set for development purposes. Maximizing the use of the advanced formatting process in EVDRE depends on a project or customers independent application requirements and needs. The Style Guide is a deliverable prepared during or prior to a BPC implementation and a suggested practice. The How-To guide discussion will provide an example of turning the Format process into a Style Guide. This guide will discuss the components of the Advanced Format section flowed by a discussion on building an EVDRE baseline template to support Style Guide settings. The goal is to provide a basic guideline for practices that appear to work well at customer implementations globally. Every project should at least discuss the use of these components during the design phase or blueprint phase. The use on many styles and specific formatting designs for templates is often a requirement when dealing with an organization that has varying company, division, function and corporate based report requirements. Exploring the power of advanced formatting extends the usefulness of the EVDRE functionality.

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3 The Advanced Formatting Discussion

Use this guide to help envision the design required for Style guide and practice the designs discussed. There are key process reasons to define a baseline EVDRE template and the appropriate formats. In any implementation, the building of a template may be accelerated during the EVDRE builder process and leveraging the baseline server stored template. To leverage an existing FORMAT framework from a baseline, click the Allow Formatting box in the EVDRE builder. Then select one of the 3 Options: 1. Use Default, loads the basic EVDRE format table 2. Import Style form Local, loads a format table off a locally saved EVDRE template 3. Import Style from Server, loads a format table off an EVDRE template stored in an application reports folder. It is important that the file you reference is a full EVDRE template with the Format section filled out.

Note that all the following Excel definitions will be imported automatically from the style workbook: - The Format range of the EVDRE function - All WebExcel workbook options - All Excel-defined styles - The workbook color palette - The range of cells to the right of the page key range and above the column headings (which might contain some title for the report)

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3.1

Building an Advanced Format Section

The use of the advanced format range is the key to implementing the formatting definitions from a Style Guide. The advanced format ranges typically differ based on factors such as, template purpose; Management Reporting, versus Data Input, versus IFRS/SEC Reporting, versus functional reporting. Most projects will develop a few format templates that must be leveraged in an EVDRE design by the core user community. Utilizing the Advanced Formatting begins with an understanding of the RANGE and the Commands used inside the format range. The format range is made up of SIX required columns. A column represents one parameter of a formatting instruction. The columns must be in the following order and are named: - CRITERIA - EVALUATE IN - FORMAT - USE - PARAMETERS - APPLY TO A format instruction is defined in a single row across the 6 columns. Multiple formatting instructions can be specified, using multiple rows, each row representing one formatting instruction. EVDRE applies each formatting instruction in the sequence from top to bottom of the defined FORMAT RANGE. Here is an example that gives an idea of how a fully-fledged set of formatting instructions could look like:

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3.2

Defining the Columns

Each column of the formatting range represents one parameter that can be applied to a formatting instruction. The columns are all required in the exact order shown above for the formatting range to work in the EVDRE. Each column has a purpose in the formatting instruction, however not all columns need to be defined in order to allow an instruction to work since some use default values when left blank. The columns and their definitions are as follows: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. CRITERIA - What triggers the specified format EVALUATE IN - The range in which the criteria must be evaluated FORMAT - The desired format of the cells USE - The portions of the format that should be applied PARAMETERS - Some textual definition of the format to apply APPLY TO - The portions of the report to which the format should be applied

3.2.1

CRITERIA Column

The CRITERIA column defines what triggers the formatting instruction. For example, in an Input Template, use CALC if for any given database calculated level across all dimensions you wish to impose a format combination for color to illustrate that the value cannot be changed. Or, if you need to format data based on a Property of a Dimension, then use the statement, Dimension.Property = Property value, (ie. Account.ACCTYPE = INC) The valid values are below: Default CALC INPUT Dimension.Property = or <> Property Value KEY = STRING HEADING = STRING FORMULA VALUE = | <> | < | > | <= | >= {value} CHANGED Is applied anyway, irrespective of any criteria Is only applied to calculated members Is only applied to non-calculated members

Is only applied to the members of dimension {dim} with property {property} = or <> {value} Is only applied if the row/column keys contain the passed {string}; Wildcards are not yet supported Is only applied if the row/column headings contain the passed {string}; Wildcards are not yet supported Is only applied to cells containing Excel formulas Is only applied to cells with a value matching the test expression Is only applied to cells being modified by a data entry action and the workbook has been set as an Input Schedule

The CRITERIA column is just the first part of the column definition, but is one of the most important settings. There is NO option to leave the first parameter BLANK, so if you do not use a VALUE defined above, you will not get the expected formatting. Examples of the options available include the following: Entity.HLevel=1 Uses Dimension called ENTITY and Property HLEVEL,

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with a value of 1 Uses Dimension called ENTITY and Property HLEVEL, with a value of 2 Entity.HLevel=3 Uses Dimension called ENTITY and Property HLEVEL, with a value of 3 Account.SCALING=Thousands Uses Dimension called Account and Property SCALING, with a value of Thousands Account.SCALING=Percent Uses Dimension called Account and Property SCALING, with a value of Percent Account.SCALING=Ratio Uses Dimension called Account and Property SCALING, with a value of Ratio HEADING="%" Uses the VALUE called HEADING looking for a value of % in the Heading. HEADING="B" Uses the VALUE called HEADING looking for a value of B in the Heading. Useful when you want to create Blank Columns in a Formatted Reporting range VALUE > 100000 Uses the VALUE called VALUE, and applies formats to cells where the number is > 100,000 VALUE < -100000 Uses the VALUE called VALUE and applies formats to cells where the number is < -100,000 Entity.HLevel=2

3.2.2

EVALUATE IN Column

The EVALUATE IN defines the region to apply the format. There are only 3 current choices for this column value. ALL / (or a blank cell) COL ROW Evaluate the CRITERIA in the PAGE, COLUMN, ROW, or Cell. Evaluate to CRITERIA in ROWS ONLY Evaluate to CRITERIA in COLUMNS ONLY

This setting selection is particularly important when evaluating structured formats that differ for the whole page, versus rows or versus columns. The key is to remember that the instructions in the format table are applied from the top to the bottom of the chart in sequence. So, if you set the format for the COLUMNS, and then set the format by ROW, the COLUMN formats may be overwritten. For example:

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3.2.3

FORMAT Column

The FORMAT column defines the formatting that will be used by each ROW of the instructions. The definition is derived by the native Excel functionality. This allows for ease of use and simplicity when defining the application of a desired format for a cell. Any format defined in the cell will be utilized in the format of the EVDRE output area. Included in this functionality is the Lock property, which is used by the EVDRE to prevent or allow a user to modify the content of the cells of the workbook.

Choosing the formats needs to be directly tied to the design of the Style Guide during a project.

3.2.4

USE Column

The USE column defines formatting functions that will be used by each ROWs FORMAT instruction, and which formats will be ignored. The USE column may utilize one or more commands from the list below. If the design includes multiple USE instructions, they need to be presented in a comma delimited statement, such as, PATTERN, FONTSIZE, FONT. If the cell is left BLANK, then all the formatting properties defined in the FORMAT column will be applied. Below is a list of the recognized format commands for the USE column cells:

ALL BORDER

CONTENT FONT FONTBOLD FONTCOLOR FONTNAME FONTSIZE FONTSTYLE FRAME

ColorIndex, LineStyle, Weight (of each segment: xlDiagonalDown, xlDiagonalUp, xlEdgeBottom, xlEdgeLeft, xlEdgeRight, xlEdgeTop) (ALL + the text in the cell) Font.Name, Font.Size, Font.Bold, Font.Color

(see BORDER)

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HORIZONTALALIGNMENT INDENTLEVEL LOCK NUMBERFORMAT PATTERN PROTECTION STYLE VERTICALALIGNMENT {VBA property}

Locked ColorIndex, Pattern, PatternColorIndex Locked, FormulaHidden (the Excel style)

Over and above the keywords listed above, the USE and the PARAMETERS columns will honor the name of any formatting property recognized by Excel VBA code. This allows the user to customize its formatting definitions to a very fine level of precision. Please refer to Excel documentation for a full list of the supported Formatting properties

An example is below:

3.2.5

PARAMETERS Column

The PARAMETERS column is used to directly enter format instructions via TEXT. These instructions are applied in addition to the USE instructions. For example, if a row includes USE column with instructions FRAMES, PATTERNS, but a big font is needed, then one may add FONTSIZE=14, in the PARAMETERS column. In addition, a more powerful use of the PARAMETERS column is to support individualized formatting instructions dynamically from a dimension property. For example, you could place in the PARAMETERS column, NUMBERFORMAT=ACCOUNT.FORMAT. Dynamically upon expansion for each member applied, get the appropriate property from the Account dimension called FORMAT and use it in the process. The available syntaxs are as follow: {Format property} = value Or: {Format property} = {dimension}.{property}

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Below is a table of the available Keywords supported:

CONTENT All + the text in the cell FONTBOLD FONTCOLOR FONTNAME FONTSIZE FONTSTYLE HORIZONTALALIGNMENT INDENTLEVEL LOCK Locked NUMBERFORMAT STYLE VERTICALALIGNMENT Over and above the keywords listed above, the USE and the {VBA property}
PARAMETERS columns will honor the name of any formatting property recognized by Excel VBA code. This allows the user to customize its formatting definitions to a very fine level of precision. Please refer to Excel documentation for a full list of the supported Formatting properties

3.2.6

APPLY TO Column

The APPLY TO column is the last instruction of the row. It defines WHERE the formats will be applied in sequence. The instructions may be used alone, unless you are adding ODDROWS to another value. For Example:

Below is a table of the available Keywords supported:

{blank} or ALL KEY PAGEKEY

Apply to the Key Range, Headings Range and Data Range Apply to the row or column Key Range (or both) Apply to the Page Key range (only valid with CRITERIA=DEFAULT)

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HEADING DATA ODDROWS

Apply to the row or column Headings Range (or both) Apply to the Data range Any of the APPLY TO values may be optionally combined with an ODDROWS parameter. This parameter can be used to trigger the defined formatting only to the odd rows in a query.

4 Building the EVDRE Baseline and Style Guide

Based on the understanding of what the Format Range does in an EVDRE template, now we should focus on how to define a baseline EVDRE template to test out all style guide assumptions. The first step is to initiate an EVDRE template using a blank workbook and following the steps discussed at the beginning of Section 3 in this guide, but often using the default format values. Once we have a new template, now we must convert the definitions from the Style Guide to use in the baseline template. Assuming we have only visual requirements from the style guide, we will then select commands that will help us build the template. Guidelines for Reporting defined via an example in excel shown below:

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We need to convert the image from the excel file example into Formats in an EVDRE report. There are a couple ways of approaching this process. Based on our knowledge of the available commands and understanding that FORMATS are applied from the TOP to BOTTOM in a layered process from the format section, we may choose to attempt to pre-define the commands needed, or simply just add commands in an EVDRE until we get the result that best matches. Both work well, but sometimes the second approach wastes valuable time. A recommended approach is to initially define the FORMAT commands required by an example. What do we see in the example? - Grey Column Header - Bold Font on Accounts that are Calculated in the Header - Bold Font on the Account Values that are Calculated in DATA - Yellow background for Net Income in Data - Taxes and PreTax accounts as Italics in Data - Blue Font for any Account VALUE greater than 1,400,000 in Data - Side Borders on all Accounts in Data - Full Borders on Calculated Data

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Based on this information, we may now begin to layout our FORMAT section. The first step is to define the CRITERIA settings that we see as a possible match to example. We know we need DEFAULT settings, the use of Dimension.Property = X, HEADER, and VALUE. We also know that we have EVALUATE IN settings applied to columns versus rows. Based on some of these initial design ideas, we would and add commands from the top to the bottom to test our design. The first section of commands would look like the following:

Our results would look like:

Next we would focus on adding specifics for the data components.

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Now we have the following results.

Then we may finish using trial and error to produce the remaining commands:

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Which give us the final product to look like the following:

Once the required format definitions have been built, we would add them to the Style Guide as the guiding formats for all report building. Plus, baseline templates should be

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built and stored for EVDRE formatting selections or as the foundation for any additional template development design work.

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