VU Financial Reporting Application
Viewing Interactive Results
All of these numeric columns represent the total dollar amount for that type of activity for the combination of accounts and sub accounts chosen on the selection screen. In addition, the dollar amounts displayed are dependent on options chosen on the selection screen. For example, those options allow you to include or exclude forecasts or encumbrances, use base budget or current budget, use full year budget or divide the budget into the number of months reported.
VU allows you to expand
or collapse this tree to view higher or lower levels of consolidation. It
also has a variety of tools to filter the result set, to drill down to
supporting detail, to export results to the clipboard and other functions.
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By default, the tree is displayed at the highest level of consolidation, which includes the levels Income, Expense and Net. A level that has a lower level of detail is indicated by a box containing a plus sign displayed to the left of the level description. Clicking on this box will expand the node and display the lower level(s) of detail. Conversely, an expanded node is indicated by a box containing a minus sign. Clicking this box will collapse the node. There are buttons at the top left of the form to expand or collapse the entire tree.
There are five levels of
consolidation in the tree structure. The top level, the highest level of
consolidation, summarizes all activity into Income, Expense and Net, with Net
being calculated as Income minus Expense. The second level, the first
level down from the top, is the Consolidation Object level. This level
summarizes types of financial activity into a few very broad categories, such as
compensation, travel or capital expenses. The third level, the level that
you will see if you expand a node from the second level, is the Object Summary
level. This level summarizes groups of related Object Codes into
categories that are more specific than the Consolidation Objects. For
example, at this level compensation is broken into hourly compensation, biweekly
compensation, benefits, etc. The fourth level is the Object Code level.
This is the most specific, detailed level of expense or income activity, a 4
digit numeric code and text description representing one very specific category
of financial activity. The fifth and final level contains the Account/Sub
Account combinations that make up the Object Code balance.
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Drilling Down to Detail:
The lower left section of the Interactive Results screen contains controls to
drill down from selected results to supporting detail data. There are four
different types of drilldowns available, all of which provide data from
different sources. In all cases the drilldown results are displayed in a
scrollable area at the bottom right of the screen, where data can be viewed,
sorted or
exported.
Detail:
This option provides a drilldown to transaction level detail from the FIS
system. The results produced from this drilldown will depend on the level
of detail selected (highlighted) in the results tree in the top portion of the
screen, as well as the selections made in the checkboxes below the Detail
button. The detail query will return all detail relevant to the selected
row in the results tree. The higher a level of consolidation is selected,
the more results will be returned. The Detail drilldown button is not
activated until a selection is made from the results table at the second level
or lower. This is to prevent the long running queries that could result
from selecting too broad a result set. Even at the second and lower levels
of consolidation, some detail queries could run a long time if many account/subs
are selected, so care should be taken to make the request as specific as
possible. If an object code is selected from the results tree, only detail
for that object code will be returned. If an account/sub under an object
code is selected, only detail for that account/sub/object will be returned.
There are six checkboxes beneath the Detail button. The selection or de-selection of these buttons determines the variety of detail data to be returned. Each checkbox controls one type of data, each can be selected or de-selected independently so that any combination can be active. Each checkbox has a mouseover hint to indicate the type of data it controls. The checkboxes control base budget, current budget, actual (cleared), internal and external encumbrances and forecasts.
The results returned include the FIS document number, transaction and post dates, dollar amount, and other detail. It is also possible to drilldown on a specific row from the detail results. To do this, select (highlight) a row in the detail results and press the Detail button again. This will return the entire FIS document containing the highlighted detail row.
Personnel:
This provides a drilldown to data about personnel paid from the budgets chosen
on the selection screen. This query returns all personnel data for all the chosen
budgets if no account/sub is selected in the results tree, or returns personnel
data for the selected account/sub.
For the selected budgets, personnel data includes funding information (account, sub, etc), Position, name, title, grade, FTE %, salary and status. The personnel data comes from the University's CSF tracker data, so it should always be an accurate reflection of the data currently in the payroll system. The information returned is a snapshot of the personnel data as of the end of the fiscal year selected.
Balance:
This drilldown displays the balance(s) in the 8000 (cash) object code.
This balance has little significance at the sub account level, but at the
account level it is a meaningful figure. The results displayed by chart,
account and sub account are the beginning cash balance for the selected year,
year to date activity through the selected month, and ending cash balance as of
the end of the selected month. The results are detail only, but a total
will be displayed if the cursor is placed over the results area. Like all
the drilldown results, this data can be exported for additional manipulation or
analysis.
PO/Req:
This provides data related to requisitions and purchase orders placed against
the selected account/sub combinations during the selected fiscal year and
through the selected month. Results include the vendor, dollar amount,
date, description and account/sub/object information. Results are
dependent on selections in the results tree. If no lines are selected, all
PO data is returned for the selected budgets.
It is possible to retrieve further detail for a selected requisition. To do this select (highlight) a single row in the PO/Req results and press the PO/Req button again. A browser window will open containing detail information for that requisition.
Clipboard:
This button exports the currently displayed drilldown data to the clipboard for
importation to other applications. The data is tab-delimited and will
import well into Excel. If one or more rows are selected
(highlighted) in the drilldown results, only those rows will be exported.
If there are no selections or if all rows are selected, all rows will be
exported. The drilldown results area also has a popup menu accessible by
right mouse clicking, that includes options to select all, clear selections, or
copy selections to the clipboard. <top>
Filtering Results:
From the Interactive Query Results form, it is possible to
refine the selection criteria dynamically without returning to the selection
form. Right mouse clicking on the results tree provides a popup menu
allowing several options, including an option to filter account/sub
combinations. When this option is selected, a new scrollable area appears
on the right side of the form, listing each included account/sub combination
with a checkbox for each to determine it's inclusion in or exclusion from the
results. There are speed buttons across the bottom of this area to select
all, deselect all, refresh results based on new selections, and to close the
filter area.
To filter, check the boxes of the desired account/subs, click the refresh button and the results will be updated to show the new selections. Any drilldowns, reports or graphs will be performed against the updated results. <top>
Exporting Results:
Results can be exported to the clipboard for importation into
other applications. The exported data is tab-delimited, so that it will
import into Excel correctly into columns. There is an option from the main
menu labeled Export Level that allows customization of the level of detail to be
exported. Data can be summarized at the income/expense level, or detailed
at the account/sub/object level, or summarized at any intermediate level.
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Other Features, Other Information:
Status Bar:
The status bar at the bottom of the screen contains
2 panels. The leftmost or first panel displays the
applications current task. If there is no current task, it displays "ready". The
second
panel displays a summary of the choices made on the selection screen, showing
the selected year and month, and other selection criteria.
Window Menu and Buttons:
Menu options and buttons are available to jump to the
selection form, the report for or the the graph form, or to close the query
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