Modifying Financial Data Items

About modifying financial data items

You choose Financial Data Item from the Maintain menu to modify financial data items in your personal database. This opens the Maintain Financial Data Item dialog box, from which you can perform the following functions:

• You can give a financial data item a new name.

• You can delete a financial data item from your personal database. As an administrator, you can also delete a financial data item from the shared database by deleting it from your personal database, and then distributing this change to the shared database. For more information, see "Distributing a deleted financial data item".

• You can specify that a financial data item is sparse, or change the way in which sparse data is handled for a financial data item. For more information, see "Modifying how sparse data is handled in financial data items".

• You can modify the formula for a formula financial data item.

• As an administrator, you can associate a financial data item in the shared database with a solve definition or a group solve definition. This enables the solve or group solve to run automatically when users modify data for the financial data item in the shared database. For more information, see "Associating solve definitions with financial data items".

• As an administrator, you can change the setting for distributing data for the financial data item.

• You can move a financial data item to a new position in the list of financial data items maintained by the system.

• Edit row and column labels.

Modifying how sparse data is handled in financial data items

When to modify sparse data handling for financial data items

Changing the way sparse data is handled can have a dramatic impact on the performance of your database. Oracle recommends that you modify sparse data handling after careful analysis of the dimensions and financial data in your database.

Reasons to change the way sparse data is handled on your system include the following:

• You want to reduce the amount of storage required for your database

• You want to improve data access time

• You want to improve data processing performance

Example: When to modify sparse data handling for financial data items

In this example:

• The financial data item called Budget is dimensioned by Time, Line, Product and Organization.

• All Organizations have non-product specific data, but only the Sales Organization has data for every product. Therefore, the data is sparse in the Organization and Product dimensions.

The following report shows the Budget financial data item. Note the number of NAs, indicating sparse data.

Note: When you modify sparsity, reports and worksheets do not change; your NA values still appear. This report is shown to demonstrate the concept of a sparsely populated dimension.

If the financial data item in this example was created without changing how sparsity is handled, all of the NA values would be stored in the database, as shown in the following illustration.

If, however, the dimensions Product and Organization were defined as sparse dimensions when the financial data item was created, the NA values would not be stored, as shown in the following illustration.

In this example, you would want to modify sparsity handling so that Product and Organization are sparse dimensions.

Distributing a financial data item for which sparse data handling has been modified

If you distribute a financial data item for which sparse data handling has been modified, it may take some time to process because the data within the financial data item has to be reassigned in the database.

Distributing a deleted financial data item

If you delete a financial data item, you must distribute the structure with a Delete from System action. This deletes the structure from the shared database and from the personal databases of all of your users, including any administrators immediately below you in the reporting hierarchy. Administrators below you in the reporting hierarchy should propagate this change by distributing the deletion to their shared database and to the personal databases of their users, and so on down to the leaf nodes. If they choose not to do so, they can retain the structure for their own use, but they can never submit data associated with the structure into your shared database.

If you delete and then redefine a financial data item

If you delete a financial data item and then attempt to define a financial data item with the same object name before distributing the deletion, the system prompts you to specify whether to process the deletion.

• If you indicate that the dimension is a new object that is intended to replace the deleted object, the system creates a system deletion task on the distribution list.

• If you indicate that the deletion was inadvertent, the system removes the deletion task from the distribution list. If you choose this option, it is your responsibility to redefine the financial data item exactly as it was prior to the deletion. The system will not check for this.

Related information

For more information about maintaining financial data items, search for the following topics in the Financial Analyzer Help system:

"Deleting Financial Data Items"

"Deleting Structures from the System"

"Editing Formulas Used to Calculate Financial Data Items"

"Moving Financial Data Items"

"Renaming Financial Data Items"

"Setting Sparsity"