About Reports

Definition: Reports

A report is an interactive tool that enables you to view financial data from different perspectives and prepare effective presentations based on your analyses.

Types of reports

Financial Analyzer allows you to design your own reports. In addition, you can create two special types of reports:

• Asymmetric report -- Combines the values of two dimensions, or the values of a dimension and a financial data item

• Ranking/Exception report -- Identifies values meeting specific exception criteria, ranking criteria, or both exception and ranking criteria

Report objects

Reports enable you to view and format financial data based on the financial data items, dimensions, and dimension values that are defined in your personal database. Before you can create a report, your personal database must contain the required database objects. Administrators typically define database objects and distribute them to users.

Report window

The report window contains elements that enable you to manipulate a report's layout and format. The following illustration shows a typical report and its elements.

The following table describes the elements of the report window.

Element	Description
Dimension tiles	Enable you to rearrange the layout of a report and access the Selector dialog box, where you can choose a different set of values for the dimension. There are three types of dimension tiles: Page dimension tiles -- Located in the upper-left corner of the report window, these tiles represent dimensions in the page position Across dimension tiles -- Located in the upper-right corner of the report window, these tiles represent dimensions in the across position Down dimension tiles -- Located at the bottom of the report window, these tiles represent dimensions in the down position
Edit bar	Enables you to edit text, such as titles, footnotes, and dimension labels. Select the text or data value you want to edit to make it appear in the edit bar.
Edit bar buttons	The Formula Tools button opens the Formula Tools dialog box, which you can use to edit formulas. The Cancel button clears text or formulas from the edit bar. The Enter button moves text or formulas from the edit bar to the currently selected area.
Page controls	Enables you to move between pages in a multiple-page document.
Title, subtitle, and footnote panes	Enables you to specify a title, subtitle, and footnote for the report.
Row and column labels	Identifies currently selected dimension values.
Highlighter buttons	Enables you to select data cells for formatting. You can select a single row or column, a series of rows or columns, or the entire body of a document.
Redisplay button	Enables you to refresh a document manually after making format or selection changes.

Report menu

When you create a new report or open an existing report, the Report menu becomes available on the menu bar.

The following table describes the items on the Report menu.

Menu Item	Description
Report Options	Opens the Report Options dialog box, where you can choose elements to display in the report.
Dimension Labels	Opens the Dimension Label Setup dialog box, where you can specify the text that the system will use when it creates row, column, and page labels.
Drill	When checked, enables drilling in reports.
Auto Redisplay	When checked, specifies that reports are to be automatically redisplayed when you make changes to them.
Asymmetric Format	Opens the Create Asymmetric Combination dialog box, where you can join the values of two dimensions and create a custom arrangement of their values.
Ranking/ Exception Report	Opens the Ranking and Exception Setup dialog box, where you can specify the criteria for a ranking and exception report.
Drill to GL	Provides detailed information in General Ledger that may not appear on a report. This option is accessible only if you are working with a report based on data that was loaded from General Ledger and you are set up to use the GL Link.