Preface

What this manual is about

The Oracle Financial Analyzer User's Guide describes the Oracle Oracle Financial Analyzer (hereinafter referred to as "Financial Analyzer") user environment and provides information about database maintenance and document tasks. This guide is meant to be used as a companion to the Help system. Conceptual information and examples are included here; procedural information is included in Help. Throughout this guide you will find many references to specific Help topics.

Intended audience

Most of information in this guide is intended for users of Budget, Analyst, and Administrator workstations who are operating in the Microsoft Windows environment. Chapter 18 through Chapter 21 provides information for individuals who are using the Financial Analyzer Web interface.

Structure of this document

The Oracle Financial Analyzer User's Guide is structured as follows:

• Chapter 1 describes the Financial Analyzer workstations and provides configuration information.

• Chapter 2 describes Financial Analyzer menus and components.

• Chapter 3 describes dimensions and dimension values, which are used to describe and structure data.

• Chapter 4 describes financial data items, which are used to store and calculate financial data.

• Chapter 5 describes how you can create and use hierarchies.

• Chapter 6 describes how to create and work with attributes.

• Chapter 7 describes how to use the Selector.

• Chapter 8 describes how to create and use models.

• Chapter 9 describes how to solve data.

• Chapter 10 describes how data and structures are transferred throughout the Financial Analyzer system.

• Chapter 11 describes the features of the Task Processor and Task Queue, which manage information that is written to the shared database.

• Chapter 12 describes the tasks that administrators must perform to set up and maintain system users.

• Chapter 13 describes reports and explains how to create, edit, and maintain them.

• Chapter 14 describes graphs and explains how to create, edit, and maintain them.

• Chapter 15 describes worksheets and explains how to create, edit, and maintain them.

• Chapter 16 describes data entry forms and explains how to create, edit, and maintain them.

• Chapter 17 describes folders and explains how to manage them.

• Chapter 18 describes how to use the Web interface to access, navigate, and exit Financial Analyzer with a browser.

• Chapter 19 describes how to work with Web reports and graphs.

• Chapter 20 describes how you can format Web reports and graphs.

• Chapter 21describes how to use Web data entry forms to enter and submit data to the shared database.

• Chapter 22 describes the Express Spreadsheet Add-In and explains how to use it with Financial Analyzer.

• Chapter 23 describes how to use the data loader feature.

• A glossary provides definitions for commonly used terms.

Financial Analyzer Documentation

Documentation set

This manual is part of a set of documentation, which also includes the following documents:

• Oracle Financial Analyzer Installation and Upgrade Guide -- Describes how to install Financial Analyzer and upgrade an existing installation.

• Oracle Financial Analyzer Application Programming Interface: Structure and Supporting Meta Data Guide -- Describes how advanced users who are responsible for implementing the system can use custom programs to maintain Financial Analyzer structures and supporting metadata.

• Integrating Oracle Financial Analyzer with Oracle General Ledger 11 -- Describes how to integrate Financial Analyzer with Oracle General Ledger.

• Hooks in the Oracle Financial Analyzer Application Interface -- A technical note that describes worksheet hooks.

Help files

An online Help system provides procedural and reference information for both system administrators and general users in the Windows client environment.

An HTML Help system provides procedural and reference information for users of the Financial Analyzer web interface.

Conventions

Text conventions

You will find the following text conventions in this document.

Convention	Usage
Boldface text	Indicates menu items, command buttons, options, field names, and hyperlinks. Bold text is also used for notes and other secondary information in tables (for example, Result).
Fixed-width text	Indicates folder names, file names, operating system commands, and URLs. Also indicates examples and anything that you must type exactly as it appears. For example: If you are asked to type show eversion, you would type all the characters exactly as shown in the fixed-width font.
Italic text	Indicates variables, including variable text. Variable text is used when dialog boxes or their components are unlabeled or have labels that change dynamically based on their current context. The wording of variable text does not exactly match what you see on your screen. Italic type is also used for emphasis, for new terms, and for titles of documents.
UPPERCASE text	Indicates Express commands and objects and acronyms.

Mouse usage

Always use the left mouse button unless you are specifically instructed to use the right mouse button.

The term "left mouse button" refers to the dominant button. If you have reconfigured your mouse to reverse the functions of the left and right buttons, then you will need to use the reverse button when you follow the procedures in this manual.

Formats for key combinations and sequences

Key combinations and key sequences appear in the following formats.

IF you see the format . . .	THEN . . .
Key1+Key2,	press and hold down the first key while you press the second key. Example: "Press Alt+Tab" means to press and hold down the Alt key while you press the Tab key.
Key1, Key2,	press and release the keys one after the other. Example: "Press Alt, F, O" means to press and release the Alt key, press and release the F key, then press and release the O key.

Documentation Accessibility

Our goal is to make Oracle products, services, and supporting documentation accessible, with good usability, to the disabled community. To that end, our documentation includes features that make information available to users of assistive technology. This documentation is available in HTML format, and contains markup to facilitate access by the disabled community. Standards will continue to evolve over time, and Oracle Corporation is actively engaged with other market-leading technology vendors to address technical obstacles so that our documentation can be accessible to all of our customers. For additional information, visit the Oracle Accessibility Program Web site at http://www.oracle.com/accessibility/.

Accessibility of Code Examples in Documentation

JAWS, a Windows screen reader, may not always correctly read the code examples in this document. The conventions for writing code require that closing braces should appear on an otherwise empty line; however, JAWS may not always read a line of text that consists solely of a bracket or brace.

Accessibility of Links to External Web Sites in Documentation

This documentation may contain links to Web sites of other companies or organizations that Oracle Corporation does not own or control. Oracle Corporation neither evaluates nor makes any representations regarding the accessibility of these Web sites.