Spring 2012 FRx User Forum – Questions and Answers
The following questions were brought up during the Spring 2012 FRx User Forum sponsored by the MSX Group. We have provided both the questions, answers and related links for more information on a certain topics.
QUESTION: Is it possible to have two description columns?
ANSWER: Yes, reports can have two description columns. This type of report is uncommon and involves additional FRx report design, especially in the row format. Please see the demo report: BS_SideBySide
QUESTION: Why is my Drill Down Viewer shortcut button not active (grayed out) inside the FRx report catalog?
ANSWER: The drill icon will become active (with a green color, no longer grayed out) after a report has been generated to the FRx drill down viewer. This drill icon is a shortcut to open the drill down viewer file and is located in the FRx report directly to the left of the generate report button. Note: Launching the report via the Drill icon will only open previously generated versions of your report, it will not reflect any data changes or report design modifications made since the report was last generated.
QUESTION: How does the OLAP export work?
ANSWER: Please refer to the following Microsoft KB article for details: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/858735
QUESTION: Can you run an Excel Pivot Chart?
ANSWER: Please refer to the following Microsoft KB article for details:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/964975/a
QUESTION: How do we access to the Fabrikam demo reports?
ANSWER: Please refer to the following Microsoft KB article for details:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/965205
QUESTION: Can I copy a report without losing any functionality as I would like to make custom headers that our Accounting department does not use.
ANSWER: Yes, you may open any building block (row, column, tree or report) and go to File | Save As to make a copy of that building block to further edit without losing functionality of the original. To copy reports in whole, it is suggested that you use the Clone option instead of Save As to prevent overwriting existing Drill Down Viewer (.frd) files.
QUESTION: The reports I run are based on Federal Quarters and Accounting must keep everything on State Quarters.
ANSWER: There are features within the FRx column layout that could be used. First, the Period field could be used. For example: 1) use BASE for the period, driven by the report date; 2) Use a hard-coded period like 1 or 2; 3) or you may use a range of periods like 1 TO 3 for quarter 1. Second, there also is the Start and End Date fields you may use to pull transactions for a certain date range.
Please refer to the following Microsoft KB article for details:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/866057
QUESTION: When a report is created does the data in the viewer reside in the same database?
ANSWER: In FRx, the data you see in the FRx Drill Down Viewer files resides in the actual .FRD file. For example, you may have two reports with two different drill down files for a balance sheet and income statement. The new design in Management Reporter is to store all reports and report building blocks (row, column, tree and report) in one SQL database.
QUESTION: Is it possible to set up folders for row/column formats?
ANSWER: In FRx it is not possible to create folders to group building blocks. In Management Reporter, this is a new feature to look forward to group items. In FRx, you may rename your building blocks with similar prefixes to easily find (e.g. “IS_” prefix for Income St report or “BS_” for Balance sheet reports)
QUESTION: How do quickly bring in GL account numbers and descriptions into the row format?
ANSWER: In the FRx row format, select Edit>Add Rows From Chart of Accounts in the toolbar. FRx will build the row format on the segment(s) with the “&” character in it which by default is the main or natural account segment/dimension.
QUESTION: In my set-up, I receive an error when trying to auto populate rows from my chart of accounts, Is this a set-up issue in my environment and how it links to Elite GL or is it not working properly.
ANSWER: The first recommended step is to delete the .G32 file associated with the company that is set as default. This file is located in the “Sysdata” folder which can be confirmed in FRx under the Admin | Organization window by clicking the Sysdata button. It is safe to delete a .g32 file. Later when you open FRx or generate a report this file will be rebuilt with chart of account information (acct numbers and descriptions). If additional help is needed, please contact MSX Group support: Go to MSX Group Support Page
QUESTION: How do you save existing row formats to a backup specification set? We need to de-clutter our list & delete old formats but want to keep a copy in case they are needed again.
ANSWER: Please refer to the following Microsoft KB article for details:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/844060
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/852214
QUESTION: Could you talk about how to send a report that is masked to allow user to only see certain accounts (specific to their area of responsibility)?
ANSWER: This topic was shown in two different sessions at the FRx Spring 2012 User Forum. In the FRx reporting tree, there is a field/column P for “Security/Email” where you may define report access using either FRx Users and Groups, OR email addresses.
QUESTION: What are “account sets” and how to we create them?
ANSWER: Please refer to the following Microsoft KB article for details:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/964132
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/856129
QUESTION: Can you have differing rollup % based on dates?
ANSWER: Depending on the exact report scenario, you may use a combination of: the rollup % field in the reporting tree, effective dates where you may use different trees and rollup percents based on the report date, and/or Period (and start and end date) filters in the column layout with column calculations for varying percent ownerships.
QUESTION: If you want to change the report date on all reports that are chained together, the result that I get is that the first report has the correct date, but not the others that are chained to this report. Is there something that I need to change other than the report date on the first report (or catalog) in the chain?
ANSWER: We would suggest using the Default Base Period as seen within the Report Date pop-up window in the FRx report catalog. For example, have all reports use “S-1” which is system/computer date minus one period to always report on the prior month.
QUESTION: To give a user access to a report in FRx do they use a license?
ANSWER: You may output and send the user the FRx Drill Down Viewer file (.FRD file) which requires a Drill Down Viewer license. The advantage to this is to leverage FRx security where users can only see their assigned departments seen in the reporting tree security/email field. Alternatively, you may output the report to Excel or print the report.
QUESTION: How/Why is the check box under the row format used? “Use row format(s) and worksheet links from reporting tree”
ANSWER: This check box is used for two report scenarios: Row Linking and when using the Separate Method for spreadsheet linking.
Please refer to the following Microsoft KB article for details:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/964831 (also see demo report “RowLink” using FW sample company in FRx)
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/863143 (also see demo report “IS_Dynamic_WKS”)