business object user guide

8/6/2019 Business Object User Guide

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Getting Started with BusinessObjects

Version 5.1

Windows


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BusinessObjects TM

Version 5.1

Getting Started w ith BUSINESSOBJECTS

No p art of the comp uter software or this docum ent may be reprod uced or transm itted in any form or by any mean s, electronic or mechanical,

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The information in this docum ent is subject to change w ithout notice. If you find any p roblems with th is documen tation, please report them to

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Copyrigh t Business Objects 2000

All rights reserved. Printed in France.

Trademarks:The Business Objects logo, BusinessMiner, BusinessQuery, and WebIntelligence are registered trademarks of Business Objects SA.

The Business Objects tagline, Broadcast Agen t, BusinessObjects, Personal Trainer, Rapid Deployment Templates, and Set An alyzer are

trademarks of Business Objects SA.

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registered trad emarks of Microsoft Corporation.

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This software and d ocumentation is commercial comp uter software un der Federal Acquisition regulations, and is provided on ly und er the

Restricted Rights of the Federal Acquisition Regulations applicable to comm ercial compu ter software p rovided at pr ivate expense. The u se,

du plication, or disclosure by the U.S. Government is subject to restrictions set forth in sub division (c)(1)(ii) of the Rights in Technical Data an dCom pu ter Softwar e clause at 252.227-7013.

U.S. Patent No . 5,555,403

Part Number: 302-10-510-01

Edition : 2


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Getting Started with BusinessObjects iii

Contents

Introduction 7

What Is The Goal of This Tu toria l?............................................................................. 8

How Does The Tutoria l Work? ................................................................................... 8

Storyline ........................................................................................................................ 10

What Do I Need to Do The Tutorial? ....................................................................... 11

Qu ick Lesson Overview .............................................................................................12

Your Com ments are Welcom e ...................................................................................14

Lesson 1 How Much Revenue Have Efashion Outlets

Ma de This Year? 15

Objective .......................................................................................................................16

Start BusinessObjects ..................................................................................................17

Get The Data You Need .............................................................................................. 18

Display Data In A Standard Report ..........................................................................24

Organize The Data ......................................................................................................26

Form at The Repor t Title .............................................................................................28

Display Data In A Chart ............................................................................................. 32

Renam e Your Report ...................................................................................................36

The Finished Report ....................................................................................................37

Lesson 2 How Do Regional And Seasonal DifferencesAffect Revenue? 39

Objective ......................................................................................................................40

Insert A New Report ................................................................................................... 41

Get More Da ta ..............................................................................................................42

Display Data In A Table .............................................................................................45

Organize The Data In Sections .................................................................................. 47

Rank Top Three Prod uct Lines ..................................................................................49


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Contents

iv Getting Started with BusinessObjects

Insert A Report Title ....................................................................................................50

Grou p Cities Into Regions ..........................................................................................53The Finished Report ....................................................................................................56

Navigate Through Your Reports ...............................................................................57

Get a Different View poin t ..........................................................................................58

Le sson 3 Whic h Cities Are Ma king The Be st Ma rgin? 59

Objective .......................................................................................................................60

Reorganize A Report ...................................................................................................61

Ad d Data To The Table ...............................................................................................63

Calculate Margin Per Un it ..........................................................................................65

Create A Local Variable ..............................................................................................67

Highlight Cities With Above Average Margin .......................................................72


Lesson 4 How Has Sales Revenue ProgressedFrom Quarter To Quarter? 79

Objective ....................................................................................................................... 80

Before You Begin .........................................................................................................81

Organize The Data ....................................................................................................... 82

Calculate The Quarterly Variance .............................................................................84

Ad d The Finishing Tou ches .......................................................................................86


Publish The Report ......................................................................................................89

Lesson 5 How Have Product Lines Performed? 91

Objective .......................................................................................................................92

Create A New Report ..................................................................................................93

Ap ply A Template .......................................................................................................94

Break Up The Report Data .........................................................................................95

Make Calculation s ....................................................................................................... 97

Ad d Section Headings ................................................................................................98

Show In Ou tlin e View ............................................................................................... 102

The Finished Report ..................................................................................................103


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Contents

vi Getting Started with BusinessObjects


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Getting Started with BusinessObjects 7

Introduction

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

In this introduction

What Is The Goal o f This Tutorial? 8

Who is it aimed at? 8

What d oes the tutor ial cover? 8

How Does The Tutorial Work? 8

Storyline 10

What Do I N eed to Do The Tutorial? 11

Quick Lesson Overview 12

Your Comments are Welcome 14


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Introduction

8 Getting Started with BusinessObjects

What Is The Goal of This Tutorial?

This tutorial aims to introd uce first-time u sers to BUSINESSOBJECTS. Its goal is to

teach you h ow to bu ild BUSINESSOBJECTS reports using corporate and personal

data and then teach you h ow to analyze the data in the reports to help you m ake

the d ecisions that a ffect your bu siness.

Who is it a imed at?

This tutor ial is aimed a t users new to BUSINESSOBJECTS or those wh o are upd ating

from a p revious version of BUSINESSOBJECTS. We assume that you are familiar

with Microsoft Windows 95/ 98/ NT interface standard s and conventions but that

you are using th is version of BUSINESSOBJECTS for the first time.

What does the tutorial cover?

This tutorial covers aspects of query , reporting, analysis and report d istributionin BUSINESSOBJECTS.

We have tried to cover as many asp ects of BUSINESSOBJECTS as possible to give

first-time u sers a good groun ding in the basics and to introd uce you to the rich

possibilities of BUSINESSOBJECTS. A tu torial cannot, of course, cover everything.

For furth er inform ation on any of the tasks shown h ere (and more), see the

BUSINESSOBJECTS User's Guide.

How Does The Tutorial Work?

The tutorial is m ade up of eight lessons. The objective of each lesson is to bu ild a

BUSINESSOBJECTS report to an swer a bu siness question. Each lesson shows you

how to carry out the tasks needed to build the report by taking you throu gh step-

by-step exercises.

You can do the lessons in or out of sequen ce. How ever, the lessons have been

designed to grad ually increase the complexity of the tasks you h ave to carry out,

building on what you have learned in the previous lessons. Each lesson will take

you between 10 and 15 minutes to do.

The lessons in this tutorial are based on th e eFashion d emo m aterials that are

delivered on the BUSINESSOBJECTS installation CD and on the BUSINESSOBJECTS

Docum entation CD.


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How Does The Tutoria l Work?


New task

The first time you carry ou t a task in th is tutorial, we give you a full explanationof how to do it with a detailed step-by-step p rocedu re.

Recap task

As you p rogress through the lessons, you m ay have to carry out the same task

again. If a task has alread y been explained, w e will not always give the d etailed

procedu re again. If you need a remind er of how to d o it, look at the index to find

out w here the p rocedu re is described in detail.

Multimedia Quick Tour

For some of the tasks described in this tutor ial, there is also an anima ted

demonstration in the mu ltimedia Qu ick Tour. You can open the Quick Tour

d irectly from the BUSINESSOBJECTS group in the program s menu or from the Help

menu once you have started BUSINESSOBJECTS.

.

An actual screen from Quick Tour

Finished reports

At the beginning of each lesson, we show the report that th e lesson w ill teach you

to build an d then take you through the steps to do it.

If you w ant to look at a finished repor t, all the reports d escribed in th is tutorial

are in the BUSINESSOBJECTS documents,Efashion.rep,Annual.rep, Tutorial.rep in the

UserDocs folder of the BusinessObjects 5.0 program folder.

A d escription an d illustration

A menu ba r and buttons for

quick and e asy naviga tion.

of a p roduc t feature


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Introduction


Storyline

It is the year 2001 and you work for eFashion, a successful high street retail store

selling fashion m erchan dise in 11 US cities. The company currently sells 211

prod ucts across 12 different prod uct lines.

You are an an alyst w orking at eFashion Head Quarters in N ew York and your job

is to prod uce and d istribute BUSINESSOBJECTS reports to all eFashion stores.

You ar e curr ently pu tting together a series of reports on th e companys

performance over th is last year, 2001. Some of these reports will be sent toselected ind ividu als within the comp any and others will be published and

available to all comp any em ployees.


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What Do I Need to Do The Tutorial?


What Do I Need to Do The Tutorial?

To do the tutorial, you n eed to have BUSINESSOBJECTS installed and runn ing on

your compu ter and make sure that th e following files are installed in the correct

locations. These files are installed as par t of the eFashion d emo k it. If they have

not been installed, contact the person in charge of setting u p BUSINESSOBJECTS in

your company.

eFashion demo materials

You w ill need the following demo files:

Installing BusinessObjects from InfoViewIf you h ave installed BUSINESSOBJECTS from INFOVIEW via an Internet browser,

these dem o materials are not automatically installed. You w ill need to copy the

reports, templates, image and Excel files manu ally to the correct folders and

make sure your system ad ministrator has given you access to the eFashion

database and u niverse.

File name File Type Default Location

Efashion.unv BUSINESSOBJECTS

universe.

BusinessObjects\

BusinessObjects 5.0\ Universe

Efash ion.mdb Microsoft Access

database.

BusinessObjects\ Demo

Efash ion .xls M icrosoft Excel

spreadsheet

BusinessObjects\

BusinessObjects 5.0\ UserDocs

Efash ion.bmp Bitmap image of the

eFashion corporate logo

BusinessObjects\


Efashmd.ret

Efashion.ret

BUSINESSOBJECTS

templates.

BusinessObjects\

BusinessObjects 5.0\ Template

Efashion.rep

Tutorial.rep

Revenue.rep

BUSINESSOBJECTS

docum ents containing the

finished tu torial repor ts to

show you w hat they

shou ld look like.

BusinessObjects\



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Introduction


Quick Lesson Overview

The table below gives a brief overview of the eight lessons in this tu torial:

Lesson Business question Learn how to..... Report Title

1 How much revenue

have eFashion outlets

mad e this year?

Create a simp le query to

build a report and

format and organize the

report data.

Efashion.rep,

Revenue Year

2001

2 How is revenue

affected by regional

and seasonal

differences?

Manipulate variables

using drag and drop;

organ ize a report in

sections and rank d ata.

Efashion.rep,

Revenue by

Region

3 Which cities are

making the best

margin?

Use the Formu la Editor

to make calculations and

create variables; use

alerters to highlight

interesting data.

Efashion.rep,

Margin

Analysis

4 How has sales revenue

progressed from

quarter to quarter?

Display and format

financial data in a table;

calculate qu arterly

variance and pu blish the

report.

Efashion.rep,

Quarterly

Variance

5 How have product

lines performed over

the last four qu arters?

Organize and view

reports w hich contain a

lot of data using breaks

to display totals and

subtotals; learn abou t

calculation contexts;

learn how to use atemp late to quickly

format reports to

corporate standard s.

Efashion.rep,

Product

Analysis


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Quick Lesson Overview


6 How do the budgetsales figures comp are

with the actual sales

figures?

Learn how to bring datafrom a personal data file

into BUSINESSOBJECTS

and combine it with data

from a BUSINESSOBJECTS

Universe qu ery; create

and format a chart to

comp are data.

Efashion.rep,Actual v

Budget

7 What factors impact

sales revenue

performance?

Use BUSINESSOBJECTS

drill mode to an alyze

your business data.

Revenue.rep,

sales analysis

8 How much revenue

did this produ ct line

make this w eek?

Set up a report to

prom pt u sers to choose

wh ich data they wan t to

get; refresh a rep ort toget the up -to-date d ata.

Tutorial.rep,

weekly

revenue

Lesson Business question Learn how to..... Report Title


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Introduction


Your Comments are Welcome

We encourage you to send us any suggestions, ideas or comments that you may

have regarding this guide. Your op inions are the m ost important inpu t w e

receive as w e revise BUSINESSOBJECTS documentation.

You can contact us by e-mail at docum [email protected].

To find out information abou t BUSINESSOBJECTS prod ucts and services, visit our

World Wid e Web site at http:/ / ww w .businessobjects.com.

This site also provides informat ion on contacting ou r technical sup port serv ices.


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Lesson 1 How Much Revenue HaveEfashion Outlets MadeThis Year?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

In this lesson

Business question

How mu ch revenu e have eFashion outlets mad e this year?

Learning objective

Learn how to create a simple query to build a report an d format a nd

organize the data in the report.

Time

10 minu tes

Finished report

Efashion.rep , Revenue Year 2001

1 H M h R H Ef hi O l M d Thi Y ?


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1 How Much Revenue Have Efashion Outlets Ma de This Year?


Objective

You w ant to get a high-level view of the revenue that eFashion outlets have

generated this year. To do th is, you n eed to get the sales revenue for all the cities

with eFashion outlets for the curr ent year, 2001, from your corporate d atabase. To

choose your d ata from your database, youre going to use a BUSINESSOBJECTS

universe that has been set up for the eFashion comp any and wh ich p uts the

database contents into the terms you use every day to d escribe your business.

This lesson takes you th rough all the steps needed to build the following repo rt

to d isplay Revenue for Year 2001:

Before you begin

Make sure that you have everything you need installed on your compu ter. For

information on w hat you need, see What Do I Need to Do The Tutorial? on

page 11.

Start BusinessObjects


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First, you have to start BUSINESSOBJECTS. To do th is:

1. Click the BUSINESSOBJECTS program icon in the BUSINESSOBJECTS group in the

Programs m enu.

What happens next depends on how BUSINESSOBJECTS has been set up in your

company. If BUSINESSOBJECTS opens d irectly, go to the next section, Get The

Data You N eed.

If the The User Identification d ialog box appears:

2. Enter your user nam e and password , choose your security d omain, if

applicable, and click OK.

The user name, password an d security domain are assigned by you r

BUSINESSOBJECTS supervisor or system ad ministrator.

The User Identification d ialog box closes and the BUSINESSOBJECTS window

opens.

1 How Much Revenue Have Efashion Outlets Ma de ThisYear?


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Get The Data You Need

To create a new report, BUSINESSOBJECTS has the New Report w izard. This wizard

guides you through how to get the data you n eed to build your rep ort.

When you open BUSINESSOBJECTS, the New Report Wizard is displayed

autom atically. If it is not opened au tomat ically:

Click the New Report bu tton on t he Standard toolbar.

The New Report Wizard is displayed.

1. Choose Generate a Standard Reportand click Begin.

New Report Wizard

This is the layout foryour rep ort.

Get The Data You Nee d


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2. Choose Universe and click N ext.

3. Choose eFashion from th e list of available un iverses and click Finish.

The Query Panel is displayed .

This is ho w you a rego ing to c hoosethe da ta to d isplayin your rep ort.

These a re theuniverses that youca n use.



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The Query Panel

a . This is the d ata ava ilable in your da tab ase. It is organized in folde rs.

b. This is where you put the d ata you wa nt to have in your rep ort.

c . This is whe re you spe c ify how yo u wa nt to limit the d ata you w ill have in your rep ort so

that you c an foc us on spe c ific information.

a b

c



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Add data to the Query Panel

The Query Panel is wh ere you choose which data from your d atabase you w antto have in your report.

1. Open the Store Folder a nd dou ble-click on City.

City is add ed to the Result Objects section.

Click on t he p lus sign

to open a folder

Click on the minussign to c lose a folde r



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2. Op en the Measures folder and double-click Sales revenue and then Qu antity

sold.

Sales revenue and Quantity sold are ad ded to the Result Objects section.

You now have the data to bu ild a rep ort to display sales revenue and quantity

sold per city. Your d atabase has d ata for the last three years but you are only

interested in th e current year , 2001. To specify that you only w ant d ata for this

year:

3. Click the pre-defined conditions op tion button .

Clic k to showPre-definedconditions

Pre-definedConditions option


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Display Data In A Standard Report

You h ave built a Standard report that show s sales revenue and quantity sold for

the eleven cities where th e eFashion retail chain does business. A Standard report

displays your data in a table with a report title. As well see later, you can present

this data in d ifferent ways.

Your report is contained insid e a BUSINESSOBJECTS docum ent. A BUSINESSOBJECTS

document contains data and at least one report. The data contained in the

docum ent is displayed in the Report Manager w indow.

Tip: If the Report Man ager is not open , from the View m enu , choose Report

Manager.

Repo rt Ma nagerThe d ata youasked for in thequery is displayedhere in the Datatab.

Report windowReport tab

Stand ard toolba r

Rep ort toolbar

Display Data In A Standard Report


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Save your BusinessObjects document

Before you go an y further, save the docum ent that contains the rep ort:

1. From th e File menu , choose Save.

The Save d ialog box opens.

2. Choose wh ere you want to save the docum ent and typ e in a nam e.

By default, BUSINESSOBJECTS saves BUSINESSOBJECTS documents in the

UserDocs folder in th e BUSINESSOBJECTS 5.0 folder.

The document is saved as a .rep file.



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Organize The Data

Now you have the data, lets organ ize it a little differently.

Swap Quantity sold and Sales revenue columns

You can swap columns of data in a table by simply dragging and drop ping:

1. Click once in the Sales revenu e colum n.

The Sales revenue column is highlighted.

2. Click again in the Sales revenue colum n and , holding dow n your left mou se

button, drag the cursor over the Qu antity sold column.

3. When the cursor changes to the swap cursor and the status bar at the bottom

of the BUSINESSOBJECTS wind ow d isplays the messageDrop to swap contents.,

release the mou se button.

The two columns h ave swapp ed positions.

Swap cursor

Status bar

Organize The Data


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Add total sales revenue

Now lets add up the colum ns and disp lay the total sales revenue for all cities. Todo th is:

1. Click in Sales revenu e column .

2. Click the Sum button on the Report toolbar.

The total Sales revenue is displayed in a new row at the bottom of the table.

This is called a footer row .

Sort sales revenue

You w ant to organize the cities in the table accord ing to sales revenue so that you

can see at a glance who is mak ing the most revenue. To sort the data:

1. Click in the Sales revenue colum n.

2. Click the Sorts bu tton on the Report toolbar.

3. Click the Descend ing Sort bu tton.

The column is sorted so that the highest revenu e is displayed at the top of the

list and the lowest at the bottom.

You see th at the city of New York has the h ighest sales revenue for this year.

Tip: If you m ake a mistake or are not happ y with the result of an action you ve jus t

carried ou t, use the Und o button on the Standard toolbar or type Ctr+Z to und o

the action. You can u nd o up to ten consecutive actions.

Sum button

Sum button dimmed

The fo oter rowdisplays the to ta lsales reve nue forall cites

Descending Sort

Undo


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Format The Report Title


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2. Click the Font tab.

3. Choose 18 from the Size box and set the Font Style to Bold.

4. Click the Custom Color box and choose gray from the p alette and then click

OK.



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5. Click the Borders tab.

6. Click the N one icon in the Presets box to remove the bord er from the title.

7. Click OK to close the Format Cell dialog box and save the chan ges you have

made.

Your r eport title now looks like this:

Format The Report Title


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Tip: If you n eed an explanation of any of the options in the d ialog boxes:

Click the Help bu tton on th e dialog box.

A H elp screen opens w ith a short explanation of wh at each op tion on the d ialog

box or dialog box tab does.

Click the Help

button to getan explanationof these o ptions

Help sc reen



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Display Data In A Chart

Were going to d isplay some of the data in the table in a chart. To do th is, were

going to copy the table, edit it and th en turn it into a chart.

To copy the table:

1. Holding d own the mou se button, draw a box over a part of the table.

2. Release the mouse but ton.

A hatched gray border app ears around the table.



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3. Move the cursor over the table. When the cursor changes to the move cursor,

hold d own the left mou se button and drag the cursor to the right of the table.

4. Hold d own th e Ctrl key.

The cursor changes to the copy cursor.

5. Release the mou se button.

The table is copied in th e new location.

Youre now going to delete the Quantity sold colum n. To do this:

1. Hold the cursor over the Qu antity sold column. When the cursor changes to a

black arrow p ointing dow nw ard s, click once.

The Qu antity sold colum n is highlighted.

Move cursor

Copy cursor

This out line shows you w here the c op yof the tab le w ill be place d.



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2. Click the Delete bu tton on the Stand ard toolbar.

The Quantity sold colum n is removed from the table.

3. Select the table.

4. Click the Chart bu tton on th e Report toolbar.

A m enu of chart types is displayed.

5. Click the 3-D column chart bu tton.The data disp layed in the table is displayed in a chart.

Delete button

3-D co lumn b utton

Chart button

Chart optionbuttons



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Resize the chart

The chart is not large enough to disp lay all the city nam es so you need to resizeit. To d o this:

1. Click once on the chart just u nd er one of the city nam es.

Make sure that when th e chart is selected, two bord ers are displayed . If only

the outer bord er is displayed, click again just u nd er one of the city nam es.

2. Move your cursor over the h and le on the right-hand corner of the inner

border . When the resize cursor is displayed , hold d own the left mou se button

and drag the corner to the right to resize the chart.

3. When all the city names are disp layed, release the mouse bu tton.

Click in th is a rea

Drag this ha ndle

Inner bo rder

Resize cursor



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Rename Your Report

When you create a new BUSINESSOBJECTS document or insert a new report, the

report is given a d efau lt nam e Report 1 (2, 3 etc.).

To give your report a more m eaningful nam e:

1. Right-click on the report t ab and choose Renam e from th e menu .

2. Type in a nam e for the report,Revenue Year 2001, and click OK.

The new nam e is displayed on the report tab.

Report tab

The Finished Report


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The Finished Report

Congratulations! Youve created you r first BUSINESSOBJECTS report. Your final

report now looks like this:



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Lesson 2 How Do Regional AndSeasonal DifferencesAffect Revenue?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

In this lesson

Business question

How is revenu e affected by regional and seasonal differences?

Learning objective

Manipulate variables using drag and drop ; organize a report in

sections and rank d ata.

Time

15 minu tes

Finished report

Efashion.rep, Revenue by Region

2 How Do Regional And Seasonal Differences Affect Revenue?


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Objective

In lesson 1, you bu ilt a report to get a high -level view of the sales revenue

generated by your eFashion outlets. You now w ant to look at sales revenue in

more d etail to see how th is revenue is affected by seasonal and regional

differences. To get a more d etailed view , you need to bring in som e more data.

This lesson takes you th rough all the steps needed to build the following repo rt

show ing the top three prod uct lines in four eFashion regions:


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Get More Data


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5. Click Run .

It will take a few mom ents for the query to run. The statu s bar disp lays

messages, for example, Connecting to the database....., to show you w hat

BUSINESSOBJECTS is currently doing.

The new data is displayed in the Report Manager Data tab and you can nowuse this data to build your report.

Watc h this area here for me ssag eswhile the query is running

Qua rter, Lines an d Ma rginare ad ded to the data

stored in the doc ument.



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Report Manager and BUSINESSOBJECTS data types

The Report Manager Data tab displays a list of the data stored in your

BUSINESSOBJECTS document. Data used in BUSINESSOBJECTS is qualified in

three ways. This qualification shows how data can be used in reports.

Dimension objects provide the basis for analysis in a report. Dimension objects

typically retrieve character-type data (customer names, city names, etc.), or

dates (years, quarters, invoice dates, etc.)

A detail object is always associated to one dimension object, on which it provides

additional information. For example, Address is a detail object that is associated

to Store.

Measure objects retrieve numeric data that is the result of calculations on data

on the database.

Measure objects are semant ically dynamic: the values they return depend on the

objects they are used with. For example, if you include City andSa les Revenue

in a table, revenue per city is calculated. If you include Year andSa les

Revenue, revenue per year is calculated.

Dimension object

Detail object

Mea sure object

Display Data In A Table

Di l D t I A T bl


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Display Data In A Table

To build the next report, youre going to add a new table by dragging da ta fromthe Report Manager Data tab to the Report w indow . To do this:

1. In the Report Manager select City.

2. Hold ing dow n the Ctrl key select Lines, Quarter and Sales Revenue.

3. Drag the selected objects from th e Report Man ager window into th e Report

window.

The cursor changes to the table insert table cursor an d the status bar d isplaysthe m essageDrop to create a table.

Sta tus ba r messagetells you w ha t w illhappen when yourelea se t he m ousebutton.

Insert Ta b lecursor


Wh l th b tt th l t d d t i di l d i t bl


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When you release the mou se button, the selected d ata is disp layed in a table:

Organize The Data In Sections



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Theres a lot of data in the report and you can organize it so that it will be easierto read . First, we have data for each city per quar ter. By creating a section in the

report for each city you will see more easily the sales revenu e for each city per

quarter.

To do this:

1. Click once in the City column.

The City column is highlighted.

2. Click again in th e City column and , holding dow n you r left m ouse button,

drag the cursor ou t of the table and p osition it over the top left of the table.

As you m ove the cursor ou t of the table, the cursor chan ges to the create

section cur sor.

3. When the cursor changes to the create section cursor and the status bar

displaysDrop to move contents and create a section , release the mou se button.

The City column is removed from the table and a section for each of the eleven

values of City is created. Scroll down th e report to look at the d ifferent Citysections. This type of report is called a master/ detail report.

You can m ake the report even clearer by chang ing the format of the table. At the

mom ent each row of the table displays sales revenue p er line p er quarter w hich

means that quarter and line nam es are repeated. You can rem ove this repetition

by turn ing the table into a crosstab.

Crea te section c ursor

section master

sec tion d eta il


To do this:


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To do this:

1. Click once in the Quarter column .

The Quarter colum n is h ighlighted.

2. Click once again in the Quarter colum n and , holding d own your left mou se

button, drag the cursor to the top right-hand corner of the table.

3. When th e cursor changes to the Turn To Crosstab cursor and the status bar

displaysDrop to turn into a crosstab, release the mou se button.

The Quarter column is removed from the table and the nam es of the quarters

are now displayed in the top row of the crosstab. The nam es of the prod uct

lines are d isplayed in the left colum n of the crosstab. Sales Revenue is

d isplayed in the bod y of the crosstab.

To find t he sales revenue for Accessories in Au stin in Q1, you now look in the

Austin section, locate Q1 in the top row and Accessories in th e left colum n an dthe cell which forms the intersection of these two values gives you the sales

revenu e for Accessories in Q1 in Austin.

Tip: When you create the crosstab, move the cur sor slowly to the top right-hand

corner of the cell that disp lays the title Sales Revenue. You have to get the cur sor

into just th e right position for it to become th e Turn To Crosstab cursor.

Turn to Crosstab

cursor


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Insert A Report Title


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Lets now add a title to the report to m ake it clear w hat the report is about. To adda title to your report, you first have to insert a cell. The cell is a container for the

text in your title.

To insert a cell:

1. Click the Insert Cell button on th e Report toolbar.

The cursor changes to th e Insert Cell cursor.

2. Click once at the top of the page.

3. A cell is inserted. When you insert a new cell, it has a flashing cursor insid e so

that you can type in text straight away.

4. Type in a title for the report, Top Three Produ ct Lines, and press Enter.

Tip: To edit cell conten ts, dou ble-click on th e cell. The conten ts are high lighted

and you can type in your changes and then press Enter.

To re-size the title cell:

1. Hold you r cursor over th e right edge of the title cell.

2. When th e cursor changes to the resize icon, hold d own your left mou se button

and drag the cell border to the left to make th e cell smaller and to the right to

make it wider.

3. Release the mouse button w hen the cell is large enough to disp lay the entire

cell contents.

Format the titleLets format th e cell a little differently. In th e prev ious lesson you used a d ialog

box to change cell formatting. This time youre going to use the Formatting

toolbar.

First, open th e Formatting toolbar. To do this:

Insert Cell button

Insert Cell cursor


Right-click on the Standard toolbar and choose Formatting from the m enu .


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The Formatting toolbar is displayed u nd er the Standard toolbar.

To form at the title cell:

1. Click once on th e title cell.

The cell is high lighted.

2. On the Format ting toolbar, click the Font Color button .The Color Palette opens.

3. Choose Dark Blue from the p alette and click OK.

4. With the title cell still selected, click the arrow next to the Borders button to

open the Borders button options.

5. Click the No Bord ers option.

6. Click the Borders bu tton aga in and , this time, click the Bottom Border button.

7. Click once outside the title cell to see the result.

Font Color

Borders button

Borders options

No Borders

Bottom Border


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Group Cities Into Regions



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p g

You w ould like to organize your r eport to look at regional differences in salesrevenu e. Your d atabase has d ata for cities but it doesnt have data for regions. No

problem. Since you have the data for cities, you can group the cities into the

regions of your choice in your r eport an d th en calculate sales revenue by region.

To do this:

1. Select the cell that disp lays the city Austin.

2. Hold ing dow n your Ctrl key, select Houston , then Dallas and finally Miami.

3. Click the Group Values but ton on the Report toolbar.

The Renam e Group d ialog box opens.

4. Type in a nam e for the group , South , and click OK.

All the data for the cities of Austin , Houston , Dallas, and Miam i is grouped

together into one section, South . A new variable, City+, is created and

disp layed in the list in the Report Man ager Data tab.

Group Values

A new va riab le,City+ isdispla yed in theData tab.


5. Repeat Step 1 to Step 4 to group San Francisco and Los Angeles and renam e

West to group N ew York Boston and Washington an d rename East to group


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West, to group N ew York, Boston and Washington an d rename East, to group

Chicago and Colorado Springs and renam e Midwest.

Your rep ort now has four sections.

Now , lets renam e City+ in the list in the Report Man ager Data tab.


To do this:


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1. Right-click on City+ in the Report Manager Data tab.

2. Choose Edit Variable from the menu .

The Edit box opens.

3. Type in a n ew nam e, Region, in the Name of the Variable text box and click

OK.

Region is displayed in the list in the Report Manager Da ta tab.


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Get a Different Viewpoint


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Your r eport is currently organized so that you h ave one section per region andyou can see wh ich w ere the top -selling p rodu ct lines in each region. You can get

a different view of your d ata by viewing by qu arters instead of region.

To do this:

1. Click in the Quarter row.

2. Click again in the Qu arter row and then, holding d own your left mou se

button , drag the cur sor over the Region cell.

3. When the cursor changes to the Swap cursor and the status bar read sDrop to

swap contents, release the mou se button.

Region is moved to the crosstab and the report now has one section for each

quarter.

You see that Sweat-T-Shirts w ere the top-selling ar ticles for all four qua rters th is

year.

Swap cursor


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Reorganize A Report

Reorganize A Report


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Youre going to use the repor t you bu ilt in the previous lesson as a base forbuilding you r new report, so the first step is to du plicate the base report.

Duplicate a report

To duplicate an existing report:

1. Click on the Report Manager Map tab.

2. Right-click on the reportRevenue by Region in the list in the Report Manager

Map tab an d choose Duplicate Report from the m enu.

A new report, Revenue by Region (1) is add ed to the Report Man ager Map tab

list.

3. Double-click on Revenue by Region (1) in the Report Manager Map list.

4. Type in a n ew nam e for the reportMargin Analysis .

You now have three reports in your document.

3 Which Cities Are Ma king The Best Ma rgin?

Remove the sections

This report will have only one main section so you are going to remove the


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This report will have only one main section so you ar e going to remove the

sections. To do this:

1. Select the Q1 cell and click the Delete bu tton on the Standard toolbar.

The following message box is displayed :

2. Choose Yes to delete the master cell and th e section from the rep ort.

Your rep ort now has one, main section.

Turn the crosstab into a table

You w ant to disp lay your data in a table and not a crosstab. To turn the crosstab

into a table:

1. Click in th e Region row .

2. Click again in the Region row a nd, holding d own your left m ouse button, drag

the cursor over the left column of the crosstab.

3. When a h orizontal line appears above the cursor, and the status bar reads,

Drop to turn to table, release the mou se button.

Delete a column of data

You d o not need the data for Lines in this report so you can d elete the colum n that

contains this da ta.

To do this:

Select the Lines colum n an d delete from the t able.

Turn to Table cursor


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Next, youre going to add Quan tity sold and Margin to the table. To do th is:

1. In the Report Manager Data tab, select Qu antity sold in the list of variables.


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2. Click Quantity sold once more and, holding d own your left mou se button,

drag the cursor to the right ed ge of the Sales revenue column.

3. When the ed ge of the column or row is highlighted w ith a gray hatched border

and the status bar displays the messageDrop to insert, release the mouse

button.

The data for Quan tity sold is added in a new column .

Now add Margin to the table in the same way you ad ded Qu antity sold.

Calculate Ma rgin Per Unit

Calculate Margin Per Unit


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We saw in Lesson 1 that some calculations on data are carried ou t wh en you ru na qu ery and that you can make certain calculations on d ata in reports using

toolbar button s. You can also make calculations by w riting formulas.

In this report you w ant to d isplay in your table the m argin per u nit for each city.

You h ave the necessary d ata, Sales revenue an d Quantity sold, to calculate this

figure already in you r report.

First, lets add a new column to the table to display this new d ata.

To do this:

1. Click inside the Margin column.

2. Click the down arrow next to the Structu re button on th e Report toolbar

The Structure option button s are displayed.

3. Click the Insert Colum n After button .

A new , empty column is inserted after the Margin column.

4. Double-click in th e blue cell at the top of the column .

This cell is called th e head er cell.

5. Type in Margin p er unit and press Enter.

Structure


To calculate margin p er un it you n eed to w rite a formu la which divides Margin

by Quantity sold. To do this, you u se the Formula Editor:


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1. Click inside the Margin per un it column.

2. From the Data m enu, choose the Edit Formu la.

The Formu la Editor opens. The Formu la Editor allows you to make u p your

formu la by choosing Variables, Functions and Operators d irectly from the

lists.

3. Double-click on the equ al sign (=) in th e Op erators list.All BUSINESSOBJECTS formu las must begin with an equal sign.

4. Double-click on Margin in th e Variables list.

5. Double-click on the d ivision symbol (/ ) in the Op erators list.

Create A Local Variable

6. Double-click on Qu antity sold in the Variables list.


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7. Click OK.

The result of the calculation ap pears in the Margin per u nit colum n.

The formula you h ave just created is stored in the formu las folder in the Report

Manager Data tab.


You have the data for sales revenue and margin but since your eFashion out lets

are in cities of different size and imp ortance you w ill get a better view of how the

different cities are performing by sh owing margin as a percentage of overall sales


revenue. Again, you are going to make this calculation you rself using d ata you

already have in your report bu t this time instead of creating a formula, you are

going to create a local variable.


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A local variable is a formu la w ith a n ame. It is called a local variable because it is

only available in the docum ent in wh ich it was created. How ever, you can u se a

local variable to build tables and charts in exactly the same way as you use

variables retrieved u sing a query.

To create a local variable to calculate margin as a percentage of sales revenue:

1. Right-click on th e Variables folder in the Report Manager Data tab and choose

New Variable from the m enu.

The Variable Editor op ens.

2. Click on the Definition tab.

3. Type in a nam e,Margin as % rev .


4. Click the Measure option bu tton to qualify the new variable as a measure.


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5. Click the Formu la tab.

The Formu la Editor you u sed earlier is displayed and you bu ild the formu la

for a local variable by choosing from the lists in th e Formula Editor ju st as w e

saw ear lier.

6. Double-click the equal (=) symbol in the Operator s list.

7. Double-click the op en bracket ( symbol in the Operators list.

8. Double-click Margin in the Variables list.

9. Double-click the d ivision (/ ) symbol in the Op erators list.

10. Dou ble-click Sales revenue in the Variables list.

11. Double-click the close bracket ) sym bol in th e Op erators list.

12. Double-click the m ultiply by (*) symbol in the O perator s list.

13. Type in 100%.


Your formula n ow looks like this:


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14. Click the OK button .

The variable you have just created ap pears in the list of variables in the Repor t

Manager data tab.

Add the new variable to the table

1. Add Margin as % rev to the table after the Margin per u nit column in the same

way you ad ded Margin and Qu antity sold.

Notice that the d ata is not yet correctly forma tted as a percentage.


2. Click inside th e Margin as % revenue colum n.

3. Click the Percentage Style button on the Formatting toolbar.

The data is now correctly formatted as a p ercentagePercentage Style


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The data is now correctly formatted as a p ercentage.Percentage Style


Highlight Cities With Above Average Margin

You w ant to h ighlight all the cities that m ade above average margin in a d ifferent


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You w ant to h ighlight all the cities that m ade above average margin in a d ifferentfont color to the others so th at these cities will stand out from the rest in the table.

In BUSINESSOBJECTS, this kind of highlighting is called an alerter. To do this you

need to:

create a variable to calculate average m argin

set up an alerter

First, were going to calculate average m argin.

1. Click in the Margin as % rev column.

2. From the Data m enu, choose Calculations and then Average.

Average margin is displayed in a new row at the bottom of the table:

Next, were going to turn the formu la to calculate average margin into a va riable.

1. Right-click on any open toolbar and choose Formula Bar from the menu.

The Formula Bar opens.

2. Click once in the cell that displays the average m argin.The formula BUSINESSOBJECTS used to calculate the average margin is

d isplayed in the Formula Bar.


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Highlight Cities With Above Average Margin

8. Click once on the dow n arrow n ext to the Value 1 box and choose Variables

from the menu .

The Variables d ialog box opens.


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9. Choose Average margin from th e list and click Insert.

10. Click on the arrow n ext to Cell Content and choose Format from the m enu .

The Cell Form at d ialog box opens.

11. Click the Font tab and set the color to red, the font style to bold and click OK.

The Conditions tab now looks like this:


12. Click OK to close the Edit Alert er d ialog box.

The alerter is displayed in the alerters list.


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13. Click OK to close the Alerter s box.

The names of those cities that have prod uced above average margin this year

are now formatted in bold, red type.

the chec k markshow s tha t thealerter is turned on.

The Finished Report

The Finished Report

In your finished report, the cities that p rod uced above average revenue clearlystand ou t from the rest:


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Lesson 4 How Has Sales Revenue


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How Has Sales RevenueProgressed From QuarterTo Quarter?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

In this lesson

Business question

How has sales revenue progressed from qu arter to quarter?

Learning objective

Display and format financial data in a table; calculate qu arterly

variance and pu blish the report.

Time

15 minu tes

Finished reportEfashion.rep, Qu arterly Variance

4 How Has Sales Revenue Progressed From Quarter To Quarter?

Objective

You w ant to see how your bu siness has progressed from quarter to qu arter overthe past year. You are going to d o this by building a repor t to comp are the

diff i i i di f h i d i i l d


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difference in certain indicators from qu arter to qu arter. These ind icators include

those you got from you r d atabase, such as sales revenue, and those you have set

up your self, such as m argin as a percentage of sales revenue.

This lesson takes you th rough all the steps needed to build the following repo rt:


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Organize The Data

In this report, you are interested in the d ifferences between quarters and not in

the d ifferences between cities so you a re going to replace city w ith quarter in you r

table You also no longer w ant to d isplay the footer row at the bottom of the table


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table. You also no longer w ant to d isplay the footer row at the bottom of the table

that d isplays the average.

To do this:

1. Select the footer row a t the bottom of the table and click the Delete button on

the Standard toolbar.

The footer row containing Average is removed from th e table.

2. Click the Data ta b of the Report Man ager.

3. Select Qu arter in the list of variables.

4. Click once again on Quarter and , holding d own your left m ouse button, drag

the cursor over the City colum n.

5. When the City column is highlighted w ith a gray hatched border and the

status bar d isplays the m essageDrop to replace contents, release the mouse

button.

The City colum n is replaced w ith the Quar ter colum n.

Change the table orientation

The data in this table can be better presented by d isplaying the head ings in the

left colum n of the table. You can do th is by rotating th e table.

Delete button

Organize The Data

To do this:

1. Select the table.

2. Click Rotate Table button on the Report toolbar.The table is rotated and the head ings are displayed in the left colum n of the

Rotate Table


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table and you read the d ata across the rows.

Reorganize and format the table

Lets format th e table to better present the d ata. First, align th e cell content s in the

head er colum n to the left.

To do this:

1. Select the left colum n.

This is the head er colum n. It displays the nam es of the variables wh ose values

are displayed in the rows.

2. Click the Align Left bu tton on Formatting toolbar.

The contents of the h eader colum n cells are aligned against the left edge of the

cell.

Next, make the top row stand ou t better by centering the Quarter nam es andpu tting them in bold typ e.

To do this:

1. Select the Q1 cell.

To select a cell, click inside it once.

2. Click the Align Center button on the Formatting toolbar.

3. Click the Bold bu tton on t he Formatting toolbar.

Rotate Table

Align Left

Align Center

Bold


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Calculate The Quarterly Variance

3. Click the Variance button on the Report toolbar.

The difference between each ind icator for the two qua rters is displayed in a

new cell add ed after the figu res for Q2. This colum n of figures is named Q 2-

Q1.

Variance button


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To calculate the d ifference in figures betw een Q3 and Q4:

1. Click in the Q 4 cell.

2. Hold ing d own Ctrl key, click in the Q3 cell.

3. Click the Variance button on the Report toolbar.

A new colum n of figures is displayed after the figures for Q4.

Add shading to variance columnsTo make the cells that show the qua rterly variance stand ou t, lets shade them a

different color.

To do this:

1. Select the Q2-Q1 colum n.

2. Hold ing down the Ctrl key, select the Q4-Q3 colum n

3. Click the Background Color bu tton on the Formatting toolbar

4. Choose Pale Orange from the color palette and click OK.

The variance colum ns stand out from the rest.

Background Color

button


Add The Finishing Touches

This report will be read by th e whole compa ny so youre going to add the

company logo as w ell as give it a title.


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Give the report a title

Type in a new title, Quarterly Variance, in the title cell.

Add The Company LogoTo finish off your report, you w ant to ad d th e eFashion corporate logo. The logo

is an image file and to add an image you first need to insert a cell to contain the

image and then resize it.

To do this:

1. Insert a new cell in the top left-han d corner of the report and press the Enter

key.If necessary, you m ay need to move the title over to the right to m ake room.

2. Right-click on th e cell and choose Format Cell from the m enu .

The Cell Format d ialog box opens.


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4. Select Efashion.bmp and click Op en.

The eFashion logo is displayed in you r report .

To remove the bord er from arou nd the logo:1. Select the cell contain ing th e logo.


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2. Click the N o Borders button on the Borders toolbar.

The Finished Report

Your final rep ort looks like this:

Publish The Report

Publish The Report

The final step is to make the qu arterly figures available to the sales and marketing

dep artments through out eFashion. To do this, you are going to p ublish the rep ort

to the BUSINESSOBJECTS repository and specify which groups of users you w ant to

pu blish the report for The BUSINESSOBJECTS repository is a centralized storage


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pu blish the report for. The BUSINESSOBJECTS repository is a centralized storage

place wh ich you can u se to exchange documents w ith other BUSINESSOBJECTS

users at eFashion.

To do this:

1. Display the Docum ent Exchan ge Toolbar.

2. Click the Publish to Corporate Document s button on the Docum ent Exchange

toolbar.

The Send dialog box is disp layed.

The names of the groups to w hich you belong, the default docum ent

dom ain and the nam e of the active docum ent are shown:

Note: What you see in the d ialog boxes in this section of the tutorial dep end s on

how BUSINESSOBJECTS has been set up in your compan y. They w ill not have the

same group s, categories, and document dom ains as those illustrated in this

tutorial.

Publish toCorporate Documents

If you b elong to justone user group , theico n for that groupap pe ars here.Bec ause you c anno tselec t othe r groups,the To b utton isgrayed.

The na me o f the

active documentap pea rs here.

This is the d efaultdocument d omain.


3. Click OK.

BUSINESSOBJECTS disp lays a message box to show that you successfully

pu blished the documents on the repository:


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For m ore information on send ing and retrieving documents, see theINFOVIEW

Users Guide.


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Create A New Report

Create A New Report

This time, you re going to bu ild a new report from scratch u sing the data already

available in the d ocum ent and then you re going to qu ickly format it by using a

template.


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Add a table

First, add all the d ata you need in th is report from the Report Man ager Data tab.

1. In the Report Man ager Data ta b list select City, Lines, Quarter, Qu antity sold,

Margin and Sales revenue.

2. Drag all the selected va riables into the report and drop to create a table.

3. Organ ize the columns in your ta ble in the following order: City, Quarter,

Lines, Quan tity sold, Margin, and Sales revenu e.

5 How Have Product Lines Performed?

Apply A Template

So far you h ave the da ta you need d isplayed in a simp le table. Youre now going

to organize and forma t this data by app lying one of the eFashion corporatetemplates.

To do this:


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1. Right-click on th e Product Analysis report tab and choose App ly Template

from the menu .

The App ly a Template dialog box opens. This dialog box has a list of all the

temp lates you have available in your temp lates folder.

2. Choose EFASHMD from the list of temp lates.

A preview of the selected temp late is displayed .

3. Click OK.

The temp late is app lied to you r report.

Break Up The Report Data

Your report is now organized in sections as a master/ detail report w ith one

section for each city. Your table and cells are formatted using corporate fonts and

shading.


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Your rep ort also has the eFashion comp any logo and a formatted p laceholder for

a repor t title and for a comment. Lets fill these placeholders in right aw ay.

1. Double-click on and type in Product Sales by City.

2. Double-click on and type infor year 2001.

Note: For information on how to set up a corporate temp late, see the

BUSINESSOBJECTS Users Guide.

Break Up The Report DataWe have already seen that one w ay of avoiding repetition in a table is by setting

up a report w ith sections. Another w ay of organizing data is to break up d ata in

a table or crosstab.


A break allows you to d isplay all the data for each valu e of a d imension variable

together, but more importantly it allows you to d isplay subtotals for each break

section.

To do this:

1. Click in the Quarter colum n.

2 Click the Insert Break bu tton on the Report toolbarInsert Break


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2. Click the Insert Break bu tton on the Report toolbar.

The table is broken u p into four sections with one section for each quarter.

3. Click in the Quarter colum n.

4. Click Center Value Across Break bu tton on the Formatt ing toolbar.

The quarter cells are merged into one and each quarter valu e is disp layed only

once.

Insert Break

Center Va lue Across

Break

Make Calculations

Make Calculations

As we said earlier, breaking u p d ata in a table allows you to d isplay subtotals as

well as a grand total. Youre going to ad d tota ls for three column s of data. Youhave to add the totals for each colum n of da ta separately.

To do this:


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1. Click in the Margin column .




5. Click in the Qu antity sold column .


Notice that for each break section in the table, a subtotal is displayed in a new row

and a grand total is displayed at th e bottom of the table. This allows you to have

a total for each qu arter an d a total for the year for each city in the rep ort.

Sum


Add Section Headings

Were now going to add some sum mary information at the top of each section so

that those reading you r report can get a high level view for each city and th enlook at the details if necessary. Were going to add the sales revenue totals for

each city next to each city name. We can d o this in on e easy m ove. But first, lets

add a caption for the sales revenue total.


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add a caption for the sales revenue total.

Add a caption

To add a caption, you need to insert a cell to contain the text. An easy w ay to ad d

a cell is to copy one tha t already exists in the repo rt. The ad van tage of doing th is

here is that th e caption cell will be correctly formatted so you w ont have to spend

time formatting it from scratch.

To do this:

1. Select thefor year 2001 cell.

2. Click once again on the cell and , holding dow n your left mou se button , drag

the cursor and position it just next to the Austin master cell and then h olddow n the Ctrl button.

3. When the cursor changes to the Copy cursor and the status bar readsDrop to

copy contents, release the mou se button.

The cell and contents are copied to the new position.

4. Double-click in the cell and type in sales revenue.

Copy cursor


Add section totals

Now lets add the sales revenue total next to the sales revenue caption.


2. Click again in the Sales revenu e colum n and , holding dow n your left mouse

button , drag the cursor out of the table and p osition it next to the sales revenue

ll d th h ld d th Ct l k


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cell and then hold dow n the Ctrl key.

3. When the cursor changes to the Copy cursor and the status bar reads Drop to

copy contents, release the mou se button.

The total sales revenue for the city is displayed in a new cell.

The cells containing the comment and the sales revenue total have been copied to

all the city sections in th e report. N otice that BUSINESSOBJECTS has calculated th e

section tota ls au tomatically.

Ca lculation contexts

A pow erful feature of BUSINESSOBJECTS is that you can re-use the sam e calculation

in different parts of the report. BUSINESSOBJECTS re-calculates accord ing to the

context in w hich the calculation is placed: a grand total at the top of the report,

section totals for each section. You can also define the calculation context using

specific syntax which tells BUSINESSOBJECTS wh ich dim ension objects you want to

exclud e or include in th e calculation. For m ore information on calcu lation

contexts, see theBUSINESSOBJECTS Users Guide.

Copy cursor


Format section totals

The new cell is not forma tted in th e same w ay as the other cells in the report bu t

we can quickly fix this.

1. Right-click on the City master cell and choose Copy from the m enu .

2. Select the sales reven ue total cell.


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3. Click the Paste Forma t button on th e Stand ard toolbar.

The form atting is copied to th e sales revenue total cell.

Now add a section total for margin following the sam e steps you followed to add

a section total for sales revenue.

You m ay need to m ove the table dow n slightly to make room for the section

totals.

Align section headings

To give the report a really polished look, you can align report elemen ts. Here,

were going to align th e right ed ges of the cells containing the section totals:

To do this:

1. Right-click on any op en toolbar and choose Alignment from the menu .

The Alignment toolbar is displayed .

2. Resize the cells containing the section totals to th e width of the cell contents.

3. Select th e cell containing the sales revenu e section total.

All the cells you now select will be aligned with this one.

Paste Format

Align Right


4. Hold dow n you r Ctrl key and select the cell containing th e margin section

total.

5. Click the Align Right bu tton on the Alignment toolbar.

The cells are aligned along the right edges.


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Show In Outline View

Theres a lot of information in th is report. A convenient w ay of displaying a

report in sections like this is to use outline view. Out line view folds u p th esections in the repor t to disp lay only the high level information that youve

includ ed at the top of each section. People viewing you r reports can then op en up

the sections they are interested in to get m ore details.


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To turn on outline view:

1. From the View men u, choose Ou tline.

At the side of the report wind ow, a bar with arrow s is displayed.

Click the 1 button at the bottom of the bar.

2. The sections are folded to d isplay only the section title, the name of the city

and the section totals.

Click here to fold o r unfold a ll sec tions.

The Finished Report

The Finished Report

The final rep ort looks like this:


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To view a rep ort in outline view:

1. Click on the Report Manager Map tab.

This gives you a list of the cities in th e report .

2. Click on Miami in the Report Man ager Map list.

The high level information for Miami is displayed in the Report w indow .

3. Click on the arrow next to Miami in the Outline bar.

The Miami section open s up an d you can view th e details for the prod uct linesfor the four qua rters of the year for Miami.



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Lesson 6 How Do The Budget SalesFigures Compare With TheActual Figures?


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Actual Figures?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

In this lesson

Business question

How do th e bud get sales figures compare w ith the actual sales

figures?

Learning objectiveLearn h ow to bring data from a personal data file into

BUSINESSOBJECTS and combine it with data from a BUSINESSOBJECTS

Universe query; create and format a chart to compare data.

Time

15 minu tes

Finished reportEfashion.rep, Actual - Budget

6 How Do The Budget Sales Figures Compare With The Actual Figures?

Objective

You w ant to comp are the actual sales figures for this year with th e figures you

forecast at the beginning of the year. You a lready have the actua l sales revenuefigures from th e corporate database in your BUSINESSOBJECTS document. Your

sales forecast figures are in a p ersonal spread sheet file that you h ave on you r

compu ter. You can bring th is data into BUSINESSOBJECTS and then link the data

from th e database and the sp readsheet so that you can build a report to make


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p y p

your comparison.

This lesson takes you th rough all the steps needed to build the following repo rt:

Ge t Data From A Persona l Data File

Get Data From A Personal Data File

You w ant to bring data from a p ersonal spread sheet file into your

BUSINESSOBJECTS report to compare th e bud get figures w ith the actual salesresults.

To do this:

1. Right-click on an y variable in the list in the Data tab of the Report Man ager


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g y p g

and choose New Data Provider from the menu .

The New Data Wizard opens up .

2. ChooseAccess new data in a different way and click Begin.


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Ge t Data From A Persona l Data File

3. CheckFirst row contains column names.

4. Click the View but ton.

The Data Manager opens u p.


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5. Click the Definition tab.

6. In the General section, type in a name for the data prov ider,Budget.

7. Click OK.

The new d ata is displayed in the Report Manager w indow .

You now have data from tw o different data providers in your BUSINESSOBJECTS

documen t. To see which data comes from which data p rovider, click theBy Data

Provideron the Report Manager Data tab.

da ta from your query

data from yourspreadsheet

By Data Provider

option button


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3. Right-click on the table and choose Turn To Chart from the m enu .

The Chart AutoFormat dialog box is d isplayed.


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4. Choose Column from the Chart Types list and choose the first option in theStyles for the Selected Chart Type section.

5. Click OK.

The data is d isplayed in a colum n chart.

A column chart has two axes. Measure objects, such as Sales revenu e, are

d isplayed on th e Y-axis and dimension objects, such as Qu arter, are displayed

on the X-axis.

Y-axis

X-axis


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Orga nize The Chart Data

5. Click on the Grou p 1 icon.

Notice that th is icon is a column chart icon.

You can specify how you w ant your column s to be arranged by setting how

mu ch space you w ant between the sets per Quarter and w hether you want the

colum ns in each set to overlap.

6. Set the Overlap to 50 and Gap W idth to 100.


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7. Click OK to close the d ialog box and view th e result.

Your char t now has a secondary Y-axis. Quantity sold is represented as a line

chart and you can now clearly see the figures for each quarter.

The Prima ry Y-axisdispla ys the va luesin do lla rs forprojec ted andactual revenueshow n in thecolumn cha rt

The Sec ond ary Y-axisdisplays the values forQua ntity sold show n inthe line c hart


Format The Chart

Now lets w ork on the presentation of the chart by add ing a legend a nd changing

the colors of the columns and lines.

Add a chart legend

A chart legend is essential here to explain what the d ifferent column s and lines

on the chart represent.


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To add a chart legend:

Click the Show/ Hide Legend button on th e Report toolbar.

Not ice that the overlapp ing colum ns clearly show wh ere the actual sales figures

wen t over or und er the forecast figures.

The chart legend w ould be better positioned at th e top of the chart. To move the

legend:

1. Click on the ou ter bord er of the chart legend .

A hatched, gray border ap pears around the chart legend.

Show/ Hide Legend

Format The Chart

2. Drag the chart legend and position it above the chart.


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Change the column color

You can change the colors of the colum n bord ers and the fill. To do th is:

1. Double-click on the Sales Revenu e colum n.

The Data Series Format d ialog box is disp layed.


2. In the Fill section, click on the Foregrou nd Color box.

3. Choose a color, gray for examp le, from the Color palette and click OK.

4. Do the sam e for Background Color.

5. Click OK to close the dialog box and view th e results.

If you w ish, change the color of the Projected Sales Revenu e column .

Change the line color


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Now lets chan ge the color of the line chart th at disp lays the data for Quantity

sold.1. Double-click on the line cha rt.

The Data Series Forma t d ialog box is d isplayed. For a line chart, you can

change the color and width of the line and the color and shap e of the data

point markers.

2. In the Line section, click on the Color box.

3. Choose a color from t he palette, da rk red , for examp le, and click OK.

4. Click OK to close the dialog box and view th e result.

Format The Chart

Format the chart axes

You can also format the chart a xes. Here, were going to format the sales revenue

as currency and change the color of the secondary Y-axis to the same color as the

line chart that d isplays the data for Quan tity sold. This will make it clearer tothose reading your chart that the figures for Quantity sold should be read against

the right axis and the sales revenue aga inst the left axis.

To forma t the currency:

1. Click on the d ata labels on the p rimary Y-axis on the left of the chart.

The data labels are selected as show n below:


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The data labels are selected as show n below:

2. Click the Currency Style button on the Formatting toolbar.

The sales revenu e figures are forma tted u sing the d efault curr ency style. If

your d efault cur rency style is dollars, the d ollar sym bol is added before each

figure.

Note: BUSINESSOBJECTS uses the default currency set in the Wind ows Control

Panel Regional Settings.

Currency Style


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The Finishing Touches

The Finishing Touches

To finish off the rep ort