financial planning user handbook: general guide glossary

Financial Planning: User Handbook

General Guide & Glossary

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Financial Planning User Handbook:


Document Date: 01/07/2011

Users are reminded that data accessed from Cognos is likely to be confidential, it may contain personal data or other

confidential information. Users are responsible for ensuring that any information accessed is kept secure and only viewed

by authorised individuals. Personal data held within Cognos is protected by the Data Protection Act and must only be used

for Management Planning and Forecasting. Wherever possible, summaries and anonymised data should be used in

preference to identifiable datasets. When exporting data to Excel, users should only download to mobile devices that are

encrypted in line with the University’s Information Security Policy. Downloading to encrypted University laptops is

permitted.



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Contents

1. Introduction to the Cognos Planning Tool ...................................................................................... 3

2. Navigation Tips and Things to note when using Cognos planning tools ....................................... 10

3. Annotating Plans and Adding Attachments .................................................................................. 13

4. Changing the way data is displayed .............................................................................................. 15

5. Exporting data from plans into Excel ............................................................................................ 18

6. Planning Tool Shortcuts ................................................................................................................ 23

7. Cognos Jargon Buster .................................................................................................................... 26



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1. Introduction to the Cognos Planning Tool

The Cognos planning tool is accessed via a web portal.

1.1 Navigating the Web Portal

This is an explanation of how to navigate through the web portal to access the planning tools and

reports.

When you first log on to Cognos, you are taken to the Welcome page:

Navigation to the planning tools is by using the links on the home page – either My home or IBM

Cognos content. You are then presented with a series of folders, or links.

Simply click on the required folder to continue navigating – the financial planning tools will be found

via Business Planning > Financial Planning > Yr‐Yr Financial Plan. This folder then contains a folder for

each element of the plan – Non Pay, Staffing, Research, Teaching and the Consolidated plan.



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Once you have navigated within the portal, you have a number of options for getting back to the

start.

You can use the bread crumbs (links at the top of the page) to return to a previous page:

You can also use the home icon ( ) at the top of the screen to return to your “My Home” page.

Another option is to use the “Launch” icon. Choose the function you require from the menu, which

will only show you the options which are available to you.

If you get stuck at any point, you can click the Help icon ( ) to access further information. You

can also choose the “Go to the Welcome page” option from this drop down menu to return to the

portal’s welcome page.



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1.2 Understanding the web portal

Once you have selected a planning module, on the left hand side of the web screen is a tree view,

where you can see which organisational units you have access to “Contribute” to and to “Review”.

The right hand side of the screen shows more details of the plan.

It lists the plans for each of the organisational units you have access to, shows the current status of

the plan (Not Started, Work in Progress, Complete), and the network ID of the current owner of the

plan. It also shows the group of users who will be responsible for reviewing the plan, and the date

when the plan was last updated.

Clicking on each of the hyperlinks on this screen performs a function:

Link Function

Name Launches Contributor, to allow you to edit or view the plan

Ownership Allows you to send an email to the current owner of the plan (via

Outlook)

Reviewer Allows you to send an email to all users in the reviewer’s group



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1.3 The Planning Screen Layout

This is an explanation of the layout of the planning screens.

1: The menu bar and tool bar, which you use to access functions within the planning tool. The menu

and toolbar will be the same no matter which module you are working with.

2: Tabs. These are similar to worksheets within a spreadsheet. Each tab has its own function within

the planning module. Depending on the module you are using, there may be tabs than can be

displayed at once in the “tab bar” – to access the additional tabs, you will need to click on the double

arrow and choose the required tab from the drop down menu: .

3: Context area, or Dimension Bar. The buttons shown here will vary depending on the module you

are using.

The context area allows you to

a) Choose a set of data to view/edit, e.g. selecting a budget unit or year, by clicking on the

arrow and choosing the required option from the list.

b) Change the layout of the tab, by dragging the context buttons into the Rows or Columns.

4: Grid. This area is used to input or display planning data.

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1.3. Buttons and Icons

These buttons are all accessed from the toolbar

Take ownership of the plan

Save the plan

Print the plan

Cut (highlight the text you want to cut first)

Copy (highlight the text you want to copy first)

Paste the copied text

Insert commentary or attach a file

Browse commentary that has already been added to the plan

Change the layout of the grid by swapping the rows and columns

Suppress zeros in the grid, either for rows, columns or both

Autosize the visible range so that cells are resized to fit their contents

“Get data”

This function is used within the consolidated plan to pull in the data from the constituent modules. It can also be used to copy data from a spreadsheet into the plan.

Validate the data you have entered into the plan

Submit or reject plan

The consolidated plan will be submitted to central finance.

Help

Use this button to access help and guidance on using the planning tools.



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Throughout the planning tool, you will also see other icons:

This symbol is shown on a tab. It indicates that the tab is for information only - you cannot enter any data here.

This symbol indicates that a tooltip is available. Hover your cursor over the light bulb to see some descriptive text.

The little yellow marker is shown to indicate that this tab has commentary associated with it.

1.4 Adjusting the layout

A number of functions are available to adjust the layout and view of the grids within the planning

tool.

Function Instructions and Result

Auto fit columns To adjust the display of columns to fit the content,

simply click on the grid and press the “Enter” key. This

will expand the columns to show the full content

(content may initially be displayed as ####### if the

column is not wide enough)

Suppress Zeros From the View menu, choose “Zero Suppression” and

then the option for Page, Row or Column (row is likely

to be the most useful to you – any row without values

will be removed from display). This will give you a

clearer view of the data entered. Alternatively click on

the button on the toolbar.

To cancel this option, simply choose the same menu

option again.

Freeze Panes Click into a cell, then choose the View menu, and the

Freeze Panes option – the panes will be frozen from

above and to the left of the selected cell.


option again.

Sort Data To sort the data by a particular column, right click on

the required column heading and choose Sort from

the menu – you can choose ascending or descending.



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Hide Column To remove a particular column from the display, right

click on the column heading and choose “Hide

Selected” from the menu.

To restore the column again, right click on any column

heading and choose “Show all hidden” from the

menu.

Enter/view data for a different budget unit Switch to a different budget unit (within the same

College or Service) by clicking on the arrow symbol

next to the budget unit button, and choosing the

required budget unit from the drop down list.

1.5 Changing Tab Order

If there are tabs which you do not use very often within a module, you can change the order in

which tabs appear (so the less commonly used ones are at the end), or minimise unused tabs to the

bottom of the screen (see the Splitting the Screen section for more details of this option).

Within a plan module, to change the order of the tabs, simply click on the tab which you wish to

move, and drag it to the position in the tab order which you want to place it. As you drag the tab,

the cursor will be displayed as three white folders.

Let go of the mouse button when you have placed the cursor in the required position, and the order

of the tabs will be changed.

1.6 Splitting the Screen

As well as amending the tab order, you can also split your screen, to show more than one tab at a

time. This can be useful for:

Comparing information across 2 tabs within the same plan

Minimising tabs you do not wish to view

To split the screen, simply click on the tab, and drag it to the side of the screen (to split the screen

vertically); or to the top or bottom of the screen (to split the screen horizontally). Let go of the



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mouse button once the cursor turns to a black arrow. This will move the selected tab to the top,

bottom or side of the screen.

Note in the screenshot above, the selected tab has now been split to the right hand side of the

screen.

You can minimise one of the split windows by clicking on the – symbol (and restore it again by

clicking on the restore symbol (as shown below).

Note, that you can move additional tabs to the same split window by dragging them in the same

way.

2. Navigation Tips and Things to note when using Cognos planning tools

The Cognos planning tool is similar to Excel, and shares some features with Excel. However it is

important to remember that it is not Excel and does not always work in the same way. This section

describes some hints and tips for using Cognos effectively.

What do I need to be aware of? What happens?

Always check that the value you have entered

into a cell has been accepted.

If you type a value into a cell, and that value is

not a permitted value for that particular cell, you

will not be shown a warning message. The

system will simply remove your entry and

restore the original value.

When you want to delete an entry from a cell,

sometimes the Backspace key will not work

When data has not yet been saved (text is blue

or green), it can only be deleted using the

“Delete” key.

When data has been saved (text is black), it can

be deleted using the “Delete” key or the



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“Backspace” key.

When you sort data in “ascending” order, any

blank rows will appear at the top of the list.

To get around this either:

1. Sort in descending order (which pushes

the blank rows to the end of the list)

2. Use the Zero Suppression function to

remove the blank rows from the display.

If you use the planning tool shortcuts to copy

values across multiple columns, you may

experience some of your data being overwritten

The > symbol can be used to copy a value from a

cell into all the cells to the right of it. If you have

already entered some data into those cells, be

aware that the data will be overwritten by the

copy function.

If you think you have lost data, check you have

the right parameters selected.

The context or dimension bar at the top of the

planning screen allows you to choose which slice

of the data you want to look at, e.g. by choosing

a budget unit. When you switch to another tab

within the planning module, you may need to

reselect the budget unit.

When you have selected a value from a drop

down list, you cannot use the arrow keys on your

keyboard to proceed to the next cell.

Once you have selected a value in a drop down

list (noting that you can use the arrow keys to

move up and down within the list), you need to

either click into the next cell, or press the Tab

key on the keyboard to select the value and

move to the next cell.

Note that you can also press Enter to select a

value, but this will prompt the system to run

calculations based on your entries. Using the Tab

key will be quicker.

If the application hangs, sometimes it can be kick

started again.

If Cognos seems to hang, rather than just waiting

for the issue to resolve itself, sometimes it is

possible to get the system working again, simply

by clicking somewhere on the screen.

On rare occasions you may experience Cognos The application stops working and you may be



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crashing whilst you are working on a plan. displayed an error message.

If this happens to you more than once, check the

amount of memory on your computer and

consider upgrading:

1. On your desktop, right click on the “My Computer” icon

2. Choose “Properties” from the pop up menu 3. On the “General” tab, under the “Computer”

section, check the value of the RAM

It may be possible to increase the RAM up to

4GB, but this does involve a cost. Contact the

helpdesk for more details.



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3. Annotating Plans and Adding Attachments

The data within the constituent elements of the plan can be annotated, or documents attached to help explain

the plan to anyone reviewing it. The process is the same no matter which plan you are working with. You can

add comments, file attachments, or both, using the “Add Commentary” function.

2.1 Functionality step‐by‐step: How to annotate a plan

1. Access the plan that you wish to annotate.

2. Choose the level at which you want to annotate or add documentation – to a particular cell, the tab, or to

the plan as a whole.

a) To annotate a cell: Right click on the cell you want to annotate or append a document to. Choose

the ‘Add commentary’ option from the menu, or click on the add commentary icon ( ) on the

tool bar at the top.

b) To annotate the tab: Click on the arrow next add commentary icon ( ) on the tool bar at the

top. Choose “Tab” from the list.

c) To annotate the entire plan: Click on the arrow next add commentary icon ( ) on the tool bar

at the top. Choose “Model” from the list.

3. In the pop‐up box, add text and/or attach a document (by browsing for the Source file).

Note: If you are attaching a document to your plan, please ensure the document is both saved and

closed before you try to attach it.



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1 Click ‘Ok’ to save – if the comment/document is attached to a cell, a red triangle will now be displayed in

the right hand corner of the cell after you click away from the cell. If the comment/document relates to a

tab, a small indicator will be shown on the tab ( ).

2 You can browse all comments and documents by clicking on the ‘Browse Commentary and Documents’

button in the toolbar ( ). This will open the Commentary Browser window – click on individual entries in

the list to view the comments.

3 Close the Commentary Browser window then click on the save icon in the top left hand navigation ( ) to

save any changes. It is now possible to exit the tool and return to these annotations at a later stage.



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2.2 Functionality step‐by‐step: How to delete an annotation

1 Access the plan that you wish to delete an annotation (comment or attachment) from.

2 Right click on the grid, and choose “Browse Commentary” from the pop up menu, or select the “View”

menu, then the “Browse Commentary and Documents” option.

3 Click on the required annotation in the grid. If you are permitted to delete the annotation, the Delete

button will be activated – click the button to delete the comment. Then Close the pop up window.

Note: You can only delete your own annotations, not those entered by other users. Annotations can only

be deleted up until the point that the plan is “Submitted” (this is relevant to the Consolidated Plan, which

is submitted for inclusion in the Institutional level plan.

4. Changing the way data is displayed

When you have entered your plan data, you may want to view it slightly differently. This section gives brief

instructions for the various options available.


Suppress Zeros From the View menu, choose “Zero Suppression” and

then the option for Page, Row or Column (row is likely

to be the most useful to you – any row without values

will be removed from display). This will give you a

clearer view of the data entered. Alternatively click on



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the button on the toolbar.


option again.

Freeze Panes Click into a cell, then choose the View menu, and the

Freeze Panes option – the panes will be frozen from

above and to the left of the selected cell.


option again.

Sort Data To sort the data by a particular column, right click on

the required column heading and choose Sort from

the menu – you can choose ascending or descending.

Hide Column To remove a particular column from the display, right

click on the column heading and choose “Hide

Selected” from the menu.

To restore the column again, right click on any column

heading and choose “Show all hidden” from the

menu.

Enter/view data for a different budget unit Switch to a different budget unit (within the same

College or Service) by clicking on the arrow symbol

next to the budget unit button, and choosing the

required budget unit from the drop down list.

Additionally, you can also pivot the data within the input and summary tabs.


Pivot data You can pivot the data, changing the layout. To add a context to the grid, click on the 3 dots in

the bar next to the context, and;

drag it onto the grid as a row or column

or, drag it into either the rows or columns area within the context bar (placing the

blocks in the required order.



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The layout will be adjusted to include the additional data.

To remove a context from the grid, click on the bar (for either the row or column) for it, and drag

it up to the context area at the top of the screen.

Alternatively, drag the block back out of the Rows or Columns area into the Context area.

Or, you can also select View > Reset Views from the menu.



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5. Exporting data from plans into Excel

This section explains how to export data from the one of your plans to Excel. You can export data to Excel to

take advantage of Excel functionality to manipulate your plan data.

There are different options available to you for exporting data to Excel – a quick export, which takes a

snapshot of the current view on screen and exports that to Excel; or the 'To excel' export allows for the

creation of 'saved selections' which allow you to change the structure of the data in one or more tabs and/or

split data from a dimension of one tab out over several sheets in Excel.

The process to be followed is the same regardless of which plan (Non Pay, Staffing, Research, Teaching or

Consolidated) you are using.

3.1 Functionality – Step‐by‐step: How to do a “quick export” of data to Excel

1. Navigate to the required plan within Cognos, and select the tab and view of the data that you wish to

export.

2. Select File, then Export and choose Quick Export.

3. The data will be exported to a new Excel file.

3.2 Functionality – Step‐by‐step: How to export from a plan to Excel

1. Navigate to the required plan.

2. Select File, then Export, then choose To Excel.



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3. A new window should now open, showing two tabs:

a) Saved Selections: These are sets of data which you have previously saved and exported to generate an

Excel extract. You can create new selections, or re‐run existing selections, to populate the Excel extract

with up to date data from the Plan.

b) Reports are saved selections that have already been run. You can create a new report (by choosing the

import function, and importing an Excel file previously generated from a selection). Reports are not

covered further in this handbook.



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4. Click “New” to create a new selection, or click on an existing selection and click the “Edit button” to

update it. Complete the following information for your selection:

a. Name: Give your selection a name (an identifier)

b. Enter a description of your selection (to help you understand it)

c. From the “Available” list, click on the items you want to include in your export, and using the

arrow keys, move the required options into the “Included” list.

d. Click “Next” to continue.



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e. Continue to select the data elements you want to include in your Excel export. Click on items in

the list on the left hand side to see what calculations, or detailed data items will be included. If

you don’t want a particular piece of information included, click on the item in the “Included” list,

and use the arrow buttons to move it into the “Available” list.

f. Click “Next” to continue.

g. You will now be shown details of what will be exported, including how many worksheets will be

generated. You can change the order of the rows and columns, by clicking on an item and using

the up/down arrow buttons to change the order.



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5. Run Selection – once you have created/edited your selection, click on it to select it, and click the “Run”

button. This will generated the Excel file with current data from the plan.



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6. Planning Tool Shortcuts

This list of shortcuts has been taken from the Cognos user guide. All of these functions should work when

entering data into your financial plan.

6.3. Quick Data Entry Commands

Typing a data entry command in a cell performs an action on the cell value. Data entry commands are

processed when you press Enter and only apply to the current grid.

These commands are not case sensitive.

You can use commands across two dimensions, but not across pages.

Command Description Action

K Enters the value in thousands. Example: 5K

Enters 5,000

M Enters the value in millions. Example: 10M

Enters 10,000,000

Add, + Adds a number to the cell value.

Subtract, Sub Subtracts a number from the cell value.

Important: A minus sign (-) is not permitted for subtract because this indicates a negative number.

Example: sub8

Subtracts 8 from the cell value

Multiply, Mul, * Multiplies the cell value by a number. Example: mul3

Multiplies the cell value by 3

Percent, per, % Multiplies the cell value by a number added as a percentage.

Note that this is not a compound increase.

Example: per5

Gives 5% of the original cell value

Increase, Inc Increases the cell value by a number added as a percentage.

Decrease, Dec Decreases the cell value by a number added as a percentage.

Example: decrease6

Decreases the cell value by 6%



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Power, Pow Takes the cell value to the number added as an exponent.

Example: Pow10

Raises the value to the power of 10

Grow Compound, Grow Linear, GroCom, GroLin, GC, GL

Grows cells by a percentage. Only valid in time dimensions, where each period increases either linearly, or as a compound value.

Important: Insert the numeric value between the Grow and Linear/Compound command, such as Gro10Com, G40L.

Example: G10L

Increases the value by 10 percent of the original value each period.

Divide, Div, / Divides the cell value by the number added. Example: Div1.1

Divides cell value by 1.1

Reset, Res Resets selected cell values to the last saved version.

Zero, Zer Makes the cell value a zero.

Round, Rou Rounds cells to the appropriate level based on input.

Example: Round100

Rounds all cells to the nearest 100, where 5,475 becomes 5,500

Hold, Hol Holds the cell value from breakback calculations.

Release, Rel Releases held cells.

6.4. Copy and Paste Tools

Copy commands copy a value or operation to the left, right, above, or below rows and columns on a single tab. Copy commands perform an action on cells of the same type as the one they were entered in and only apply to the current grid. These commands apply to breakback cells, but do not apply to nested, hidden, or collapsed dimensions. If you try to use one of these tools and it does not work, it indicates that you are within a nested table of cells.

You can combine copy and data entry commands, although you should not use them with the Grow command.

Note that it is not possible to copy across “nested” columns. An example of this is in the Research Module, Success factors tab, where you will not be able to copy values across a row using the > function. In these circumstances you can use standard copy and paste functionality.



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> Copies right Example: 5>

Copies the number 5 to the right

Example: inc6>

Increases the row by 6% for each value to the right

< Copies left Example: add15<

Adds 15 to each value in the row to the left

| Copies down Example: 3|

Copies 3 down the column

Example: reset|

Resets the cells down the column to the last saved value

^ Copies up Example: hold^

Holds the cell values up the column

Example: 2>^

Copies 2 to the right and up the column

: Copy stopper Used in conjunction with a copy command to stop copying beyond the cell

Additionally you can also use standard copy and paste functionality to paste the same value into a number of cells within your plan.



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7. Cognos Jargon Buster

7.1 Cognos Terminology

The following terms are used within the Cognos planning and BI tool.

Cognos IBM software used for BI/Business Planning

Cognos Connection This is the portal through which users will access the Cognos software

Model The model is the complete “solution” for financial planning

Module

The financial planning model is made up of constituent elements called modules. The initial financial planning has 5 modules – teaching, staffing, research, non-pay (including other income and transfers) and a consolidation module.

Tabs Within each module the user will see a number of tabs – these are similar to the tabs or sheets in an Excel workbook. They are visible towards the top of the screen and the user moves around the module by clicking on the different tabs. A tab may incorporate data input, calculations or summary data.

A tab may also be referred to as a “cube”.

Dimensions

The number of dimensions in a tab or cube determines the way in which the data can be orientated. Examples of dimensions are budget units, financial years, income and expenditure categories and the organisation hierarchy.

Mappings Dimensions may need to be mapped or allocated to each other to allow summarising of data captured at a lower level e.g. budget units are mapped to the organisational hierarchy, subjective (SUBJ1) codes are mapped to the Chart of Accounts, inflation rate categories are mapped to different rows in the Chart of Accounts list

Contributor A contributor is a user who inputs data to the different modules.

Reviewer A reviewer is a user who reviews the plan once it has been submitted by the contributor.



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7.2 Financial Planning Terminology

ACT1/ACT2 The 2nd and optional 8th 'activity' segments of the University's Aptos general ledger codes denoting the activity behind the income/expenditure

Aptos The University's finance software

ASNs Additional Student Numbers

COA Chart of Accounts - the account headings used in the Cognos Financial Planning software

CBS Centrally Bookable Space

DVC Deputy Vice Chancellor

FAS Full Time Abroad Study

FAW Full Time Abroad Working

FEC Full Ecomonic Costing

FIP Full Time Industrial Placement

FT Full Time

FTE Full Time Equivalent

HEFCE Higher Education Funding Council for England

IDM Income Distribution Model

NRS Non Recharged Space

PAC The University's research project management software

PG Postgraduate

PGCE Postgraduate Certificate of Education

PGR Postgraduate Research

PGT Postgraduate Taught

PSC Professional Services Charge (including both SDF and NRS charges)

PT Part Time

QR Quality Research



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RAE Research Assessment Exercise

RAS Research Activity Survey

RDP Research Degree Programme

REF Research Excellence Framework

SDF Strategic Development Fund

SITS The University's student management software

SRIF Scientific Research Investment Fund

SUBJ1 & SUBJ2 The 4th and 5th 'subjective' segments of the University's Aptos general ledger codes denoting what the income/expenditure relates to

TDA Training and Development Agency for Schools

TRAC Transparent Approach to Costing

UG Undergraduate

WP Widening Participation