version · identify the segment number to gl wand by selecting the relevant segment from the...
TRANSCRIPT
Version 405
1
GL Wand Installation amp User Guide
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Excel4Apps (Pty) Ltd
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All rights reserved
24
Using GL Wand
Toolbar
The GL Wand toolbar gives you access to all the functionality of GL Wand
The Menu
Functions can also be accessed from the GL Wand drop down menu
Shortcut keys
Frequently used functions like calculate Range calculate Sheet and calculate All can also be
executed with ALT+CTL+R ALT+CTL+S and ALT+CTL+A
Logging on
- Not logged on click to log on
- Logged on click to log on again
25
The first step in using GL Wand is to log on to the Oracle instance that you intend using
You can log on to the online Vision instance or you can log on to your own Oracle Applications instance
See also the Creating Connections section
There are two possible logon methods that GL Wand can use The method is determined by
a setting on the GL Wand Options form The method can be ldquoOraclerdquo or ldquoExcelrdquo It is also
possible to access your segment values descriptive flexfields by enabling the option during the logon
Oracle Logon Method
The ldquoOraclerdquo option is the new logon method which utilizes the Oracle web based screen to
capture your user name and password This method is also compliant with Oracle Single Sign
On When you click the sign on button you are presented with the screen below where you
select which Oracle connection you wish to use
When you click the logon button the Oracle log on screen will appear Enter your applications user name and password
26
When you click Login on this web browser the window will close and you will be presented
with a list of responsibilities that are linked to your user name You will see one of the two
windows displayed below If your site is licensed to use the GL Wand Multiple Sets of Books
feature you will see the image on the right Else the screen will appear like the image on the
left Trial users using an in-house trial key will by default have access to the Multiple Set of Books (MSOB) feature
Select the responsibility that you wish to use and click ok If you are licensed to use the GL
Wand MSOB feature you can select multiple responsibilities Click an item to select it and click it again to unselect it
If you are licensed to use the MSOB feature you also have the option of logging on to all the
available sets of books This option must be enabled by setting the applicable profile option
27
at user level With the profile option set to yes for a particular user that user will have an
extra item in the list of available responsibilities This ldquoAll Sets of Booksrdquo option allows a user
to log on to all the sets of books configured in the Oracle instance without needing to select
multiple responsibilities
Please note that when logging on with the ldquoAll Sets of Booksrdquo option no security rules are
enforced For this reason you must enable this option for those GL Wand users that are
authorized to report across all the configured sets of books By default this options is
disabled for all users
If you log on to an Oracle Release 12 instance and the data access set linked to the chosen
responsibility contains more than one ledger or ledger set you will be logged on to all the applicable ledgers
Excel Logon Method
The ldquoExcelrdquo logon method is the same mechanism that was used in previous GL Wand
versions This method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function
correctly Again there are two possible windows that you will be presented with depending in whether you are licensed to use the GL Wand Multiple Sets of Books feature
28
Descriptive Flexfields
If you wish to report on segment value descriptive flexfields tick this option on the logon
form This will load the descriptive flexfield information This option is by default un-ticked as loading this information unnecessarily would slow down the logon process
Proxy Authentication
If you are connecting to an Oracle instance on the Internet and your organization uses a
proxy server that requires authentication to access the Internet (in addition to the domain
logon) GL Wand will prompt you for your proxy user name and password if required
29
Enter the required user name and password and click OK Then click the logon button again
License Key
If you have not yet obtained a trial license key for the instance that you are logging on to
you will prompted with the option to request a key Click ldquoYesrdquo to open a web page where you can request a trial key or ldquoNordquo to continue without requesting a key
Customers that have licensed GL Wand will use this exact same process to request the final non-expiring keys
Set of Books and Segment Selector
- Set of Books and Segment selector
Once you have logged on the set of books and segment list dropdowns will be populated
Set of Books
The set of books drop down list can be used to select the set of books that you wish to work
with If you log on to a single set of books this dropdown list will contain a single value only
However if you are licensed to use the GL Wand Multiple Sets of Books feature or are in trial then this list will contain multiple values in the following situations
If you selected multiple responsibilities during the logon process all the sets of books
linked to those responsibilities will be listed
If you selected the special ldquoAll Sets of Booksrdquo option all the sets of books configured
in the Oracle instance will be listed
If you log on to an Oracle Release 12 instance and the data access set linked to the
chosen responsibility contains more than one ledger or ledger set then each of these ledgers will be listed
The number in brackets () indicates the Set of Books identifier This number can be used in
various GL Wand formulas and other functionality in order to obtain information from a specific Set of Books
Segments
This dropdown list will be populated with a list of the segments that are available in the
currently selected Set of Books The number in brackets indicates the segment number The
segment list also includes the special value ldquoPeriodrdquo which is used for discovering the period
names in your set of books
In the example shown the selected segment is ldquoCompanyrdquo and it is identified as segment 1 Certain dynamic functions require the segment number as an input parameter
Discovering
The discover tools allow you to extract segment information from the Oracle Applications
database and populate Excel cells with this information You can use the discover tools to
30
extract segment values segment properties periods or child ranges or the full segment
hierarchy For segment values you can use the discover level to choose whether to retrieve child values parent values or both
Discover Segment Values
- Discover Down
- Discover Down All
- Discover Up
1 Select a cell and enter a valid starting segment value eg ldquo1000rdquo into the cell
2 Choose the relevant segment from the segment list eg ldquoAccountrdquo
3 Now click the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button
GL Wand finds the next valid account segment value after account ldquo1000rdquo and enters this value in the cell below the one that you started in
In the same way you can click the up arrow and the previous segment value will be entered
in the cell above the one that you started in
- Discover Left
- Discover Right
31
- Discover Right All
The left and right arrows work in a similar manner retrieving the next and previous segment
values but they populate the cells to the left and right of the cell that you start in When
discovering segment values you will notice that some of the values are entered with a bold
font This is because these have been identified as parent values
You do not need to discover segment values one at a time
You can enter a starting segment value choose the segment from the segment list
and then highlight a range of cells
When you click one of the discover buttons now GL Wand fills the selected range
with the next or previous segment values depending on which arrow you click on
The Discover Down All and Discover Right All buttons can be used to retrieve all the segment values in one operation
Discover Period Names
You can discover period names in much the same way that you can discover segment
values
1 Select a cell and enter a valid starting period name eg Jan-03 into the cell
NB ndash make sure that you enter this starting period name as text by first formatting the Excel
cell as text or entering the period name prefixed by an apostrophe bdquo eg bdquoJan-03 If Excel
interprets the value entered as an actual date eg 01012003 then discover period names
will not work
2 Choose the special ldquoPeriodrdquo value from the segment list
3 Now click the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button
32
GL Wand finds the next period name after Jan-07 in the Set of Books calendar and enters this value in the cell below the one that you started in
You can also use the ldquoDiscover Down Allrdquo ldquoDiscover Previousrdquo ldquoDiscover Rightrdquo ldquoDiscover Right Allrdquo and ldquoDiscover Leftrdquo buttons to discover period names
Discover Properties
- Discover segment properties
The ldquoDiscover Propertiesrdquo button will extract a variety of information about the selected segment value
To use this function
1 Select a cell(s) with a valid segment value in it
2 Make sure the correct segment is selected in the segment selector
3 Click the Discover Properties button
The cells to the right of the selected cell are populated with segment information
The first cell indicates the segment description the second cell indicates if the value is a
parent or not (Y means the segment value is a parent) the third cell indicates if the segment
value is enabled or not (Y means that the segment value is enabled) and the fourth cell
indicates what account type the segment value is eg Asset or Liability etc Obviously the forth cell is only valid for the natural account segment
33
Discover Child Ranges
- Discover child ranges
The ldquoDiscover Child Rangesrdquo button can be used to show the child values that are assigned to a particular parent value
1 Select a cell that has a parent segment value
2 Identify its segment number to the GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the segment list dropdown
3 Now click on the ldquoDiscover Child Rangesrdquo button
An Excel note is added to the cell showing the ranges that have been assigned to the selected parent This is useful for understanding and exploring your Chart of Accounts
Discover Hierarchy
To discover the hierarchy for a segment proceed as follows
Enter the starting segment value into an Excel cell This value must be a parent for
the segment you are using
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
Select ldquoDiscover Hierarchyrdquo from the Discover menu
GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy for the selected parent and display it in the
Excel worksheet indenting the various levels in the hierarchy
34
Toggle Discover Level
- Toggle discover level
The ldquoDiscover levelrdquo button is used to restrict the segment values that are returned by the discover tools to parent values only child values only or both parent and child values
When you click on this button it toggles from discovering parents and children to discovering parents only to discovering child values only
For example
1 Select a cell and enter a starting segment value
2 Choose the segment from the segment list
3 Click the discover level until the option is set to ldquoDiscovering Parentsrdquo 4 Now highlight a range of cells and click the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button
GL Wand fills the selected range with the next segment values but skips all child values and
returns only parent values Similarly child values can be discovered by toggling the discover level to ldquoDiscovering childrenrdquo
If you want to discover both parent and children toggle the discover level back to
ldquoDiscovering parents and childrenrdquo
All segment values must be entered using the Excel text format Either format the cell using
the text number format or enter the cell value using the apostrophe bdquo character which marks
the contents of the cell as text eg if you want to enter the segment value 001 enter it as
follows bdquo001
Expand
- Expand
You can perform an expand down to the lowest level children (explained below) or you can expand using the hierarchy going down one level or expanding the full hierarchy
The Expand feature allows you to extract a list of all the lowest level child values that roll up
to a particular segment selection This might be a parent value range wild card or a
combination of these options
1 Select a cell that has a segment selection eg a parent value
2 Identify its segment number to the GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
3 Click the expand button 4 The child values are retrieved from Oracle and are inserted below the selected cell
35
You can also highlight a number of columns and GL Wand will insert the child values and copy the contents of the highlighted cells against each child value that is inserted
1 Select a cell that has a segment selection and highlight the number of columns that you
would like to have copied into the new rows
2 Identify its segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
3 Click the expand button
4 The child values are retrieved from Oracle and are inserted below the selected cell
5 The contents of the additional columns that were selected are copied against each new
row inserted In the example below this contains a generic Get Balance formula which is then resolved for each child value
You also have the option of selecting multiple rows when performing an Expand GL Wand will perform an expand on each selected row
The expand feature can also be used with account combinations Please see the Special Get
Balance Criteria section for details on how this works
Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Expand feature except that it will
expand using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the values one level down the hierarchy and list them below the starting cell
Expand Hierarchy (Full)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Expand feature except that it will
expand using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy and list all the values below the starting cell indenting the various levels in the hierarchy
36
Undo Expand
- Undo Expand
The expand operation inserts rows into the worksheet to allow the child data to be
populated If you would like to quickly remove the expand data click the undo expand button GL Wand will remove the inserted data from the most recent expand operation
Please note that the expand operation formats the inserted rows in a particular way eg the
segment values are indented The undo expand operation relies on this formatting in order
to process correctly If you modify the formatting of the expanded rows the undo expand
may not function correctly
Refresh Expand
- Refresh Expand
The expand operation fetches the child data that meets the criteria that you enter and
inserts it into new rows in the workbook This data may change over time eg you may
expand a parent value and over time the definition of that parent is modified Use the refresh expand button to retrieve the most recent data from Oracle as follows
Highlight the entire range of expanded data
This must include the criteria row that drives the expand operation eg the row
containing the parent value
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
Click the refresh expand button
GL Wand will remove the old expand data and will refresh the expand with the latest information
Please note that the expand operation formats the inserted rows in a particular way eg the
segment values are indented The refresh expand operation relies on this formatting in order
to process correctly If you modify the formatting of the expanded rows the refresh expand
may not function correctly
Explode Report
- Explode report
You can perform an explode down to the lowest level children (explained below) or you can explode using the hierarchy going down one level or expanding the full hierarchy
Explode report works in a similar way to the expand feature The difference is that where
expand inserts a new row in the worksheet for each child value found explode creates a new worksheet in the current workbook for each child value found For example
Start with a complete GL Wand report
Select the cell in the report that drive the Get Balance formulas eg a department
parent value in the report header
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
37
Click the explode report button
GL Wand will duplicate the worksheet for each child value found for the selected parent
Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Explode feature except that it will
Explode using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the values one level down the hierarchy and create a new worksheet for each value
Explode Hierarchy (Full)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Explode feature except that it will
Explode using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy and create a new worksheet for
each value
Open List of Values
- Open list of values
The segment list of values form can be used to search through the segment values and
descriptions for a specific segment First pick the segment from the segment list
dropdown and then click the segment list of values button The list of values for the chosen
segment is displayed
You can enter a value to search for in the find box The list of values will be filtered to show
only items that match the text entered in the find box The text entered in the find box is
38
compared to the segment value and segment description An item will be included in the results if either field contains the text entered in the find box
In the list section you can start entering a segment value (eg Account number) and the list will scroll to the item matching the values that you have entered
Click the ldquoAddrdquo button double click an item in the list or press enter to add the current item
to the selection list on the right You can also click and drag an item to add it to the selection list
39
If you want to add a range like ldquo1000-2000rdquo do the following
Start by adding the ldquo1000rdquo value using one of the options explained above
Then find the ldquo2000rdquo value in the master list
Ensure that the ldquo2000rdquo value is highlighted in the master list and the ldquo1000rdquo value is
highlighted in the selection list and click the ldquoAdd Rangerdquo button
You can also drag a value from the master list onto an existing value in the selection list to create a range
To remove an item from the selection list ensure that it is highlighted and then click the ldquoRemoverdquo button or press the ldquoDeleterdquo key
Every segment will have the additional value called ldquoAllrdquo Selecting this value will add a ldquordquo
to the parameter list which means ldquoAll valuesrdquo If ldquoAllrdquo is selected then all other selections will be removed and replaced with a
If you want to include certain values and exclude others you can use the ldquoAdd Excluderdquo
option This will add the highlighted value to the selection list prefixed by the reserved exclude character ldquo~rdquo
40
You can add any combination of the options mentioned above to produce your own
calculation
Once you have added all the required segment values to the selection list click ldquoOKrdquo to copy
the list to the clipboard You can then paste these values into a Get Balance function or
anywhere else on the Excel sheet
41
Create List of Values
- Create list of values
This feature can be used to quickly format a cell to be a special list of values cell There are
two types The first type inserts a drop down list of values in the cell and is used for balance
types translated flags and actual flags
The second type creates a link to the standard list of values form It is used for segment values periods and balance and encumbrance names
The cell is identified by a note containing the word ldquoLOVrdquo In order to open the list of values
simply double click the cell or select the cell and click the List of Values button on the
toolbar This will open the list of values form for the specific data type that the list of values cell was created for In the example this was the department segment
The checkbox allows you to link the list of values to a specific set of books This option is only applicable if you have the Multiple Sets of Books feature enabled
42
Functions
The GL Wand functions work in a similar way to any other Excel worksheet function You
provide the required parameters and the results of the function are returned to the Excel
cell The difference being that GL Wand functions retrieve information from your Oracle Applications system
GL Wand currently has the following functions
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value
- Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
43
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
Split Text
Combine Text
Functional Currency
Get Daily Rate
You can enter a function into an Excel cell in a number of ways
Click the applicable button on the GL Wand toolbar (or on the GL Wand menu)
Type the function name into the cell manually prefixed by an = sign
You can select the function from the list that Excel provides when you choose the
Insert Function menu item The GL Wand functions are listed under the special GL
Wand category (Prior to Excel 2007 they are listed in the User Defined category)
If you click the applicable function button on the toolbar and the cell you are in contains that
function the Excel formula wizard window will open If you click a function button in a cell
that contains other data GL Wand will warn you that it is going to replace the contents of the cell with the chosen formula and will give you the option of cancelling the action
All parameters must be entered as text values ie enclosed in double quotes eg enter
ldquoUSDrdquo when entering the currency code or enter ldquo001rdquo when entering a segment value
See ldquoDiscovering versus Functionsrdquo for a comparison extracting information using the
discover tools or the functions
44
Get Balance
The Get Balance function is probably the most important function in GL Wand It returns a
General Ledger balance individually or summed based on the parameters that you enter
Example =Get_Balance(Jan-02YTDUSDEABIS CORPORATE01T4000-41600000000)
Clicking the Get Balance function on the GL Wand toolbar will open the Get Balance Wizard
This form has lists of values for items like period name balance type actual flag etc Select
the applicable values and enter a valid currency code and budget or encumbrance name if required
Double clicking a segment value or clicking the list of values button next to the segment will
open the segment list of values form for that segment See the Segment List of Values
section for details on how to use this form When you click the ldquoOKrdquo button on the Segment
List of Values form the selected segment parameters are entered against that segment in the Get Balance Wizard form
If your Oracle configuration includes dependant segments as part of the accounting
flexfield this form will support selecting values based on the independent and dependant
segment values Simply select a value from the available list of values for the independent
segment Then open the list of values for the dependant segment The list of available values
will be limited to only those values that are related to the selected independent segment
value
When you have entered all the parameters click the ldquoOKrdquo button to insert the Get Balance
function into the selected cell with the entered parameters Clicking the ldquoEditrdquo button will
open the Get Balance function in the Excel formula wizard form which will allow you to link
parameters to cells in the Excel sheet
45
You can also open the Get Balance formula in the Excel formula wizard form using the fx
button on the formula bar or by selecting the ldquoInsert Functionrdquo menu item on the Excel menu bar
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Type ldquoCTDrdquo
(Custom to Date) you can specify a custom period selection For
example ldquoFeb-07-Aug-07rdquo will add all the movement for the entered
period range You may enter multiple lists or ranges of periods and can use wild cards as well eg ldquoJan-0rdquo or ldquo-07rdquo
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Types ldquoJEDrdquo
ldquoJEDUrdquo or ldquoJEDPrdquo (Journal Effective Date) the period parameter
becomes a date parameter eg ldquo01012007-0501200710012007rdquo
The format that your date is in is important The ldquo-ldquo character is
used in GL Wand to denote a range of values and therefore it cannot
be used as a date delimiter eg 01-01-2007 would not be valid So
take care if your Windows regional setting use the ldquo-ldquo as a date
delimiter For JED type calculations we recommend that you use the
ldquordquo as a date delimiter and that you always format the date as text
in Excel otherwise Excel will convert the date based on your regional
setting
Balance Type YTD QTD PTD PJTD CTD JED JEDP or JEDU all in upper case
YTD ndash Summarizes the full years balance
QTD ndash Summarizes the balance for the quarter
46
PTD ndash Includes just the current period‟s movement
PJTD ndash Project to date
CTD ndash Summarizes the custom period criteria entered
JED ndash Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for both posted and unposted journals
JEDP - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for posted journals only
JEDU - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered dates for unposted journals only
Currency Code The currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
Translated Flag Enter E T or C Use E to retrieve the entered amount and T for the
translated amount Use C to report on the converted amount ie
the functional currency equivalent of a foreign currency amount
Only E is valid if requesting a balance for the functional currency of the current Set of Books
You must ensure that you have run the currency translation process
in Oracle for the selected currency and period before reporting on
translated balances If you enter T to request the translated balance
and there is no current translated balance available in the system a zero is returned
Oracle Release 12 provides a new feature to allow reporting on the
values entered in the functional currency only ie excludes any
foreign currency transactions converted to the functional currency
Therefore in Release 12 if you use the E (entered) flag in
conjunction with the functional currency any converted amounts will
be excluded To report on the total balance (including values entered
in functional currency and values converted to the functional
currency) use the new ldquoTotalrdquo option This option is only available if
you log on to a release 12 Oracle instance
Actual Flag A ndash Actual B ndash Budget E ndash Encumbrance
Bud Encumb Name If you enter B or E above enter the exact budget name or
encumbrance type here Otherwise simply enter ldquordquo for actual
balances
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter the segment value here You must enter it as a text value
including any leading zeros eg enter segment value ldquo10rdquo as ldquo0010rdquo
if this segment is configured as four characters with leading zeros in Oracle
You may enter your segment values in a variety of flexible ways
including parents child values ranges wildcards excludes etc See
the explanation below on valid values for this parameter
To include all values simply enter ldquordquo Please note as from GL Wand
3850 you can no longer leave the segment blank a value is
required
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
47
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Options This parameter is used to modify the results returned by the Get
Balance function from the standard behavior Currently two options are supported
Source ndash Limit the results to a specific journal source
Category ndash Limit the results to a specific journal category
The criteria needs to be entered as follows - ldquoSource=Manualrdquo or
ldquoCategory=Adjustmentrdquo To specify both a source and category use
the ldquo|rdquo as a delimiter eg ldquoSource=Manual|Category=Adjustmentrdquo
You can specify multiple values by separating them with ldquordquo eg
ldquoSource=PayablesReceivablesrdquo
When creating Get Balance formulas always use ldquordquo to denote all values as this allows more
efficient SQL to be generated Do not use a range like ldquo000-ZZZrdquo as they will require
unnecessary processing
The segment value parameters can be entered as
a single value representing a child or parent account eg ldquo1500rdquo might represent a
parent account
a range of values eg entering ldquo1500-1600rdquo in one of the segment parameters will
sum all the segment values between 1500 and 1600 for that segment
a list of segment values eg entering ldquo150015101590rdquo in one of the segment
parameters will sum the specific segment values entered If any of the segment
values are parents GL Wand will sum the hierarchy for that parent
wild card entries eg 100 will sum 1100 1200 1300 1400 etc or entering the
value 1 will sum all values that start with 1
values to be included and then specific exclusions eg ldquo1000-2000~1500rdquo will sum
the values between 1000 and 2000 but will skip 1500
a combination of any of the above eg 1000-2000237123752560-
25803000~32004000~4161-4169 In this way you can build up your own calculation definition in the segment parameter
Please note ndash there are two additional methods for specifying segment criteria in the Get
Balance function The one allows you to specify account combinations and the other
allows the use of segment descriptive flexfields Please see the Special Get Balance
Criteria section in order to use these options
Segment Description
Returns the segment description for the chosen segment value
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
48
Example =Get_Segment_Description(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
Returns the next or previous segment value
Parameter Description
Last Value The starting segment value
Segment The segment number
Level Enter a P to return the next or previous parent value enter a C to
return the next or previous child value or leave the parameter blank
to return the next or previous segment value irrespective of whether
it is a parent or child
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example = Next_Segment_Value(ldquo1000rdquo3P)
Parent Flag
Returns the parent flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is a
parent
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Parent_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Enabled Flag
Returns the enabled flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is
enabled
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example = Enabled_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
49
Account Type
Returns the account type for the chosen segment value This function is only applicable for
the natural account segment and will return the value Asset Liability etc
Parameter Description
Account Value The account segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Account_Type(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Period Name
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number Optionally the returned value can be a certain number of periods into the future or past
Parameter Description
PeriodYear The year that you want the period name for
PeriodNumber The period number that you want the period name for
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Offset Optionally enter an offset to return the period name which is n
periods before or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3
periods into the future or -1 to return the previous period
Example =Period_Name(20063)
Set of Books Name
Returns the set of books name for the chosen set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Set_of_Books_Name()
Segment Descriptive Flexfield
Returns the segment values descriptive flexfield for the selected criteria
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
50
Segment The segment number
AttributeNo Identify which attribute you want to report on The segment values
descriptive flexfield has 50 possible attribute values The applicable
attributes will depend on your configuration and whether this
Descriptive Flexfield is used by your organization
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Segment_DFF(ldquo100rdquo25) retrieves the 5th attribute on the segment values
descriptive flexfield for segment value 100 on segment 2
Period Offset
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for
this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
Offset Enter an offset to return the period name which is n periods before
or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3 periods into the
future or -1 to return the previous period
RetRange Enter TRUE (or 1) to return the result as a range eg entering
period Mar-07 with an offset of -2 and the RetRange set to true will
return ldquoJan-07-Mar-07rdquo This can be used in conjunction with the
CTD (Custom to Date) balance type in the Get Balance function to
create rolling period reporting
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Period_Offset(Jan-07-2TRUE)
Split Text
Splits delimited text and returns a specific portion based on an offset Especially useful to
split account combinations but can be used to split any text
Parameter Description
Value Some text which has been concatenated using a delimiter eg an
account combination like ldquo011007000rdquo
Offset Identify which portion of the text to return
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Split_Text(0110070002) will return the ldquo100rdquo portion of the text
51
Combine Text
Combines selected text separated by a delimiter Especially useful to combine segment
values to create a delimited account combinations but can be used to combine any text
Parameter Description
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter segment values that you wish to combine into an account
combination
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Combine_Text(011007000) will return ldquo011007000rdquo
Functional Currency
Returns the functional currency for the set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Functional_Currency()
Get Daily Rate
Returns the daily exchange rate for the entered criteria
Parameter Description
FromCurrency The ldquoFromrdquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case
eg ldquoUSDrdquo
ToCurrency The ldquoTordquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
ConversionType The conversion type as configured in Oracle Spelling and case must
be identical to the Oracle configuration
ConversionDate The conversion date This must be in Excel date format Either refer
to a cell which contains a date or use one of the Excel date functions
to return a date in the parameter
Example =Get_Daily_Rate(USDGBPReportingDATE(200911))
Function return values
The GL Wand functions will return a variety of results depending on a number of factors If
all the information is entered correctly and there are no restrictions on access to the data or
the GL Wand itself the result should be the General Ledger balance segment value segment description etc However the following are also possible return values
glwDemo ndash this means that you are using GL Wand without a valid trial key entered
into the GL Wand License Key profile option When trying GL Wand without a valid
52
trial key you are only allowed to use the first 20 rows and 20 columns of the first
sheet in the workbook Any formula entered outside this range will not calculate a
value but will only return the word ldquoglwDemordquo This is called evaluation mode A
trial key needs to be requested from within GL Wand and entered into the profile
option to allow full access to all functionality
glwNoAccess ndash When you log on you will be prompted for your applications user name
and password and will then need to select a responsibility to log on to Any security
rules that have been linked to the selected responsibility will be enforced on the GL
Wand data If you attempt to access a balance on a general ledger account that you
do not have access to the function will return the word ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo Please see
the ldquoAudit Get Balancerdquo section for information on how to identify the security rule that is being contravened
Please note that Oracles Hierarchical Security is not supported
glwError ndash If you enter invalid information in a parameter for a GL Wand function the
GL Wand error value will be returned This may happen when you for example
enter an invalid budget name or period name in the Get Balance function or when you
enter an invalid segment number in the next segment value function This error value
will also be returned when you are not logged on The details of the return value will
indicate where the problem exists eg glwError (Logon) glwError (Balance Type)
glwError (Translated Flag) glwError (Actual Flag) glwError (Missing segment)
glwError (Data error) glwError (Range) glwError (Period)
glwPending ndash This value will be returned during the calculation process Whenever a
cell requires calculation and the process has not been completed yet the cell will
contain the value ldquoglwPendingrdquo
glwEditing ndash Displays in the Excel function arguments window when editing a Get Balance formula
Discovering versus Functions
You may have noticed that you can achieve similar results by using the discover tools and
using the functions For example you could use the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button to retrieve the
next segment value or you could use the ldquoNext Segment Valuerdquo function to return the same result The difference between these two approaches is as follows
Com
paris
on b
etw
een D
iscoverin
g a
nd
Functio
ns
Discovering Functions
Results returned as text string to Excel
cell
Value is calculated based on
parameters
Value is static Value is dynamic
Never changes Recalculated when sheet refreshed
Lower performance overhead Higher performance overhead
Discover Down Next Segment Value
Discover Up Previous Segment Value
Discover Left Next Segment Value
Discover Right Previous Segment Value
Discover Properties
Segment Description
Parent flag
53
Enabled Flag
Account Type
Discover Child Ranges No equivalent
Toggle Discover Level
Parameters of next segment value
determine whether parents children or
both are returned
Use the discover buttons with ldquoPeriodrdquo
selected in the segment drop down Period Name
Balance Extract is similar to Get
Balance though the static values it
produces are refreshable
Get Balance
Special Get Balance Criteria
GL Wand supports two special types of criteria in the Get Balance function namely ldquoAccount
Combinationsrdquo and ldquoSegment Descriptive Flexfieldrdquo criteria These two forms of the Get
Balance criteria have very specific syntax which must be carefully adhered to in order to
achieve the correct results You also have the ability to expand account combinations for a
selection that uses the ldquoAccount Combinationrdquo criteria
Account Combinations
In the past the Get Balance function only supported individual segment values eg segment
2 = 100 or 200 and segment 3 = 1000 or 2000 This would result in GL Wand returning all the possible combinations of those segment 2 and 3 values
Now you have the ability to specify account combinations using the new Get Balance syntax
This means that you can create new complex criteria for your Get Balance formula eg
(segment 2 = 100 and segment 3 = 1000) or (segment 2 = 200 and segment 3 = 2000)
With these criteria GL Wand will no longer return all the possible combinations but rather only the combinations you specify
In order to specify account combinations in a Get Balance function you must tell GL Wand
which segments you are combining You do this by entering a special value into the segment
eg if you want to combine criteria for segment 2 and segment 3 you would enter the
following in the parameter for segment 2 ldquoUse_Seg3rdquo This tells GL Wand that that it must
find the criteria for segment 2 inside the segment 3 parameter In the segment 3 parameter
you now enter the criteria for both segment 2 and segment 3 separated by the special
delimiter character eg ldquo1001000rdquo This tells GL Wand that you are looking for accounts where segment 2 is 100 and segment 3 is 1000 An example could look like this
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg3100100020020000000000)
It is possible to combine multiple segments as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg5Use_Seg5Use_Seg510010000000000)
54
You simply point each applicable segment to the parameter where the account combination
using the special ldquoUse_SegXrdquo syntax Then inside the target parameter you combine the fully qualified account combination for the applicable segments delimited with a ldquordquo character
When you specify your account combination you have full flexibility to use ranges lists wild
cards parents and exclude criteria For example this criteria will fetch all the values where
segment 2 is between 100 and 200 and segment 3 is between 1000 and 2000 And in
addition to that it will include the values where segment 2 is 250 (a parent) and segment 3
starts with 33 but will exclude the specific value where segment 2 is 250 and segment 3 is
3320
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA01Use_Seg31001000-200200025033~25033200000000)
You also have the flexibility to group different parts of the account combination together For
example this criteria combines the values for segment 1 and 3 together and combines segment 2 and 4 together
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA
Use_Seg3Use_Seg401100002115010000002001050000)
These new Get Balance syntax options provide you with tremendous flexibility when building your GL Wand reports
Expand Account Combinations
The expand feature allows you to extract all the detailed child segment values that roll up to
the criteria that the user specifies The expand feature has been extended to support account combinations
In order to expand an account combination you would do the following
Ensure that the correct set of books is selected in the drop down list on the GL Wand
toolbar
Select the cell containing the account combination criteria eg ldquo1007000rdquo Click the expand button
GL Wand will now identify that the selected cell contains an account combination rather than
a single segment value You will now be presented with a window to identify which segments from your chart of accounts are represented in the account combination
55
Select the correct segments and click ldquoOKrdquo GL Wand will now extract all the child
combinations that roll up to the criteria that you entered and insert them into the Excel sheet
The other options are as follows
Fix ndash if you tick this option for a segment GL Wand will ldquopegrdquo that segment using the
selected value (this option only makes sense for a parent segment value) You might
for example want to expand all the account combinations used in a particular parent
cost centre Simply ldquoFixrdquo the cost centre segment and GL Wand will return all the
account combinations used within that parent cost centre
Exclude disabled account combination ndash tick this option to only return account combinations that are currently enabled and have not been end dated
The expand account combinations feature can be used as a normal GL Wand ldquoExpandrdquo in
order to extract the detail behind a total but it is also very useful to extract existing account combinations from your Oracle system
This feature can be used very effectively with the Split Text and Combine Text functions
Segment Descriptive Flexfields
In order to extract balances using the descriptive flexfields stored on the segment values
you need to use special syntax in the Get Balance function The syntax works as follows
1ABC
You wrap the descriptive flexfield using curly brackets
The first character after the open bracket identifies which descriptive flexfield
attribute is being referred to
You then separate the descriptive flexfield attribute from the actual value using a ldquordquo You then specify the criteria for this attribute
An example Get Balance function would look as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC10000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield on segment 2 is equal to the value ldquoABCrdquo
It is possible to specify criteria for multiple descriptive flexfields as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC2XX10000000000)
Simply wrap each descriptive flexfield value in its own and identify the attribute number
At this stage the descriptive flexfield criteria is restricted to a single value or a single range
of values Lists of values and multiple ranges are not supported A range can be specified
using the special range delimiter ldquo|rdquo (pipe character) This character is different to the range
character that is used for normal Get Balance segment parameters The reason is that the
normal range delimiter ldquo-ldquo may easily be used in a segment descriptive flexfields and
therefore is not suitable In future you will be able to configure your own range delimiter
56
character which will provide the best flexibility The range criteria can be specified as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011100|20010000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield
on segment 2 is between 100 and 200 Date values are also supported in this criteria and GL Wand will correctly derive the ldquobetweenrdquo criteria for a date
Calculating
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what cells are refreshed from
Oracle They are used in conjunction with the GL Wand calculation option (onoff) You can stop a calculation at any time by clicking cancel
- Calculate Range (Alt+Ctl+R)
- Calculate Sheet (Alt+Ctl+S)
- Calculate All (Alt+Ctl+A)
- GL Wand calculation on
- GL Wand calculation off
Calculate Range Sheet or All
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what is recalculated
To calculate a range of cells simply
1 Highlight the range
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Rangerdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+R shortcut key
3 Select multiple ranges using the ctrl button (as normal in Excel)
4 Select a range and then select multiple Excel worksheets to calculate the same range on
each sheet
Please note do not use the calculate range option to recalculate the entire sheet ie by
selecting all the cells on the sheet This will take unnecessarily longer Rather use the
calculate sheet option
To calculate a sheet simply
1 Select the applicable sheet
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Sheetrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+S shortcut key
3 Selecting multiple sheets will calculate each of the selected sheets
To calculate all open workbooks simply
1 Click the ldquoCalculate Allrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+A shortcut key
57
GL Wand calculation on or off
You can use the GL Wand calculation toggle button to control when requests for calculations
are sent to the Oracle server
If you toggle GL Wand calculation ldquoOffrdquo calculation requests are not sent to the Oracle server which means you
you can manipulate a worksheet
change cell values
enter new formulae and
perform any other task that would normally cause Excel to recalculate
and the applicable functions will only return the ldquoglwPendingrdquo status and will not
actually calculate a result
This is useful during report development
To calculate the results simply click one of the three calculation buttons ldquoCalculate Range
Sheet or Allrdquo
If you leave the GL Wand calculation option ldquoOnrdquo the applicable functions will be recalculated whenever Excel initiates a calculation process eg
when changing the contents of the cell
changing one of the functions input values deleting a column or row in the worksheet etc
Please note that the GL Wand calculation option has nothing to do with Excel‟s automatic
and manual calculation The GL Wand calculation option controls only the calculation of the
applicable GL Wand functions All other calculations are controlled as normal by the Excel
automatic and manual calculation option
Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
When you perform a recalculation a window will appear to show the progress of the
calculation
58
If you would like to cancel the calculation process simply click the ldquoCancelrdquo button
Please note that GL Wand will need to wait for the next reply from Oracle before the
connection can be closed Therefore it may take some time before the calculation stops and
the window closes
Snapshot
- Snapshot
The snapshot tool can be used to take a snapshot of your GL Wand report This tool will
remove all the GL Wand functions from the workbook and will replace them with the values that the function returned
The results are similar to using the Excel ldquopaste valuesrdquo functionality However this process will only replace GL Wand formulas All other Excel formulas will be left as they were
Please note that you cannot take a snapshot of a protected worksheet rather output the
sheet to PDF format for archive and distribution purposes
When producing a snapshot GL Wand will request a name for the new workbook You can
select an existing workbook and GL Wand will give you the option to append the snapshot
results to the existing workbook or overwrite the existing workbook You therefore have the
option of producing various snapshot reports and combining them into one new workbook in a single operation rather than producing a separate workbook for each snapshot
Hide zeros
- Hide zeros in selected range
Select a report range that contains rows where all the numbers are zero Click the hide zeros
button and GL Wand will hide all the rows in the selected range where all the cells containing
numbers are zero This is very useful for formatting a report which includes many rows
where for example a number of accounts are not used in a particular cost centre or have no
59
balances in a certain period At the click of a button you can hide all the rows that contain only zeros
Select the entire report range when using the hide zeros function GL Wand checks the
selected range for zeros when determining which rows to hide
Excel automatically forces a recalculation of Get Balance formulas when you hide rows on a
report This is normal Excel functionality
This feature can be used on any Excel worksheet and is not limited to GL Wand reports
Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Undo the last hide zeros operation
Click this button to automatically undo the last hide zeros operation
Drill downs
- Drill to default Balance layout
- Drill to default Journal layout
- Drill to default Sub Ledger layout
The drill down options allow you to extract additional detail about a specific ldquoGet Balancerdquo function
1 Select a cell that contains a valid Get Balance function
2 Click on the drill to balance button
3 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
4 The criteria sheet will be populated with the criteria from the Get Balance function
5 The drill down to balance detail will be executed showing all the detailed accounts that make up the total in the Get Balance function
60
See the Create Drill Criteria Sheet section for more details and options on the drill down criteria sheet
Budget variance analysis If you select two cells on the GL Wand report eg one cell with
actual values and one with budget numbers GL Wand will perform a drill down on the Get
Balance function and display the actual and budget values next to each other and a
calculated variance
You now have a variety of options which can be performed from the drill down workbook
1 Modify the parameters on the criteria sheet and perform a new drill to balance Drop
down lists are provided for most of the parameters see the Create Drill Criteria Sheet for
more details
2 Create a summary drill down report
3 If you have performed a balance drill down you can select the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet and then
click drill down to journal details after selecting one or more rows with accounts
4 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo sheet and then click the button to drill down to the full journal
after selecting one or more rows with journal lines The full journal with all the contra
entries for the selected journal lines will be displayed
5 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo or ldquoJournal-Fullrdquo sheet and then click sub-ledger drill down after
selecting one or more rows with journal lines 6 Drill down to Global Consolidation System transactions
When drilling down you have the following options
Double click any cell on the row that you wish to drill down on
61
Select any cell in the row that you want to drill down on and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar
Highlight a range of rows and click the applicable drill down button on the GL Wand
toolbar to drill down on multiple lines at once
Highlight non contiguous rows using the ldquoCtrlrdquo button and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar to drill down on multiple lines which are not adjacent to each other
It is possible to drill from a Get Balance formula directly to the journal or sub ledger
information Similarly you can drill from a detailed balance (on the Balance worksheet)
directly to the sub ledger information If you select these options GL Wand will execute the
interim drill steps automatically Be careful when performing a drill down directly to the
journal or sub ledger detail level as these drill down operations may return many records
GL Wand will automatically group the drill down to journals and sub ledger information using
Excel‟s group and outline functionality This will allow you expand and collapse the data to
show just a portion of the report Headings are also inserted on the journal and sub-ledger drill down to make the report easier to read
On the sub-ledger drill down the heading includes a number in brackets eg ldquo(23) Journal
Name 123rdquo The number indicates which Excel row these sub-ledger lines originated from on
the ldquoJournalsrdquo sheet
You can use the remove drill down report headings button to strip out the headings on
the journal and sub-ledger drill down sheets
A couple of important things to note about drill downs
GL Wand will first count the number of rows that will be retrieved by the drill down
operation
If the row count is more than 1000 you will receive a warning message asking you if
you want to continue
If the row count is more than the defined limit (see Query Limit) you will receive a
warning and the drill down will be cancelled
If the row count is more than the number of rows available in your version of Excel
you will receive an error and the drill down will be cancelled
When you drill down to journal details the ldquoBalance Typerdquo parameter controls how
much detail is returned If this parameter is ldquoPTDrdquo only the current period‟s journals
are returned If this parameter is ldquoYTDrdquo then all the journals for the year are returned and likewise ldquoQTDrdquo will show the journal for the quarter
Ensure that the worksheet is calculated before performing any drill down functions Also
ensure that the cell contains a ldquoGet Balancerdquo function with valid parameter information
A new drill down workbook will be created each time you perform a drill down operation from
a Get Balance function Once you are finished with a drill down workbook simply close it
without saving
You cannot drill down to journal detail on translated balances
Oracle Global Consolidation System
Drill down to Oracle Global Consolidation System (GCS) transactions is also supported
These items will appear on the journal drill down report with a source and category of
62
ldquoConsolidationrdquo If you execute a normal drill down to Sub Ledger on these transactions a
new GL Wand drill workbook will be created and the drill down to the subsidiary set of books will be executed
In order to drill down on a GCS transaction you must be logged on the parent as well as the
subsidiary set of books This can be done using the Multiple Sets of Books logon option
Summary Balance Drill Down
On the drill down Criteria sheet toggle the summarization option to ldquoYrdquo for any segment that
you which to summaries by GL Wand creates a summary trial balance report and
summarizes by the selected segments The report can still be expanded to show the detailed
lines and you can still drill down to journals from these lines
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
1
GL Wand Installation amp User Guide
wwwexcel4appscom
Excel4Apps (Pty) Ltd
supportexcel4appscom
All rights reserved
24
Using GL Wand
Toolbar
The GL Wand toolbar gives you access to all the functionality of GL Wand
The Menu
Functions can also be accessed from the GL Wand drop down menu
Shortcut keys
Frequently used functions like calculate Range calculate Sheet and calculate All can also be
executed with ALT+CTL+R ALT+CTL+S and ALT+CTL+A
Logging on
- Not logged on click to log on
- Logged on click to log on again
25
The first step in using GL Wand is to log on to the Oracle instance that you intend using
You can log on to the online Vision instance or you can log on to your own Oracle Applications instance
See also the Creating Connections section
There are two possible logon methods that GL Wand can use The method is determined by
a setting on the GL Wand Options form The method can be ldquoOraclerdquo or ldquoExcelrdquo It is also
possible to access your segment values descriptive flexfields by enabling the option during the logon
Oracle Logon Method
The ldquoOraclerdquo option is the new logon method which utilizes the Oracle web based screen to
capture your user name and password This method is also compliant with Oracle Single Sign
On When you click the sign on button you are presented with the screen below where you
select which Oracle connection you wish to use
When you click the logon button the Oracle log on screen will appear Enter your applications user name and password
26
When you click Login on this web browser the window will close and you will be presented
with a list of responsibilities that are linked to your user name You will see one of the two
windows displayed below If your site is licensed to use the GL Wand Multiple Sets of Books
feature you will see the image on the right Else the screen will appear like the image on the
left Trial users using an in-house trial key will by default have access to the Multiple Set of Books (MSOB) feature
Select the responsibility that you wish to use and click ok If you are licensed to use the GL
Wand MSOB feature you can select multiple responsibilities Click an item to select it and click it again to unselect it
If you are licensed to use the MSOB feature you also have the option of logging on to all the
available sets of books This option must be enabled by setting the applicable profile option
27
at user level With the profile option set to yes for a particular user that user will have an
extra item in the list of available responsibilities This ldquoAll Sets of Booksrdquo option allows a user
to log on to all the sets of books configured in the Oracle instance without needing to select
multiple responsibilities
Please note that when logging on with the ldquoAll Sets of Booksrdquo option no security rules are
enforced For this reason you must enable this option for those GL Wand users that are
authorized to report across all the configured sets of books By default this options is
disabled for all users
If you log on to an Oracle Release 12 instance and the data access set linked to the chosen
responsibility contains more than one ledger or ledger set you will be logged on to all the applicable ledgers
Excel Logon Method
The ldquoExcelrdquo logon method is the same mechanism that was used in previous GL Wand
versions This method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function
correctly Again there are two possible windows that you will be presented with depending in whether you are licensed to use the GL Wand Multiple Sets of Books feature
28
Descriptive Flexfields
If you wish to report on segment value descriptive flexfields tick this option on the logon
form This will load the descriptive flexfield information This option is by default un-ticked as loading this information unnecessarily would slow down the logon process
Proxy Authentication
If you are connecting to an Oracle instance on the Internet and your organization uses a
proxy server that requires authentication to access the Internet (in addition to the domain
logon) GL Wand will prompt you for your proxy user name and password if required
29
Enter the required user name and password and click OK Then click the logon button again
License Key
If you have not yet obtained a trial license key for the instance that you are logging on to
you will prompted with the option to request a key Click ldquoYesrdquo to open a web page where you can request a trial key or ldquoNordquo to continue without requesting a key
Customers that have licensed GL Wand will use this exact same process to request the final non-expiring keys
Set of Books and Segment Selector
- Set of Books and Segment selector
Once you have logged on the set of books and segment list dropdowns will be populated
Set of Books
The set of books drop down list can be used to select the set of books that you wish to work
with If you log on to a single set of books this dropdown list will contain a single value only
However if you are licensed to use the GL Wand Multiple Sets of Books feature or are in trial then this list will contain multiple values in the following situations
If you selected multiple responsibilities during the logon process all the sets of books
linked to those responsibilities will be listed
If you selected the special ldquoAll Sets of Booksrdquo option all the sets of books configured
in the Oracle instance will be listed
If you log on to an Oracle Release 12 instance and the data access set linked to the
chosen responsibility contains more than one ledger or ledger set then each of these ledgers will be listed
The number in brackets () indicates the Set of Books identifier This number can be used in
various GL Wand formulas and other functionality in order to obtain information from a specific Set of Books
Segments
This dropdown list will be populated with a list of the segments that are available in the
currently selected Set of Books The number in brackets indicates the segment number The
segment list also includes the special value ldquoPeriodrdquo which is used for discovering the period
names in your set of books
In the example shown the selected segment is ldquoCompanyrdquo and it is identified as segment 1 Certain dynamic functions require the segment number as an input parameter
Discovering
The discover tools allow you to extract segment information from the Oracle Applications
database and populate Excel cells with this information You can use the discover tools to
30
extract segment values segment properties periods or child ranges or the full segment
hierarchy For segment values you can use the discover level to choose whether to retrieve child values parent values or both
Discover Segment Values
- Discover Down
- Discover Down All
- Discover Up
1 Select a cell and enter a valid starting segment value eg ldquo1000rdquo into the cell
2 Choose the relevant segment from the segment list eg ldquoAccountrdquo
3 Now click the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button
GL Wand finds the next valid account segment value after account ldquo1000rdquo and enters this value in the cell below the one that you started in
In the same way you can click the up arrow and the previous segment value will be entered
in the cell above the one that you started in
- Discover Left
- Discover Right
31
- Discover Right All
The left and right arrows work in a similar manner retrieving the next and previous segment
values but they populate the cells to the left and right of the cell that you start in When
discovering segment values you will notice that some of the values are entered with a bold
font This is because these have been identified as parent values
You do not need to discover segment values one at a time
You can enter a starting segment value choose the segment from the segment list
and then highlight a range of cells
When you click one of the discover buttons now GL Wand fills the selected range
with the next or previous segment values depending on which arrow you click on
The Discover Down All and Discover Right All buttons can be used to retrieve all the segment values in one operation
Discover Period Names
You can discover period names in much the same way that you can discover segment
values
1 Select a cell and enter a valid starting period name eg Jan-03 into the cell
NB ndash make sure that you enter this starting period name as text by first formatting the Excel
cell as text or entering the period name prefixed by an apostrophe bdquo eg bdquoJan-03 If Excel
interprets the value entered as an actual date eg 01012003 then discover period names
will not work
2 Choose the special ldquoPeriodrdquo value from the segment list
3 Now click the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button
32
GL Wand finds the next period name after Jan-07 in the Set of Books calendar and enters this value in the cell below the one that you started in
You can also use the ldquoDiscover Down Allrdquo ldquoDiscover Previousrdquo ldquoDiscover Rightrdquo ldquoDiscover Right Allrdquo and ldquoDiscover Leftrdquo buttons to discover period names
Discover Properties
- Discover segment properties
The ldquoDiscover Propertiesrdquo button will extract a variety of information about the selected segment value
To use this function
1 Select a cell(s) with a valid segment value in it
2 Make sure the correct segment is selected in the segment selector
3 Click the Discover Properties button
The cells to the right of the selected cell are populated with segment information
The first cell indicates the segment description the second cell indicates if the value is a
parent or not (Y means the segment value is a parent) the third cell indicates if the segment
value is enabled or not (Y means that the segment value is enabled) and the fourth cell
indicates what account type the segment value is eg Asset or Liability etc Obviously the forth cell is only valid for the natural account segment
33
Discover Child Ranges
- Discover child ranges
The ldquoDiscover Child Rangesrdquo button can be used to show the child values that are assigned to a particular parent value
1 Select a cell that has a parent segment value
2 Identify its segment number to the GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the segment list dropdown
3 Now click on the ldquoDiscover Child Rangesrdquo button
An Excel note is added to the cell showing the ranges that have been assigned to the selected parent This is useful for understanding and exploring your Chart of Accounts
Discover Hierarchy
To discover the hierarchy for a segment proceed as follows
Enter the starting segment value into an Excel cell This value must be a parent for
the segment you are using
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
Select ldquoDiscover Hierarchyrdquo from the Discover menu
GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy for the selected parent and display it in the
Excel worksheet indenting the various levels in the hierarchy
34
Toggle Discover Level
- Toggle discover level
The ldquoDiscover levelrdquo button is used to restrict the segment values that are returned by the discover tools to parent values only child values only or both parent and child values
When you click on this button it toggles from discovering parents and children to discovering parents only to discovering child values only
For example
1 Select a cell and enter a starting segment value
2 Choose the segment from the segment list
3 Click the discover level until the option is set to ldquoDiscovering Parentsrdquo 4 Now highlight a range of cells and click the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button
GL Wand fills the selected range with the next segment values but skips all child values and
returns only parent values Similarly child values can be discovered by toggling the discover level to ldquoDiscovering childrenrdquo
If you want to discover both parent and children toggle the discover level back to
ldquoDiscovering parents and childrenrdquo
All segment values must be entered using the Excel text format Either format the cell using
the text number format or enter the cell value using the apostrophe bdquo character which marks
the contents of the cell as text eg if you want to enter the segment value 001 enter it as
follows bdquo001
Expand
- Expand
You can perform an expand down to the lowest level children (explained below) or you can expand using the hierarchy going down one level or expanding the full hierarchy
The Expand feature allows you to extract a list of all the lowest level child values that roll up
to a particular segment selection This might be a parent value range wild card or a
combination of these options
1 Select a cell that has a segment selection eg a parent value
2 Identify its segment number to the GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
3 Click the expand button 4 The child values are retrieved from Oracle and are inserted below the selected cell
35
You can also highlight a number of columns and GL Wand will insert the child values and copy the contents of the highlighted cells against each child value that is inserted
1 Select a cell that has a segment selection and highlight the number of columns that you
would like to have copied into the new rows
2 Identify its segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
3 Click the expand button
4 The child values are retrieved from Oracle and are inserted below the selected cell
5 The contents of the additional columns that were selected are copied against each new
row inserted In the example below this contains a generic Get Balance formula which is then resolved for each child value
You also have the option of selecting multiple rows when performing an Expand GL Wand will perform an expand on each selected row
The expand feature can also be used with account combinations Please see the Special Get
Balance Criteria section for details on how this works
Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Expand feature except that it will
expand using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the values one level down the hierarchy and list them below the starting cell
Expand Hierarchy (Full)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Expand feature except that it will
expand using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy and list all the values below the starting cell indenting the various levels in the hierarchy
36
Undo Expand
- Undo Expand
The expand operation inserts rows into the worksheet to allow the child data to be
populated If you would like to quickly remove the expand data click the undo expand button GL Wand will remove the inserted data from the most recent expand operation
Please note that the expand operation formats the inserted rows in a particular way eg the
segment values are indented The undo expand operation relies on this formatting in order
to process correctly If you modify the formatting of the expanded rows the undo expand
may not function correctly
Refresh Expand
- Refresh Expand
The expand operation fetches the child data that meets the criteria that you enter and
inserts it into new rows in the workbook This data may change over time eg you may
expand a parent value and over time the definition of that parent is modified Use the refresh expand button to retrieve the most recent data from Oracle as follows
Highlight the entire range of expanded data
This must include the criteria row that drives the expand operation eg the row
containing the parent value
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
Click the refresh expand button
GL Wand will remove the old expand data and will refresh the expand with the latest information
Please note that the expand operation formats the inserted rows in a particular way eg the
segment values are indented The refresh expand operation relies on this formatting in order
to process correctly If you modify the formatting of the expanded rows the refresh expand
may not function correctly
Explode Report
- Explode report
You can perform an explode down to the lowest level children (explained below) or you can explode using the hierarchy going down one level or expanding the full hierarchy
Explode report works in a similar way to the expand feature The difference is that where
expand inserts a new row in the worksheet for each child value found explode creates a new worksheet in the current workbook for each child value found For example
Start with a complete GL Wand report
Select the cell in the report that drive the Get Balance formulas eg a department
parent value in the report header
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
37
Click the explode report button
GL Wand will duplicate the worksheet for each child value found for the selected parent
Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Explode feature except that it will
Explode using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the values one level down the hierarchy and create a new worksheet for each value
Explode Hierarchy (Full)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Explode feature except that it will
Explode using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy and create a new worksheet for
each value
Open List of Values
- Open list of values
The segment list of values form can be used to search through the segment values and
descriptions for a specific segment First pick the segment from the segment list
dropdown and then click the segment list of values button The list of values for the chosen
segment is displayed
You can enter a value to search for in the find box The list of values will be filtered to show
only items that match the text entered in the find box The text entered in the find box is
38
compared to the segment value and segment description An item will be included in the results if either field contains the text entered in the find box
In the list section you can start entering a segment value (eg Account number) and the list will scroll to the item matching the values that you have entered
Click the ldquoAddrdquo button double click an item in the list or press enter to add the current item
to the selection list on the right You can also click and drag an item to add it to the selection list
39
If you want to add a range like ldquo1000-2000rdquo do the following
Start by adding the ldquo1000rdquo value using one of the options explained above
Then find the ldquo2000rdquo value in the master list
Ensure that the ldquo2000rdquo value is highlighted in the master list and the ldquo1000rdquo value is
highlighted in the selection list and click the ldquoAdd Rangerdquo button
You can also drag a value from the master list onto an existing value in the selection list to create a range
To remove an item from the selection list ensure that it is highlighted and then click the ldquoRemoverdquo button or press the ldquoDeleterdquo key
Every segment will have the additional value called ldquoAllrdquo Selecting this value will add a ldquordquo
to the parameter list which means ldquoAll valuesrdquo If ldquoAllrdquo is selected then all other selections will be removed and replaced with a
If you want to include certain values and exclude others you can use the ldquoAdd Excluderdquo
option This will add the highlighted value to the selection list prefixed by the reserved exclude character ldquo~rdquo
40
You can add any combination of the options mentioned above to produce your own
calculation
Once you have added all the required segment values to the selection list click ldquoOKrdquo to copy
the list to the clipboard You can then paste these values into a Get Balance function or
anywhere else on the Excel sheet
41
Create List of Values
- Create list of values
This feature can be used to quickly format a cell to be a special list of values cell There are
two types The first type inserts a drop down list of values in the cell and is used for balance
types translated flags and actual flags
The second type creates a link to the standard list of values form It is used for segment values periods and balance and encumbrance names
The cell is identified by a note containing the word ldquoLOVrdquo In order to open the list of values
simply double click the cell or select the cell and click the List of Values button on the
toolbar This will open the list of values form for the specific data type that the list of values cell was created for In the example this was the department segment
The checkbox allows you to link the list of values to a specific set of books This option is only applicable if you have the Multiple Sets of Books feature enabled
42
Functions
The GL Wand functions work in a similar way to any other Excel worksheet function You
provide the required parameters and the results of the function are returned to the Excel
cell The difference being that GL Wand functions retrieve information from your Oracle Applications system
GL Wand currently has the following functions
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value
- Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
43
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
Split Text
Combine Text
Functional Currency
Get Daily Rate
You can enter a function into an Excel cell in a number of ways
Click the applicable button on the GL Wand toolbar (or on the GL Wand menu)
Type the function name into the cell manually prefixed by an = sign
You can select the function from the list that Excel provides when you choose the
Insert Function menu item The GL Wand functions are listed under the special GL
Wand category (Prior to Excel 2007 they are listed in the User Defined category)
If you click the applicable function button on the toolbar and the cell you are in contains that
function the Excel formula wizard window will open If you click a function button in a cell
that contains other data GL Wand will warn you that it is going to replace the contents of the cell with the chosen formula and will give you the option of cancelling the action
All parameters must be entered as text values ie enclosed in double quotes eg enter
ldquoUSDrdquo when entering the currency code or enter ldquo001rdquo when entering a segment value
See ldquoDiscovering versus Functionsrdquo for a comparison extracting information using the
discover tools or the functions
44
Get Balance
The Get Balance function is probably the most important function in GL Wand It returns a
General Ledger balance individually or summed based on the parameters that you enter
Example =Get_Balance(Jan-02YTDUSDEABIS CORPORATE01T4000-41600000000)
Clicking the Get Balance function on the GL Wand toolbar will open the Get Balance Wizard
This form has lists of values for items like period name balance type actual flag etc Select
the applicable values and enter a valid currency code and budget or encumbrance name if required
Double clicking a segment value or clicking the list of values button next to the segment will
open the segment list of values form for that segment See the Segment List of Values
section for details on how to use this form When you click the ldquoOKrdquo button on the Segment
List of Values form the selected segment parameters are entered against that segment in the Get Balance Wizard form
If your Oracle configuration includes dependant segments as part of the accounting
flexfield this form will support selecting values based on the independent and dependant
segment values Simply select a value from the available list of values for the independent
segment Then open the list of values for the dependant segment The list of available values
will be limited to only those values that are related to the selected independent segment
value
When you have entered all the parameters click the ldquoOKrdquo button to insert the Get Balance
function into the selected cell with the entered parameters Clicking the ldquoEditrdquo button will
open the Get Balance function in the Excel formula wizard form which will allow you to link
parameters to cells in the Excel sheet
45
You can also open the Get Balance formula in the Excel formula wizard form using the fx
button on the formula bar or by selecting the ldquoInsert Functionrdquo menu item on the Excel menu bar
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Type ldquoCTDrdquo
(Custom to Date) you can specify a custom period selection For
example ldquoFeb-07-Aug-07rdquo will add all the movement for the entered
period range You may enter multiple lists or ranges of periods and can use wild cards as well eg ldquoJan-0rdquo or ldquo-07rdquo
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Types ldquoJEDrdquo
ldquoJEDUrdquo or ldquoJEDPrdquo (Journal Effective Date) the period parameter
becomes a date parameter eg ldquo01012007-0501200710012007rdquo
The format that your date is in is important The ldquo-ldquo character is
used in GL Wand to denote a range of values and therefore it cannot
be used as a date delimiter eg 01-01-2007 would not be valid So
take care if your Windows regional setting use the ldquo-ldquo as a date
delimiter For JED type calculations we recommend that you use the
ldquordquo as a date delimiter and that you always format the date as text
in Excel otherwise Excel will convert the date based on your regional
setting
Balance Type YTD QTD PTD PJTD CTD JED JEDP or JEDU all in upper case
YTD ndash Summarizes the full years balance
QTD ndash Summarizes the balance for the quarter
46
PTD ndash Includes just the current period‟s movement
PJTD ndash Project to date
CTD ndash Summarizes the custom period criteria entered
JED ndash Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for both posted and unposted journals
JEDP - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for posted journals only
JEDU - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered dates for unposted journals only
Currency Code The currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
Translated Flag Enter E T or C Use E to retrieve the entered amount and T for the
translated amount Use C to report on the converted amount ie
the functional currency equivalent of a foreign currency amount
Only E is valid if requesting a balance for the functional currency of the current Set of Books
You must ensure that you have run the currency translation process
in Oracle for the selected currency and period before reporting on
translated balances If you enter T to request the translated balance
and there is no current translated balance available in the system a zero is returned
Oracle Release 12 provides a new feature to allow reporting on the
values entered in the functional currency only ie excludes any
foreign currency transactions converted to the functional currency
Therefore in Release 12 if you use the E (entered) flag in
conjunction with the functional currency any converted amounts will
be excluded To report on the total balance (including values entered
in functional currency and values converted to the functional
currency) use the new ldquoTotalrdquo option This option is only available if
you log on to a release 12 Oracle instance
Actual Flag A ndash Actual B ndash Budget E ndash Encumbrance
Bud Encumb Name If you enter B or E above enter the exact budget name or
encumbrance type here Otherwise simply enter ldquordquo for actual
balances
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter the segment value here You must enter it as a text value
including any leading zeros eg enter segment value ldquo10rdquo as ldquo0010rdquo
if this segment is configured as four characters with leading zeros in Oracle
You may enter your segment values in a variety of flexible ways
including parents child values ranges wildcards excludes etc See
the explanation below on valid values for this parameter
To include all values simply enter ldquordquo Please note as from GL Wand
3850 you can no longer leave the segment blank a value is
required
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
47
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Options This parameter is used to modify the results returned by the Get
Balance function from the standard behavior Currently two options are supported
Source ndash Limit the results to a specific journal source
Category ndash Limit the results to a specific journal category
The criteria needs to be entered as follows - ldquoSource=Manualrdquo or
ldquoCategory=Adjustmentrdquo To specify both a source and category use
the ldquo|rdquo as a delimiter eg ldquoSource=Manual|Category=Adjustmentrdquo
You can specify multiple values by separating them with ldquordquo eg
ldquoSource=PayablesReceivablesrdquo
When creating Get Balance formulas always use ldquordquo to denote all values as this allows more
efficient SQL to be generated Do not use a range like ldquo000-ZZZrdquo as they will require
unnecessary processing
The segment value parameters can be entered as
a single value representing a child or parent account eg ldquo1500rdquo might represent a
parent account
a range of values eg entering ldquo1500-1600rdquo in one of the segment parameters will
sum all the segment values between 1500 and 1600 for that segment
a list of segment values eg entering ldquo150015101590rdquo in one of the segment
parameters will sum the specific segment values entered If any of the segment
values are parents GL Wand will sum the hierarchy for that parent
wild card entries eg 100 will sum 1100 1200 1300 1400 etc or entering the
value 1 will sum all values that start with 1
values to be included and then specific exclusions eg ldquo1000-2000~1500rdquo will sum
the values between 1000 and 2000 but will skip 1500
a combination of any of the above eg 1000-2000237123752560-
25803000~32004000~4161-4169 In this way you can build up your own calculation definition in the segment parameter
Please note ndash there are two additional methods for specifying segment criteria in the Get
Balance function The one allows you to specify account combinations and the other
allows the use of segment descriptive flexfields Please see the Special Get Balance
Criteria section in order to use these options
Segment Description
Returns the segment description for the chosen segment value
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
48
Example =Get_Segment_Description(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
Returns the next or previous segment value
Parameter Description
Last Value The starting segment value
Segment The segment number
Level Enter a P to return the next or previous parent value enter a C to
return the next or previous child value or leave the parameter blank
to return the next or previous segment value irrespective of whether
it is a parent or child
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example = Next_Segment_Value(ldquo1000rdquo3P)
Parent Flag
Returns the parent flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is a
parent
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Parent_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Enabled Flag
Returns the enabled flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is
enabled
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example = Enabled_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
49
Account Type
Returns the account type for the chosen segment value This function is only applicable for
the natural account segment and will return the value Asset Liability etc
Parameter Description
Account Value The account segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Account_Type(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Period Name
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number Optionally the returned value can be a certain number of periods into the future or past
Parameter Description
PeriodYear The year that you want the period name for
PeriodNumber The period number that you want the period name for
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Offset Optionally enter an offset to return the period name which is n
periods before or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3
periods into the future or -1 to return the previous period
Example =Period_Name(20063)
Set of Books Name
Returns the set of books name for the chosen set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Set_of_Books_Name()
Segment Descriptive Flexfield
Returns the segment values descriptive flexfield for the selected criteria
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
50
Segment The segment number
AttributeNo Identify which attribute you want to report on The segment values
descriptive flexfield has 50 possible attribute values The applicable
attributes will depend on your configuration and whether this
Descriptive Flexfield is used by your organization
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Segment_DFF(ldquo100rdquo25) retrieves the 5th attribute on the segment values
descriptive flexfield for segment value 100 on segment 2
Period Offset
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for
this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
Offset Enter an offset to return the period name which is n periods before
or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3 periods into the
future or -1 to return the previous period
RetRange Enter TRUE (or 1) to return the result as a range eg entering
period Mar-07 with an offset of -2 and the RetRange set to true will
return ldquoJan-07-Mar-07rdquo This can be used in conjunction with the
CTD (Custom to Date) balance type in the Get Balance function to
create rolling period reporting
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Period_Offset(Jan-07-2TRUE)
Split Text
Splits delimited text and returns a specific portion based on an offset Especially useful to
split account combinations but can be used to split any text
Parameter Description
Value Some text which has been concatenated using a delimiter eg an
account combination like ldquo011007000rdquo
Offset Identify which portion of the text to return
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Split_Text(0110070002) will return the ldquo100rdquo portion of the text
51
Combine Text
Combines selected text separated by a delimiter Especially useful to combine segment
values to create a delimited account combinations but can be used to combine any text
Parameter Description
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter segment values that you wish to combine into an account
combination
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Combine_Text(011007000) will return ldquo011007000rdquo
Functional Currency
Returns the functional currency for the set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Functional_Currency()
Get Daily Rate
Returns the daily exchange rate for the entered criteria
Parameter Description
FromCurrency The ldquoFromrdquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case
eg ldquoUSDrdquo
ToCurrency The ldquoTordquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
ConversionType The conversion type as configured in Oracle Spelling and case must
be identical to the Oracle configuration
ConversionDate The conversion date This must be in Excel date format Either refer
to a cell which contains a date or use one of the Excel date functions
to return a date in the parameter
Example =Get_Daily_Rate(USDGBPReportingDATE(200911))
Function return values
The GL Wand functions will return a variety of results depending on a number of factors If
all the information is entered correctly and there are no restrictions on access to the data or
the GL Wand itself the result should be the General Ledger balance segment value segment description etc However the following are also possible return values
glwDemo ndash this means that you are using GL Wand without a valid trial key entered
into the GL Wand License Key profile option When trying GL Wand without a valid
52
trial key you are only allowed to use the first 20 rows and 20 columns of the first
sheet in the workbook Any formula entered outside this range will not calculate a
value but will only return the word ldquoglwDemordquo This is called evaluation mode A
trial key needs to be requested from within GL Wand and entered into the profile
option to allow full access to all functionality
glwNoAccess ndash When you log on you will be prompted for your applications user name
and password and will then need to select a responsibility to log on to Any security
rules that have been linked to the selected responsibility will be enforced on the GL
Wand data If you attempt to access a balance on a general ledger account that you
do not have access to the function will return the word ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo Please see
the ldquoAudit Get Balancerdquo section for information on how to identify the security rule that is being contravened
Please note that Oracles Hierarchical Security is not supported
glwError ndash If you enter invalid information in a parameter for a GL Wand function the
GL Wand error value will be returned This may happen when you for example
enter an invalid budget name or period name in the Get Balance function or when you
enter an invalid segment number in the next segment value function This error value
will also be returned when you are not logged on The details of the return value will
indicate where the problem exists eg glwError (Logon) glwError (Balance Type)
glwError (Translated Flag) glwError (Actual Flag) glwError (Missing segment)
glwError (Data error) glwError (Range) glwError (Period)
glwPending ndash This value will be returned during the calculation process Whenever a
cell requires calculation and the process has not been completed yet the cell will
contain the value ldquoglwPendingrdquo
glwEditing ndash Displays in the Excel function arguments window when editing a Get Balance formula
Discovering versus Functions
You may have noticed that you can achieve similar results by using the discover tools and
using the functions For example you could use the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button to retrieve the
next segment value or you could use the ldquoNext Segment Valuerdquo function to return the same result The difference between these two approaches is as follows
Com
paris
on b
etw
een D
iscoverin
g a
nd
Functio
ns
Discovering Functions
Results returned as text string to Excel
cell
Value is calculated based on
parameters
Value is static Value is dynamic
Never changes Recalculated when sheet refreshed
Lower performance overhead Higher performance overhead
Discover Down Next Segment Value
Discover Up Previous Segment Value
Discover Left Next Segment Value
Discover Right Previous Segment Value
Discover Properties
Segment Description
Parent flag
53
Enabled Flag
Account Type
Discover Child Ranges No equivalent
Toggle Discover Level
Parameters of next segment value
determine whether parents children or
both are returned
Use the discover buttons with ldquoPeriodrdquo
selected in the segment drop down Period Name
Balance Extract is similar to Get
Balance though the static values it
produces are refreshable
Get Balance
Special Get Balance Criteria
GL Wand supports two special types of criteria in the Get Balance function namely ldquoAccount
Combinationsrdquo and ldquoSegment Descriptive Flexfieldrdquo criteria These two forms of the Get
Balance criteria have very specific syntax which must be carefully adhered to in order to
achieve the correct results You also have the ability to expand account combinations for a
selection that uses the ldquoAccount Combinationrdquo criteria
Account Combinations
In the past the Get Balance function only supported individual segment values eg segment
2 = 100 or 200 and segment 3 = 1000 or 2000 This would result in GL Wand returning all the possible combinations of those segment 2 and 3 values
Now you have the ability to specify account combinations using the new Get Balance syntax
This means that you can create new complex criteria for your Get Balance formula eg
(segment 2 = 100 and segment 3 = 1000) or (segment 2 = 200 and segment 3 = 2000)
With these criteria GL Wand will no longer return all the possible combinations but rather only the combinations you specify
In order to specify account combinations in a Get Balance function you must tell GL Wand
which segments you are combining You do this by entering a special value into the segment
eg if you want to combine criteria for segment 2 and segment 3 you would enter the
following in the parameter for segment 2 ldquoUse_Seg3rdquo This tells GL Wand that that it must
find the criteria for segment 2 inside the segment 3 parameter In the segment 3 parameter
you now enter the criteria for both segment 2 and segment 3 separated by the special
delimiter character eg ldquo1001000rdquo This tells GL Wand that you are looking for accounts where segment 2 is 100 and segment 3 is 1000 An example could look like this
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg3100100020020000000000)
It is possible to combine multiple segments as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg5Use_Seg5Use_Seg510010000000000)
54
You simply point each applicable segment to the parameter where the account combination
using the special ldquoUse_SegXrdquo syntax Then inside the target parameter you combine the fully qualified account combination for the applicable segments delimited with a ldquordquo character
When you specify your account combination you have full flexibility to use ranges lists wild
cards parents and exclude criteria For example this criteria will fetch all the values where
segment 2 is between 100 and 200 and segment 3 is between 1000 and 2000 And in
addition to that it will include the values where segment 2 is 250 (a parent) and segment 3
starts with 33 but will exclude the specific value where segment 2 is 250 and segment 3 is
3320
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA01Use_Seg31001000-200200025033~25033200000000)
You also have the flexibility to group different parts of the account combination together For
example this criteria combines the values for segment 1 and 3 together and combines segment 2 and 4 together
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA
Use_Seg3Use_Seg401100002115010000002001050000)
These new Get Balance syntax options provide you with tremendous flexibility when building your GL Wand reports
Expand Account Combinations
The expand feature allows you to extract all the detailed child segment values that roll up to
the criteria that the user specifies The expand feature has been extended to support account combinations
In order to expand an account combination you would do the following
Ensure that the correct set of books is selected in the drop down list on the GL Wand
toolbar
Select the cell containing the account combination criteria eg ldquo1007000rdquo Click the expand button
GL Wand will now identify that the selected cell contains an account combination rather than
a single segment value You will now be presented with a window to identify which segments from your chart of accounts are represented in the account combination
55
Select the correct segments and click ldquoOKrdquo GL Wand will now extract all the child
combinations that roll up to the criteria that you entered and insert them into the Excel sheet
The other options are as follows
Fix ndash if you tick this option for a segment GL Wand will ldquopegrdquo that segment using the
selected value (this option only makes sense for a parent segment value) You might
for example want to expand all the account combinations used in a particular parent
cost centre Simply ldquoFixrdquo the cost centre segment and GL Wand will return all the
account combinations used within that parent cost centre
Exclude disabled account combination ndash tick this option to only return account combinations that are currently enabled and have not been end dated
The expand account combinations feature can be used as a normal GL Wand ldquoExpandrdquo in
order to extract the detail behind a total but it is also very useful to extract existing account combinations from your Oracle system
This feature can be used very effectively with the Split Text and Combine Text functions
Segment Descriptive Flexfields
In order to extract balances using the descriptive flexfields stored on the segment values
you need to use special syntax in the Get Balance function The syntax works as follows
1ABC
You wrap the descriptive flexfield using curly brackets
The first character after the open bracket identifies which descriptive flexfield
attribute is being referred to
You then separate the descriptive flexfield attribute from the actual value using a ldquordquo You then specify the criteria for this attribute
An example Get Balance function would look as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC10000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield on segment 2 is equal to the value ldquoABCrdquo
It is possible to specify criteria for multiple descriptive flexfields as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC2XX10000000000)
Simply wrap each descriptive flexfield value in its own and identify the attribute number
At this stage the descriptive flexfield criteria is restricted to a single value or a single range
of values Lists of values and multiple ranges are not supported A range can be specified
using the special range delimiter ldquo|rdquo (pipe character) This character is different to the range
character that is used for normal Get Balance segment parameters The reason is that the
normal range delimiter ldquo-ldquo may easily be used in a segment descriptive flexfields and
therefore is not suitable In future you will be able to configure your own range delimiter
56
character which will provide the best flexibility The range criteria can be specified as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011100|20010000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield
on segment 2 is between 100 and 200 Date values are also supported in this criteria and GL Wand will correctly derive the ldquobetweenrdquo criteria for a date
Calculating
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what cells are refreshed from
Oracle They are used in conjunction with the GL Wand calculation option (onoff) You can stop a calculation at any time by clicking cancel
- Calculate Range (Alt+Ctl+R)
- Calculate Sheet (Alt+Ctl+S)
- Calculate All (Alt+Ctl+A)
- GL Wand calculation on
- GL Wand calculation off
Calculate Range Sheet or All
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what is recalculated
To calculate a range of cells simply
1 Highlight the range
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Rangerdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+R shortcut key
3 Select multiple ranges using the ctrl button (as normal in Excel)
4 Select a range and then select multiple Excel worksheets to calculate the same range on
each sheet
Please note do not use the calculate range option to recalculate the entire sheet ie by
selecting all the cells on the sheet This will take unnecessarily longer Rather use the
calculate sheet option
To calculate a sheet simply
1 Select the applicable sheet
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Sheetrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+S shortcut key
3 Selecting multiple sheets will calculate each of the selected sheets
To calculate all open workbooks simply
1 Click the ldquoCalculate Allrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+A shortcut key
57
GL Wand calculation on or off
You can use the GL Wand calculation toggle button to control when requests for calculations
are sent to the Oracle server
If you toggle GL Wand calculation ldquoOffrdquo calculation requests are not sent to the Oracle server which means you
you can manipulate a worksheet
change cell values
enter new formulae and
perform any other task that would normally cause Excel to recalculate
and the applicable functions will only return the ldquoglwPendingrdquo status and will not
actually calculate a result
This is useful during report development
To calculate the results simply click one of the three calculation buttons ldquoCalculate Range
Sheet or Allrdquo
If you leave the GL Wand calculation option ldquoOnrdquo the applicable functions will be recalculated whenever Excel initiates a calculation process eg
when changing the contents of the cell
changing one of the functions input values deleting a column or row in the worksheet etc
Please note that the GL Wand calculation option has nothing to do with Excel‟s automatic
and manual calculation The GL Wand calculation option controls only the calculation of the
applicable GL Wand functions All other calculations are controlled as normal by the Excel
automatic and manual calculation option
Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
When you perform a recalculation a window will appear to show the progress of the
calculation
58
If you would like to cancel the calculation process simply click the ldquoCancelrdquo button
Please note that GL Wand will need to wait for the next reply from Oracle before the
connection can be closed Therefore it may take some time before the calculation stops and
the window closes
Snapshot
- Snapshot
The snapshot tool can be used to take a snapshot of your GL Wand report This tool will
remove all the GL Wand functions from the workbook and will replace them with the values that the function returned
The results are similar to using the Excel ldquopaste valuesrdquo functionality However this process will only replace GL Wand formulas All other Excel formulas will be left as they were
Please note that you cannot take a snapshot of a protected worksheet rather output the
sheet to PDF format for archive and distribution purposes
When producing a snapshot GL Wand will request a name for the new workbook You can
select an existing workbook and GL Wand will give you the option to append the snapshot
results to the existing workbook or overwrite the existing workbook You therefore have the
option of producing various snapshot reports and combining them into one new workbook in a single operation rather than producing a separate workbook for each snapshot
Hide zeros
- Hide zeros in selected range
Select a report range that contains rows where all the numbers are zero Click the hide zeros
button and GL Wand will hide all the rows in the selected range where all the cells containing
numbers are zero This is very useful for formatting a report which includes many rows
where for example a number of accounts are not used in a particular cost centre or have no
59
balances in a certain period At the click of a button you can hide all the rows that contain only zeros
Select the entire report range when using the hide zeros function GL Wand checks the
selected range for zeros when determining which rows to hide
Excel automatically forces a recalculation of Get Balance formulas when you hide rows on a
report This is normal Excel functionality
This feature can be used on any Excel worksheet and is not limited to GL Wand reports
Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Undo the last hide zeros operation
Click this button to automatically undo the last hide zeros operation
Drill downs
- Drill to default Balance layout
- Drill to default Journal layout
- Drill to default Sub Ledger layout
The drill down options allow you to extract additional detail about a specific ldquoGet Balancerdquo function
1 Select a cell that contains a valid Get Balance function
2 Click on the drill to balance button
3 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
4 The criteria sheet will be populated with the criteria from the Get Balance function
5 The drill down to balance detail will be executed showing all the detailed accounts that make up the total in the Get Balance function
60
See the Create Drill Criteria Sheet section for more details and options on the drill down criteria sheet
Budget variance analysis If you select two cells on the GL Wand report eg one cell with
actual values and one with budget numbers GL Wand will perform a drill down on the Get
Balance function and display the actual and budget values next to each other and a
calculated variance
You now have a variety of options which can be performed from the drill down workbook
1 Modify the parameters on the criteria sheet and perform a new drill to balance Drop
down lists are provided for most of the parameters see the Create Drill Criteria Sheet for
more details
2 Create a summary drill down report
3 If you have performed a balance drill down you can select the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet and then
click drill down to journal details after selecting one or more rows with accounts
4 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo sheet and then click the button to drill down to the full journal
after selecting one or more rows with journal lines The full journal with all the contra
entries for the selected journal lines will be displayed
5 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo or ldquoJournal-Fullrdquo sheet and then click sub-ledger drill down after
selecting one or more rows with journal lines 6 Drill down to Global Consolidation System transactions
When drilling down you have the following options
Double click any cell on the row that you wish to drill down on
61
Select any cell in the row that you want to drill down on and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar
Highlight a range of rows and click the applicable drill down button on the GL Wand
toolbar to drill down on multiple lines at once
Highlight non contiguous rows using the ldquoCtrlrdquo button and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar to drill down on multiple lines which are not adjacent to each other
It is possible to drill from a Get Balance formula directly to the journal or sub ledger
information Similarly you can drill from a detailed balance (on the Balance worksheet)
directly to the sub ledger information If you select these options GL Wand will execute the
interim drill steps automatically Be careful when performing a drill down directly to the
journal or sub ledger detail level as these drill down operations may return many records
GL Wand will automatically group the drill down to journals and sub ledger information using
Excel‟s group and outline functionality This will allow you expand and collapse the data to
show just a portion of the report Headings are also inserted on the journal and sub-ledger drill down to make the report easier to read
On the sub-ledger drill down the heading includes a number in brackets eg ldquo(23) Journal
Name 123rdquo The number indicates which Excel row these sub-ledger lines originated from on
the ldquoJournalsrdquo sheet
You can use the remove drill down report headings button to strip out the headings on
the journal and sub-ledger drill down sheets
A couple of important things to note about drill downs
GL Wand will first count the number of rows that will be retrieved by the drill down
operation
If the row count is more than 1000 you will receive a warning message asking you if
you want to continue
If the row count is more than the defined limit (see Query Limit) you will receive a
warning and the drill down will be cancelled
If the row count is more than the number of rows available in your version of Excel
you will receive an error and the drill down will be cancelled
When you drill down to journal details the ldquoBalance Typerdquo parameter controls how
much detail is returned If this parameter is ldquoPTDrdquo only the current period‟s journals
are returned If this parameter is ldquoYTDrdquo then all the journals for the year are returned and likewise ldquoQTDrdquo will show the journal for the quarter
Ensure that the worksheet is calculated before performing any drill down functions Also
ensure that the cell contains a ldquoGet Balancerdquo function with valid parameter information
A new drill down workbook will be created each time you perform a drill down operation from
a Get Balance function Once you are finished with a drill down workbook simply close it
without saving
You cannot drill down to journal detail on translated balances
Oracle Global Consolidation System
Drill down to Oracle Global Consolidation System (GCS) transactions is also supported
These items will appear on the journal drill down report with a source and category of
62
ldquoConsolidationrdquo If you execute a normal drill down to Sub Ledger on these transactions a
new GL Wand drill workbook will be created and the drill down to the subsidiary set of books will be executed
In order to drill down on a GCS transaction you must be logged on the parent as well as the
subsidiary set of books This can be done using the Multiple Sets of Books logon option
Summary Balance Drill Down
On the drill down Criteria sheet toggle the summarization option to ldquoYrdquo for any segment that
you which to summaries by GL Wand creates a summary trial balance report and
summarizes by the selected segments The report can still be expanded to show the detailed
lines and you can still drill down to journals from these lines
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
24
Using GL Wand
Toolbar
The GL Wand toolbar gives you access to all the functionality of GL Wand
The Menu
Functions can also be accessed from the GL Wand drop down menu
Shortcut keys
Frequently used functions like calculate Range calculate Sheet and calculate All can also be
executed with ALT+CTL+R ALT+CTL+S and ALT+CTL+A
Logging on
- Not logged on click to log on
- Logged on click to log on again
25
The first step in using GL Wand is to log on to the Oracle instance that you intend using
You can log on to the online Vision instance or you can log on to your own Oracle Applications instance
See also the Creating Connections section
There are two possible logon methods that GL Wand can use The method is determined by
a setting on the GL Wand Options form The method can be ldquoOraclerdquo or ldquoExcelrdquo It is also
possible to access your segment values descriptive flexfields by enabling the option during the logon
Oracle Logon Method
The ldquoOraclerdquo option is the new logon method which utilizes the Oracle web based screen to
capture your user name and password This method is also compliant with Oracle Single Sign
On When you click the sign on button you are presented with the screen below where you
select which Oracle connection you wish to use
When you click the logon button the Oracle log on screen will appear Enter your applications user name and password
26
When you click Login on this web browser the window will close and you will be presented
with a list of responsibilities that are linked to your user name You will see one of the two
windows displayed below If your site is licensed to use the GL Wand Multiple Sets of Books
feature you will see the image on the right Else the screen will appear like the image on the
left Trial users using an in-house trial key will by default have access to the Multiple Set of Books (MSOB) feature
Select the responsibility that you wish to use and click ok If you are licensed to use the GL
Wand MSOB feature you can select multiple responsibilities Click an item to select it and click it again to unselect it
If you are licensed to use the MSOB feature you also have the option of logging on to all the
available sets of books This option must be enabled by setting the applicable profile option
27
at user level With the profile option set to yes for a particular user that user will have an
extra item in the list of available responsibilities This ldquoAll Sets of Booksrdquo option allows a user
to log on to all the sets of books configured in the Oracle instance without needing to select
multiple responsibilities
Please note that when logging on with the ldquoAll Sets of Booksrdquo option no security rules are
enforced For this reason you must enable this option for those GL Wand users that are
authorized to report across all the configured sets of books By default this options is
disabled for all users
If you log on to an Oracle Release 12 instance and the data access set linked to the chosen
responsibility contains more than one ledger or ledger set you will be logged on to all the applicable ledgers
Excel Logon Method
The ldquoExcelrdquo logon method is the same mechanism that was used in previous GL Wand
versions This method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function
correctly Again there are two possible windows that you will be presented with depending in whether you are licensed to use the GL Wand Multiple Sets of Books feature
28
Descriptive Flexfields
If you wish to report on segment value descriptive flexfields tick this option on the logon
form This will load the descriptive flexfield information This option is by default un-ticked as loading this information unnecessarily would slow down the logon process
Proxy Authentication
If you are connecting to an Oracle instance on the Internet and your organization uses a
proxy server that requires authentication to access the Internet (in addition to the domain
logon) GL Wand will prompt you for your proxy user name and password if required
29
Enter the required user name and password and click OK Then click the logon button again
License Key
If you have not yet obtained a trial license key for the instance that you are logging on to
you will prompted with the option to request a key Click ldquoYesrdquo to open a web page where you can request a trial key or ldquoNordquo to continue without requesting a key
Customers that have licensed GL Wand will use this exact same process to request the final non-expiring keys
Set of Books and Segment Selector
- Set of Books and Segment selector
Once you have logged on the set of books and segment list dropdowns will be populated
Set of Books
The set of books drop down list can be used to select the set of books that you wish to work
with If you log on to a single set of books this dropdown list will contain a single value only
However if you are licensed to use the GL Wand Multiple Sets of Books feature or are in trial then this list will contain multiple values in the following situations
If you selected multiple responsibilities during the logon process all the sets of books
linked to those responsibilities will be listed
If you selected the special ldquoAll Sets of Booksrdquo option all the sets of books configured
in the Oracle instance will be listed
If you log on to an Oracle Release 12 instance and the data access set linked to the
chosen responsibility contains more than one ledger or ledger set then each of these ledgers will be listed
The number in brackets () indicates the Set of Books identifier This number can be used in
various GL Wand formulas and other functionality in order to obtain information from a specific Set of Books
Segments
This dropdown list will be populated with a list of the segments that are available in the
currently selected Set of Books The number in brackets indicates the segment number The
segment list also includes the special value ldquoPeriodrdquo which is used for discovering the period
names in your set of books
In the example shown the selected segment is ldquoCompanyrdquo and it is identified as segment 1 Certain dynamic functions require the segment number as an input parameter
Discovering
The discover tools allow you to extract segment information from the Oracle Applications
database and populate Excel cells with this information You can use the discover tools to
30
extract segment values segment properties periods or child ranges or the full segment
hierarchy For segment values you can use the discover level to choose whether to retrieve child values parent values or both
Discover Segment Values
- Discover Down
- Discover Down All
- Discover Up
1 Select a cell and enter a valid starting segment value eg ldquo1000rdquo into the cell
2 Choose the relevant segment from the segment list eg ldquoAccountrdquo
3 Now click the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button
GL Wand finds the next valid account segment value after account ldquo1000rdquo and enters this value in the cell below the one that you started in
In the same way you can click the up arrow and the previous segment value will be entered
in the cell above the one that you started in
- Discover Left
- Discover Right
31
- Discover Right All
The left and right arrows work in a similar manner retrieving the next and previous segment
values but they populate the cells to the left and right of the cell that you start in When
discovering segment values you will notice that some of the values are entered with a bold
font This is because these have been identified as parent values
You do not need to discover segment values one at a time
You can enter a starting segment value choose the segment from the segment list
and then highlight a range of cells
When you click one of the discover buttons now GL Wand fills the selected range
with the next or previous segment values depending on which arrow you click on
The Discover Down All and Discover Right All buttons can be used to retrieve all the segment values in one operation
Discover Period Names
You can discover period names in much the same way that you can discover segment
values
1 Select a cell and enter a valid starting period name eg Jan-03 into the cell
NB ndash make sure that you enter this starting period name as text by first formatting the Excel
cell as text or entering the period name prefixed by an apostrophe bdquo eg bdquoJan-03 If Excel
interprets the value entered as an actual date eg 01012003 then discover period names
will not work
2 Choose the special ldquoPeriodrdquo value from the segment list
3 Now click the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button
32
GL Wand finds the next period name after Jan-07 in the Set of Books calendar and enters this value in the cell below the one that you started in
You can also use the ldquoDiscover Down Allrdquo ldquoDiscover Previousrdquo ldquoDiscover Rightrdquo ldquoDiscover Right Allrdquo and ldquoDiscover Leftrdquo buttons to discover period names
Discover Properties
- Discover segment properties
The ldquoDiscover Propertiesrdquo button will extract a variety of information about the selected segment value
To use this function
1 Select a cell(s) with a valid segment value in it
2 Make sure the correct segment is selected in the segment selector
3 Click the Discover Properties button
The cells to the right of the selected cell are populated with segment information
The first cell indicates the segment description the second cell indicates if the value is a
parent or not (Y means the segment value is a parent) the third cell indicates if the segment
value is enabled or not (Y means that the segment value is enabled) and the fourth cell
indicates what account type the segment value is eg Asset or Liability etc Obviously the forth cell is only valid for the natural account segment
33
Discover Child Ranges
- Discover child ranges
The ldquoDiscover Child Rangesrdquo button can be used to show the child values that are assigned to a particular parent value
1 Select a cell that has a parent segment value
2 Identify its segment number to the GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the segment list dropdown
3 Now click on the ldquoDiscover Child Rangesrdquo button
An Excel note is added to the cell showing the ranges that have been assigned to the selected parent This is useful for understanding and exploring your Chart of Accounts
Discover Hierarchy
To discover the hierarchy for a segment proceed as follows
Enter the starting segment value into an Excel cell This value must be a parent for
the segment you are using
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
Select ldquoDiscover Hierarchyrdquo from the Discover menu
GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy for the selected parent and display it in the
Excel worksheet indenting the various levels in the hierarchy
34
Toggle Discover Level
- Toggle discover level
The ldquoDiscover levelrdquo button is used to restrict the segment values that are returned by the discover tools to parent values only child values only or both parent and child values
When you click on this button it toggles from discovering parents and children to discovering parents only to discovering child values only
For example
1 Select a cell and enter a starting segment value
2 Choose the segment from the segment list
3 Click the discover level until the option is set to ldquoDiscovering Parentsrdquo 4 Now highlight a range of cells and click the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button
GL Wand fills the selected range with the next segment values but skips all child values and
returns only parent values Similarly child values can be discovered by toggling the discover level to ldquoDiscovering childrenrdquo
If you want to discover both parent and children toggle the discover level back to
ldquoDiscovering parents and childrenrdquo
All segment values must be entered using the Excel text format Either format the cell using
the text number format or enter the cell value using the apostrophe bdquo character which marks
the contents of the cell as text eg if you want to enter the segment value 001 enter it as
follows bdquo001
Expand
- Expand
You can perform an expand down to the lowest level children (explained below) or you can expand using the hierarchy going down one level or expanding the full hierarchy
The Expand feature allows you to extract a list of all the lowest level child values that roll up
to a particular segment selection This might be a parent value range wild card or a
combination of these options
1 Select a cell that has a segment selection eg a parent value
2 Identify its segment number to the GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
3 Click the expand button 4 The child values are retrieved from Oracle and are inserted below the selected cell
35
You can also highlight a number of columns and GL Wand will insert the child values and copy the contents of the highlighted cells against each child value that is inserted
1 Select a cell that has a segment selection and highlight the number of columns that you
would like to have copied into the new rows
2 Identify its segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
3 Click the expand button
4 The child values are retrieved from Oracle and are inserted below the selected cell
5 The contents of the additional columns that were selected are copied against each new
row inserted In the example below this contains a generic Get Balance formula which is then resolved for each child value
You also have the option of selecting multiple rows when performing an Expand GL Wand will perform an expand on each selected row
The expand feature can also be used with account combinations Please see the Special Get
Balance Criteria section for details on how this works
Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Expand feature except that it will
expand using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the values one level down the hierarchy and list them below the starting cell
Expand Hierarchy (Full)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Expand feature except that it will
expand using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy and list all the values below the starting cell indenting the various levels in the hierarchy
36
Undo Expand
- Undo Expand
The expand operation inserts rows into the worksheet to allow the child data to be
populated If you would like to quickly remove the expand data click the undo expand button GL Wand will remove the inserted data from the most recent expand operation
Please note that the expand operation formats the inserted rows in a particular way eg the
segment values are indented The undo expand operation relies on this formatting in order
to process correctly If you modify the formatting of the expanded rows the undo expand
may not function correctly
Refresh Expand
- Refresh Expand
The expand operation fetches the child data that meets the criteria that you enter and
inserts it into new rows in the workbook This data may change over time eg you may
expand a parent value and over time the definition of that parent is modified Use the refresh expand button to retrieve the most recent data from Oracle as follows
Highlight the entire range of expanded data
This must include the criteria row that drives the expand operation eg the row
containing the parent value
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
Click the refresh expand button
GL Wand will remove the old expand data and will refresh the expand with the latest information
Please note that the expand operation formats the inserted rows in a particular way eg the
segment values are indented The refresh expand operation relies on this formatting in order
to process correctly If you modify the formatting of the expanded rows the refresh expand
may not function correctly
Explode Report
- Explode report
You can perform an explode down to the lowest level children (explained below) or you can explode using the hierarchy going down one level or expanding the full hierarchy
Explode report works in a similar way to the expand feature The difference is that where
expand inserts a new row in the worksheet for each child value found explode creates a new worksheet in the current workbook for each child value found For example
Start with a complete GL Wand report
Select the cell in the report that drive the Get Balance formulas eg a department
parent value in the report header
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
37
Click the explode report button
GL Wand will duplicate the worksheet for each child value found for the selected parent
Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Explode feature except that it will
Explode using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the values one level down the hierarchy and create a new worksheet for each value
Explode Hierarchy (Full)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Explode feature except that it will
Explode using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy and create a new worksheet for
each value
Open List of Values
- Open list of values
The segment list of values form can be used to search through the segment values and
descriptions for a specific segment First pick the segment from the segment list
dropdown and then click the segment list of values button The list of values for the chosen
segment is displayed
You can enter a value to search for in the find box The list of values will be filtered to show
only items that match the text entered in the find box The text entered in the find box is
38
compared to the segment value and segment description An item will be included in the results if either field contains the text entered in the find box
In the list section you can start entering a segment value (eg Account number) and the list will scroll to the item matching the values that you have entered
Click the ldquoAddrdquo button double click an item in the list or press enter to add the current item
to the selection list on the right You can also click and drag an item to add it to the selection list
39
If you want to add a range like ldquo1000-2000rdquo do the following
Start by adding the ldquo1000rdquo value using one of the options explained above
Then find the ldquo2000rdquo value in the master list
Ensure that the ldquo2000rdquo value is highlighted in the master list and the ldquo1000rdquo value is
highlighted in the selection list and click the ldquoAdd Rangerdquo button
You can also drag a value from the master list onto an existing value in the selection list to create a range
To remove an item from the selection list ensure that it is highlighted and then click the ldquoRemoverdquo button or press the ldquoDeleterdquo key
Every segment will have the additional value called ldquoAllrdquo Selecting this value will add a ldquordquo
to the parameter list which means ldquoAll valuesrdquo If ldquoAllrdquo is selected then all other selections will be removed and replaced with a
If you want to include certain values and exclude others you can use the ldquoAdd Excluderdquo
option This will add the highlighted value to the selection list prefixed by the reserved exclude character ldquo~rdquo
40
You can add any combination of the options mentioned above to produce your own
calculation
Once you have added all the required segment values to the selection list click ldquoOKrdquo to copy
the list to the clipboard You can then paste these values into a Get Balance function or
anywhere else on the Excel sheet
41
Create List of Values
- Create list of values
This feature can be used to quickly format a cell to be a special list of values cell There are
two types The first type inserts a drop down list of values in the cell and is used for balance
types translated flags and actual flags
The second type creates a link to the standard list of values form It is used for segment values periods and balance and encumbrance names
The cell is identified by a note containing the word ldquoLOVrdquo In order to open the list of values
simply double click the cell or select the cell and click the List of Values button on the
toolbar This will open the list of values form for the specific data type that the list of values cell was created for In the example this was the department segment
The checkbox allows you to link the list of values to a specific set of books This option is only applicable if you have the Multiple Sets of Books feature enabled
42
Functions
The GL Wand functions work in a similar way to any other Excel worksheet function You
provide the required parameters and the results of the function are returned to the Excel
cell The difference being that GL Wand functions retrieve information from your Oracle Applications system
GL Wand currently has the following functions
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value
- Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
43
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
Split Text
Combine Text
Functional Currency
Get Daily Rate
You can enter a function into an Excel cell in a number of ways
Click the applicable button on the GL Wand toolbar (or on the GL Wand menu)
Type the function name into the cell manually prefixed by an = sign
You can select the function from the list that Excel provides when you choose the
Insert Function menu item The GL Wand functions are listed under the special GL
Wand category (Prior to Excel 2007 they are listed in the User Defined category)
If you click the applicable function button on the toolbar and the cell you are in contains that
function the Excel formula wizard window will open If you click a function button in a cell
that contains other data GL Wand will warn you that it is going to replace the contents of the cell with the chosen formula and will give you the option of cancelling the action
All parameters must be entered as text values ie enclosed in double quotes eg enter
ldquoUSDrdquo when entering the currency code or enter ldquo001rdquo when entering a segment value
See ldquoDiscovering versus Functionsrdquo for a comparison extracting information using the
discover tools or the functions
44
Get Balance
The Get Balance function is probably the most important function in GL Wand It returns a
General Ledger balance individually or summed based on the parameters that you enter
Example =Get_Balance(Jan-02YTDUSDEABIS CORPORATE01T4000-41600000000)
Clicking the Get Balance function on the GL Wand toolbar will open the Get Balance Wizard
This form has lists of values for items like period name balance type actual flag etc Select
the applicable values and enter a valid currency code and budget or encumbrance name if required
Double clicking a segment value or clicking the list of values button next to the segment will
open the segment list of values form for that segment See the Segment List of Values
section for details on how to use this form When you click the ldquoOKrdquo button on the Segment
List of Values form the selected segment parameters are entered against that segment in the Get Balance Wizard form
If your Oracle configuration includes dependant segments as part of the accounting
flexfield this form will support selecting values based on the independent and dependant
segment values Simply select a value from the available list of values for the independent
segment Then open the list of values for the dependant segment The list of available values
will be limited to only those values that are related to the selected independent segment
value
When you have entered all the parameters click the ldquoOKrdquo button to insert the Get Balance
function into the selected cell with the entered parameters Clicking the ldquoEditrdquo button will
open the Get Balance function in the Excel formula wizard form which will allow you to link
parameters to cells in the Excel sheet
45
You can also open the Get Balance formula in the Excel formula wizard form using the fx
button on the formula bar or by selecting the ldquoInsert Functionrdquo menu item on the Excel menu bar
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Type ldquoCTDrdquo
(Custom to Date) you can specify a custom period selection For
example ldquoFeb-07-Aug-07rdquo will add all the movement for the entered
period range You may enter multiple lists or ranges of periods and can use wild cards as well eg ldquoJan-0rdquo or ldquo-07rdquo
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Types ldquoJEDrdquo
ldquoJEDUrdquo or ldquoJEDPrdquo (Journal Effective Date) the period parameter
becomes a date parameter eg ldquo01012007-0501200710012007rdquo
The format that your date is in is important The ldquo-ldquo character is
used in GL Wand to denote a range of values and therefore it cannot
be used as a date delimiter eg 01-01-2007 would not be valid So
take care if your Windows regional setting use the ldquo-ldquo as a date
delimiter For JED type calculations we recommend that you use the
ldquordquo as a date delimiter and that you always format the date as text
in Excel otherwise Excel will convert the date based on your regional
setting
Balance Type YTD QTD PTD PJTD CTD JED JEDP or JEDU all in upper case
YTD ndash Summarizes the full years balance
QTD ndash Summarizes the balance for the quarter
46
PTD ndash Includes just the current period‟s movement
PJTD ndash Project to date
CTD ndash Summarizes the custom period criteria entered
JED ndash Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for both posted and unposted journals
JEDP - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for posted journals only
JEDU - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered dates for unposted journals only
Currency Code The currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
Translated Flag Enter E T or C Use E to retrieve the entered amount and T for the
translated amount Use C to report on the converted amount ie
the functional currency equivalent of a foreign currency amount
Only E is valid if requesting a balance for the functional currency of the current Set of Books
You must ensure that you have run the currency translation process
in Oracle for the selected currency and period before reporting on
translated balances If you enter T to request the translated balance
and there is no current translated balance available in the system a zero is returned
Oracle Release 12 provides a new feature to allow reporting on the
values entered in the functional currency only ie excludes any
foreign currency transactions converted to the functional currency
Therefore in Release 12 if you use the E (entered) flag in
conjunction with the functional currency any converted amounts will
be excluded To report on the total balance (including values entered
in functional currency and values converted to the functional
currency) use the new ldquoTotalrdquo option This option is only available if
you log on to a release 12 Oracle instance
Actual Flag A ndash Actual B ndash Budget E ndash Encumbrance
Bud Encumb Name If you enter B or E above enter the exact budget name or
encumbrance type here Otherwise simply enter ldquordquo for actual
balances
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter the segment value here You must enter it as a text value
including any leading zeros eg enter segment value ldquo10rdquo as ldquo0010rdquo
if this segment is configured as four characters with leading zeros in Oracle
You may enter your segment values in a variety of flexible ways
including parents child values ranges wildcards excludes etc See
the explanation below on valid values for this parameter
To include all values simply enter ldquordquo Please note as from GL Wand
3850 you can no longer leave the segment blank a value is
required
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
47
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Options This parameter is used to modify the results returned by the Get
Balance function from the standard behavior Currently two options are supported
Source ndash Limit the results to a specific journal source
Category ndash Limit the results to a specific journal category
The criteria needs to be entered as follows - ldquoSource=Manualrdquo or
ldquoCategory=Adjustmentrdquo To specify both a source and category use
the ldquo|rdquo as a delimiter eg ldquoSource=Manual|Category=Adjustmentrdquo
You can specify multiple values by separating them with ldquordquo eg
ldquoSource=PayablesReceivablesrdquo
When creating Get Balance formulas always use ldquordquo to denote all values as this allows more
efficient SQL to be generated Do not use a range like ldquo000-ZZZrdquo as they will require
unnecessary processing
The segment value parameters can be entered as
a single value representing a child or parent account eg ldquo1500rdquo might represent a
parent account
a range of values eg entering ldquo1500-1600rdquo in one of the segment parameters will
sum all the segment values between 1500 and 1600 for that segment
a list of segment values eg entering ldquo150015101590rdquo in one of the segment
parameters will sum the specific segment values entered If any of the segment
values are parents GL Wand will sum the hierarchy for that parent
wild card entries eg 100 will sum 1100 1200 1300 1400 etc or entering the
value 1 will sum all values that start with 1
values to be included and then specific exclusions eg ldquo1000-2000~1500rdquo will sum
the values between 1000 and 2000 but will skip 1500
a combination of any of the above eg 1000-2000237123752560-
25803000~32004000~4161-4169 In this way you can build up your own calculation definition in the segment parameter
Please note ndash there are two additional methods for specifying segment criteria in the Get
Balance function The one allows you to specify account combinations and the other
allows the use of segment descriptive flexfields Please see the Special Get Balance
Criteria section in order to use these options
Segment Description
Returns the segment description for the chosen segment value
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
48
Example =Get_Segment_Description(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
Returns the next or previous segment value
Parameter Description
Last Value The starting segment value
Segment The segment number
Level Enter a P to return the next or previous parent value enter a C to
return the next or previous child value or leave the parameter blank
to return the next or previous segment value irrespective of whether
it is a parent or child
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example = Next_Segment_Value(ldquo1000rdquo3P)
Parent Flag
Returns the parent flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is a
parent
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Parent_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Enabled Flag
Returns the enabled flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is
enabled
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example = Enabled_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
49
Account Type
Returns the account type for the chosen segment value This function is only applicable for
the natural account segment and will return the value Asset Liability etc
Parameter Description
Account Value The account segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Account_Type(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Period Name
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number Optionally the returned value can be a certain number of periods into the future or past
Parameter Description
PeriodYear The year that you want the period name for
PeriodNumber The period number that you want the period name for
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Offset Optionally enter an offset to return the period name which is n
periods before or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3
periods into the future or -1 to return the previous period
Example =Period_Name(20063)
Set of Books Name
Returns the set of books name for the chosen set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Set_of_Books_Name()
Segment Descriptive Flexfield
Returns the segment values descriptive flexfield for the selected criteria
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
50
Segment The segment number
AttributeNo Identify which attribute you want to report on The segment values
descriptive flexfield has 50 possible attribute values The applicable
attributes will depend on your configuration and whether this
Descriptive Flexfield is used by your organization
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Segment_DFF(ldquo100rdquo25) retrieves the 5th attribute on the segment values
descriptive flexfield for segment value 100 on segment 2
Period Offset
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for
this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
Offset Enter an offset to return the period name which is n periods before
or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3 periods into the
future or -1 to return the previous period
RetRange Enter TRUE (or 1) to return the result as a range eg entering
period Mar-07 with an offset of -2 and the RetRange set to true will
return ldquoJan-07-Mar-07rdquo This can be used in conjunction with the
CTD (Custom to Date) balance type in the Get Balance function to
create rolling period reporting
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Period_Offset(Jan-07-2TRUE)
Split Text
Splits delimited text and returns a specific portion based on an offset Especially useful to
split account combinations but can be used to split any text
Parameter Description
Value Some text which has been concatenated using a delimiter eg an
account combination like ldquo011007000rdquo
Offset Identify which portion of the text to return
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Split_Text(0110070002) will return the ldquo100rdquo portion of the text
51
Combine Text
Combines selected text separated by a delimiter Especially useful to combine segment
values to create a delimited account combinations but can be used to combine any text
Parameter Description
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter segment values that you wish to combine into an account
combination
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Combine_Text(011007000) will return ldquo011007000rdquo
Functional Currency
Returns the functional currency for the set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Functional_Currency()
Get Daily Rate
Returns the daily exchange rate for the entered criteria
Parameter Description
FromCurrency The ldquoFromrdquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case
eg ldquoUSDrdquo
ToCurrency The ldquoTordquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
ConversionType The conversion type as configured in Oracle Spelling and case must
be identical to the Oracle configuration
ConversionDate The conversion date This must be in Excel date format Either refer
to a cell which contains a date or use one of the Excel date functions
to return a date in the parameter
Example =Get_Daily_Rate(USDGBPReportingDATE(200911))
Function return values
The GL Wand functions will return a variety of results depending on a number of factors If
all the information is entered correctly and there are no restrictions on access to the data or
the GL Wand itself the result should be the General Ledger balance segment value segment description etc However the following are also possible return values
glwDemo ndash this means that you are using GL Wand without a valid trial key entered
into the GL Wand License Key profile option When trying GL Wand without a valid
52
trial key you are only allowed to use the first 20 rows and 20 columns of the first
sheet in the workbook Any formula entered outside this range will not calculate a
value but will only return the word ldquoglwDemordquo This is called evaluation mode A
trial key needs to be requested from within GL Wand and entered into the profile
option to allow full access to all functionality
glwNoAccess ndash When you log on you will be prompted for your applications user name
and password and will then need to select a responsibility to log on to Any security
rules that have been linked to the selected responsibility will be enforced on the GL
Wand data If you attempt to access a balance on a general ledger account that you
do not have access to the function will return the word ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo Please see
the ldquoAudit Get Balancerdquo section for information on how to identify the security rule that is being contravened
Please note that Oracles Hierarchical Security is not supported
glwError ndash If you enter invalid information in a parameter for a GL Wand function the
GL Wand error value will be returned This may happen when you for example
enter an invalid budget name or period name in the Get Balance function or when you
enter an invalid segment number in the next segment value function This error value
will also be returned when you are not logged on The details of the return value will
indicate where the problem exists eg glwError (Logon) glwError (Balance Type)
glwError (Translated Flag) glwError (Actual Flag) glwError (Missing segment)
glwError (Data error) glwError (Range) glwError (Period)
glwPending ndash This value will be returned during the calculation process Whenever a
cell requires calculation and the process has not been completed yet the cell will
contain the value ldquoglwPendingrdquo
glwEditing ndash Displays in the Excel function arguments window when editing a Get Balance formula
Discovering versus Functions
You may have noticed that you can achieve similar results by using the discover tools and
using the functions For example you could use the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button to retrieve the
next segment value or you could use the ldquoNext Segment Valuerdquo function to return the same result The difference between these two approaches is as follows
Com
paris
on b
etw
een D
iscoverin
g a
nd
Functio
ns
Discovering Functions
Results returned as text string to Excel
cell
Value is calculated based on
parameters
Value is static Value is dynamic
Never changes Recalculated when sheet refreshed
Lower performance overhead Higher performance overhead
Discover Down Next Segment Value
Discover Up Previous Segment Value
Discover Left Next Segment Value
Discover Right Previous Segment Value
Discover Properties
Segment Description
Parent flag
53
Enabled Flag
Account Type
Discover Child Ranges No equivalent
Toggle Discover Level
Parameters of next segment value
determine whether parents children or
both are returned
Use the discover buttons with ldquoPeriodrdquo
selected in the segment drop down Period Name
Balance Extract is similar to Get
Balance though the static values it
produces are refreshable
Get Balance
Special Get Balance Criteria
GL Wand supports two special types of criteria in the Get Balance function namely ldquoAccount
Combinationsrdquo and ldquoSegment Descriptive Flexfieldrdquo criteria These two forms of the Get
Balance criteria have very specific syntax which must be carefully adhered to in order to
achieve the correct results You also have the ability to expand account combinations for a
selection that uses the ldquoAccount Combinationrdquo criteria
Account Combinations
In the past the Get Balance function only supported individual segment values eg segment
2 = 100 or 200 and segment 3 = 1000 or 2000 This would result in GL Wand returning all the possible combinations of those segment 2 and 3 values
Now you have the ability to specify account combinations using the new Get Balance syntax
This means that you can create new complex criteria for your Get Balance formula eg
(segment 2 = 100 and segment 3 = 1000) or (segment 2 = 200 and segment 3 = 2000)
With these criteria GL Wand will no longer return all the possible combinations but rather only the combinations you specify
In order to specify account combinations in a Get Balance function you must tell GL Wand
which segments you are combining You do this by entering a special value into the segment
eg if you want to combine criteria for segment 2 and segment 3 you would enter the
following in the parameter for segment 2 ldquoUse_Seg3rdquo This tells GL Wand that that it must
find the criteria for segment 2 inside the segment 3 parameter In the segment 3 parameter
you now enter the criteria for both segment 2 and segment 3 separated by the special
delimiter character eg ldquo1001000rdquo This tells GL Wand that you are looking for accounts where segment 2 is 100 and segment 3 is 1000 An example could look like this
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg3100100020020000000000)
It is possible to combine multiple segments as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg5Use_Seg5Use_Seg510010000000000)
54
You simply point each applicable segment to the parameter where the account combination
using the special ldquoUse_SegXrdquo syntax Then inside the target parameter you combine the fully qualified account combination for the applicable segments delimited with a ldquordquo character
When you specify your account combination you have full flexibility to use ranges lists wild
cards parents and exclude criteria For example this criteria will fetch all the values where
segment 2 is between 100 and 200 and segment 3 is between 1000 and 2000 And in
addition to that it will include the values where segment 2 is 250 (a parent) and segment 3
starts with 33 but will exclude the specific value where segment 2 is 250 and segment 3 is
3320
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA01Use_Seg31001000-200200025033~25033200000000)
You also have the flexibility to group different parts of the account combination together For
example this criteria combines the values for segment 1 and 3 together and combines segment 2 and 4 together
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA
Use_Seg3Use_Seg401100002115010000002001050000)
These new Get Balance syntax options provide you with tremendous flexibility when building your GL Wand reports
Expand Account Combinations
The expand feature allows you to extract all the detailed child segment values that roll up to
the criteria that the user specifies The expand feature has been extended to support account combinations
In order to expand an account combination you would do the following
Ensure that the correct set of books is selected in the drop down list on the GL Wand
toolbar
Select the cell containing the account combination criteria eg ldquo1007000rdquo Click the expand button
GL Wand will now identify that the selected cell contains an account combination rather than
a single segment value You will now be presented with a window to identify which segments from your chart of accounts are represented in the account combination
55
Select the correct segments and click ldquoOKrdquo GL Wand will now extract all the child
combinations that roll up to the criteria that you entered and insert them into the Excel sheet
The other options are as follows
Fix ndash if you tick this option for a segment GL Wand will ldquopegrdquo that segment using the
selected value (this option only makes sense for a parent segment value) You might
for example want to expand all the account combinations used in a particular parent
cost centre Simply ldquoFixrdquo the cost centre segment and GL Wand will return all the
account combinations used within that parent cost centre
Exclude disabled account combination ndash tick this option to only return account combinations that are currently enabled and have not been end dated
The expand account combinations feature can be used as a normal GL Wand ldquoExpandrdquo in
order to extract the detail behind a total but it is also very useful to extract existing account combinations from your Oracle system
This feature can be used very effectively with the Split Text and Combine Text functions
Segment Descriptive Flexfields
In order to extract balances using the descriptive flexfields stored on the segment values
you need to use special syntax in the Get Balance function The syntax works as follows
1ABC
You wrap the descriptive flexfield using curly brackets
The first character after the open bracket identifies which descriptive flexfield
attribute is being referred to
You then separate the descriptive flexfield attribute from the actual value using a ldquordquo You then specify the criteria for this attribute
An example Get Balance function would look as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC10000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield on segment 2 is equal to the value ldquoABCrdquo
It is possible to specify criteria for multiple descriptive flexfields as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC2XX10000000000)
Simply wrap each descriptive flexfield value in its own and identify the attribute number
At this stage the descriptive flexfield criteria is restricted to a single value or a single range
of values Lists of values and multiple ranges are not supported A range can be specified
using the special range delimiter ldquo|rdquo (pipe character) This character is different to the range
character that is used for normal Get Balance segment parameters The reason is that the
normal range delimiter ldquo-ldquo may easily be used in a segment descriptive flexfields and
therefore is not suitable In future you will be able to configure your own range delimiter
56
character which will provide the best flexibility The range criteria can be specified as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011100|20010000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield
on segment 2 is between 100 and 200 Date values are also supported in this criteria and GL Wand will correctly derive the ldquobetweenrdquo criteria for a date
Calculating
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what cells are refreshed from
Oracle They are used in conjunction with the GL Wand calculation option (onoff) You can stop a calculation at any time by clicking cancel
- Calculate Range (Alt+Ctl+R)
- Calculate Sheet (Alt+Ctl+S)
- Calculate All (Alt+Ctl+A)
- GL Wand calculation on
- GL Wand calculation off
Calculate Range Sheet or All
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what is recalculated
To calculate a range of cells simply
1 Highlight the range
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Rangerdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+R shortcut key
3 Select multiple ranges using the ctrl button (as normal in Excel)
4 Select a range and then select multiple Excel worksheets to calculate the same range on
each sheet
Please note do not use the calculate range option to recalculate the entire sheet ie by
selecting all the cells on the sheet This will take unnecessarily longer Rather use the
calculate sheet option
To calculate a sheet simply
1 Select the applicable sheet
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Sheetrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+S shortcut key
3 Selecting multiple sheets will calculate each of the selected sheets
To calculate all open workbooks simply
1 Click the ldquoCalculate Allrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+A shortcut key
57
GL Wand calculation on or off
You can use the GL Wand calculation toggle button to control when requests for calculations
are sent to the Oracle server
If you toggle GL Wand calculation ldquoOffrdquo calculation requests are not sent to the Oracle server which means you
you can manipulate a worksheet
change cell values
enter new formulae and
perform any other task that would normally cause Excel to recalculate
and the applicable functions will only return the ldquoglwPendingrdquo status and will not
actually calculate a result
This is useful during report development
To calculate the results simply click one of the three calculation buttons ldquoCalculate Range
Sheet or Allrdquo
If you leave the GL Wand calculation option ldquoOnrdquo the applicable functions will be recalculated whenever Excel initiates a calculation process eg
when changing the contents of the cell
changing one of the functions input values deleting a column or row in the worksheet etc
Please note that the GL Wand calculation option has nothing to do with Excel‟s automatic
and manual calculation The GL Wand calculation option controls only the calculation of the
applicable GL Wand functions All other calculations are controlled as normal by the Excel
automatic and manual calculation option
Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
When you perform a recalculation a window will appear to show the progress of the
calculation
58
If you would like to cancel the calculation process simply click the ldquoCancelrdquo button
Please note that GL Wand will need to wait for the next reply from Oracle before the
connection can be closed Therefore it may take some time before the calculation stops and
the window closes
Snapshot
- Snapshot
The snapshot tool can be used to take a snapshot of your GL Wand report This tool will
remove all the GL Wand functions from the workbook and will replace them with the values that the function returned
The results are similar to using the Excel ldquopaste valuesrdquo functionality However this process will only replace GL Wand formulas All other Excel formulas will be left as they were
Please note that you cannot take a snapshot of a protected worksheet rather output the
sheet to PDF format for archive and distribution purposes
When producing a snapshot GL Wand will request a name for the new workbook You can
select an existing workbook and GL Wand will give you the option to append the snapshot
results to the existing workbook or overwrite the existing workbook You therefore have the
option of producing various snapshot reports and combining them into one new workbook in a single operation rather than producing a separate workbook for each snapshot
Hide zeros
- Hide zeros in selected range
Select a report range that contains rows where all the numbers are zero Click the hide zeros
button and GL Wand will hide all the rows in the selected range where all the cells containing
numbers are zero This is very useful for formatting a report which includes many rows
where for example a number of accounts are not used in a particular cost centre or have no
59
balances in a certain period At the click of a button you can hide all the rows that contain only zeros
Select the entire report range when using the hide zeros function GL Wand checks the
selected range for zeros when determining which rows to hide
Excel automatically forces a recalculation of Get Balance formulas when you hide rows on a
report This is normal Excel functionality
This feature can be used on any Excel worksheet and is not limited to GL Wand reports
Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Undo the last hide zeros operation
Click this button to automatically undo the last hide zeros operation
Drill downs
- Drill to default Balance layout
- Drill to default Journal layout
- Drill to default Sub Ledger layout
The drill down options allow you to extract additional detail about a specific ldquoGet Balancerdquo function
1 Select a cell that contains a valid Get Balance function
2 Click on the drill to balance button
3 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
4 The criteria sheet will be populated with the criteria from the Get Balance function
5 The drill down to balance detail will be executed showing all the detailed accounts that make up the total in the Get Balance function
60
See the Create Drill Criteria Sheet section for more details and options on the drill down criteria sheet
Budget variance analysis If you select two cells on the GL Wand report eg one cell with
actual values and one with budget numbers GL Wand will perform a drill down on the Get
Balance function and display the actual and budget values next to each other and a
calculated variance
You now have a variety of options which can be performed from the drill down workbook
1 Modify the parameters on the criteria sheet and perform a new drill to balance Drop
down lists are provided for most of the parameters see the Create Drill Criteria Sheet for
more details
2 Create a summary drill down report
3 If you have performed a balance drill down you can select the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet and then
click drill down to journal details after selecting one or more rows with accounts
4 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo sheet and then click the button to drill down to the full journal
after selecting one or more rows with journal lines The full journal with all the contra
entries for the selected journal lines will be displayed
5 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo or ldquoJournal-Fullrdquo sheet and then click sub-ledger drill down after
selecting one or more rows with journal lines 6 Drill down to Global Consolidation System transactions
When drilling down you have the following options
Double click any cell on the row that you wish to drill down on
61
Select any cell in the row that you want to drill down on and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar
Highlight a range of rows and click the applicable drill down button on the GL Wand
toolbar to drill down on multiple lines at once
Highlight non contiguous rows using the ldquoCtrlrdquo button and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar to drill down on multiple lines which are not adjacent to each other
It is possible to drill from a Get Balance formula directly to the journal or sub ledger
information Similarly you can drill from a detailed balance (on the Balance worksheet)
directly to the sub ledger information If you select these options GL Wand will execute the
interim drill steps automatically Be careful when performing a drill down directly to the
journal or sub ledger detail level as these drill down operations may return many records
GL Wand will automatically group the drill down to journals and sub ledger information using
Excel‟s group and outline functionality This will allow you expand and collapse the data to
show just a portion of the report Headings are also inserted on the journal and sub-ledger drill down to make the report easier to read
On the sub-ledger drill down the heading includes a number in brackets eg ldquo(23) Journal
Name 123rdquo The number indicates which Excel row these sub-ledger lines originated from on
the ldquoJournalsrdquo sheet
You can use the remove drill down report headings button to strip out the headings on
the journal and sub-ledger drill down sheets
A couple of important things to note about drill downs
GL Wand will first count the number of rows that will be retrieved by the drill down
operation
If the row count is more than 1000 you will receive a warning message asking you if
you want to continue
If the row count is more than the defined limit (see Query Limit) you will receive a
warning and the drill down will be cancelled
If the row count is more than the number of rows available in your version of Excel
you will receive an error and the drill down will be cancelled
When you drill down to journal details the ldquoBalance Typerdquo parameter controls how
much detail is returned If this parameter is ldquoPTDrdquo only the current period‟s journals
are returned If this parameter is ldquoYTDrdquo then all the journals for the year are returned and likewise ldquoQTDrdquo will show the journal for the quarter
Ensure that the worksheet is calculated before performing any drill down functions Also
ensure that the cell contains a ldquoGet Balancerdquo function with valid parameter information
A new drill down workbook will be created each time you perform a drill down operation from
a Get Balance function Once you are finished with a drill down workbook simply close it
without saving
You cannot drill down to journal detail on translated balances
Oracle Global Consolidation System
Drill down to Oracle Global Consolidation System (GCS) transactions is also supported
These items will appear on the journal drill down report with a source and category of
62
ldquoConsolidationrdquo If you execute a normal drill down to Sub Ledger on these transactions a
new GL Wand drill workbook will be created and the drill down to the subsidiary set of books will be executed
In order to drill down on a GCS transaction you must be logged on the parent as well as the
subsidiary set of books This can be done using the Multiple Sets of Books logon option
Summary Balance Drill Down
On the drill down Criteria sheet toggle the summarization option to ldquoYrdquo for any segment that
you which to summaries by GL Wand creates a summary trial balance report and
summarizes by the selected segments The report can still be expanded to show the detailed
lines and you can still drill down to journals from these lines
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
25
The first step in using GL Wand is to log on to the Oracle instance that you intend using
You can log on to the online Vision instance or you can log on to your own Oracle Applications instance
See also the Creating Connections section
There are two possible logon methods that GL Wand can use The method is determined by
a setting on the GL Wand Options form The method can be ldquoOraclerdquo or ldquoExcelrdquo It is also
possible to access your segment values descriptive flexfields by enabling the option during the logon
Oracle Logon Method
The ldquoOraclerdquo option is the new logon method which utilizes the Oracle web based screen to
capture your user name and password This method is also compliant with Oracle Single Sign
On When you click the sign on button you are presented with the screen below where you
select which Oracle connection you wish to use
When you click the logon button the Oracle log on screen will appear Enter your applications user name and password
26
When you click Login on this web browser the window will close and you will be presented
with a list of responsibilities that are linked to your user name You will see one of the two
windows displayed below If your site is licensed to use the GL Wand Multiple Sets of Books
feature you will see the image on the right Else the screen will appear like the image on the
left Trial users using an in-house trial key will by default have access to the Multiple Set of Books (MSOB) feature
Select the responsibility that you wish to use and click ok If you are licensed to use the GL
Wand MSOB feature you can select multiple responsibilities Click an item to select it and click it again to unselect it
If you are licensed to use the MSOB feature you also have the option of logging on to all the
available sets of books This option must be enabled by setting the applicable profile option
27
at user level With the profile option set to yes for a particular user that user will have an
extra item in the list of available responsibilities This ldquoAll Sets of Booksrdquo option allows a user
to log on to all the sets of books configured in the Oracle instance without needing to select
multiple responsibilities
Please note that when logging on with the ldquoAll Sets of Booksrdquo option no security rules are
enforced For this reason you must enable this option for those GL Wand users that are
authorized to report across all the configured sets of books By default this options is
disabled for all users
If you log on to an Oracle Release 12 instance and the data access set linked to the chosen
responsibility contains more than one ledger or ledger set you will be logged on to all the applicable ledgers
Excel Logon Method
The ldquoExcelrdquo logon method is the same mechanism that was used in previous GL Wand
versions This method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function
correctly Again there are two possible windows that you will be presented with depending in whether you are licensed to use the GL Wand Multiple Sets of Books feature
28
Descriptive Flexfields
If you wish to report on segment value descriptive flexfields tick this option on the logon
form This will load the descriptive flexfield information This option is by default un-ticked as loading this information unnecessarily would slow down the logon process
Proxy Authentication
If you are connecting to an Oracle instance on the Internet and your organization uses a
proxy server that requires authentication to access the Internet (in addition to the domain
logon) GL Wand will prompt you for your proxy user name and password if required
29
Enter the required user name and password and click OK Then click the logon button again
License Key
If you have not yet obtained a trial license key for the instance that you are logging on to
you will prompted with the option to request a key Click ldquoYesrdquo to open a web page where you can request a trial key or ldquoNordquo to continue without requesting a key
Customers that have licensed GL Wand will use this exact same process to request the final non-expiring keys
Set of Books and Segment Selector
- Set of Books and Segment selector
Once you have logged on the set of books and segment list dropdowns will be populated
Set of Books
The set of books drop down list can be used to select the set of books that you wish to work
with If you log on to a single set of books this dropdown list will contain a single value only
However if you are licensed to use the GL Wand Multiple Sets of Books feature or are in trial then this list will contain multiple values in the following situations
If you selected multiple responsibilities during the logon process all the sets of books
linked to those responsibilities will be listed
If you selected the special ldquoAll Sets of Booksrdquo option all the sets of books configured
in the Oracle instance will be listed
If you log on to an Oracle Release 12 instance and the data access set linked to the
chosen responsibility contains more than one ledger or ledger set then each of these ledgers will be listed
The number in brackets () indicates the Set of Books identifier This number can be used in
various GL Wand formulas and other functionality in order to obtain information from a specific Set of Books
Segments
This dropdown list will be populated with a list of the segments that are available in the
currently selected Set of Books The number in brackets indicates the segment number The
segment list also includes the special value ldquoPeriodrdquo which is used for discovering the period
names in your set of books
In the example shown the selected segment is ldquoCompanyrdquo and it is identified as segment 1 Certain dynamic functions require the segment number as an input parameter
Discovering
The discover tools allow you to extract segment information from the Oracle Applications
database and populate Excel cells with this information You can use the discover tools to
30
extract segment values segment properties periods or child ranges or the full segment
hierarchy For segment values you can use the discover level to choose whether to retrieve child values parent values or both
Discover Segment Values
- Discover Down
- Discover Down All
- Discover Up
1 Select a cell and enter a valid starting segment value eg ldquo1000rdquo into the cell
2 Choose the relevant segment from the segment list eg ldquoAccountrdquo
3 Now click the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button
GL Wand finds the next valid account segment value after account ldquo1000rdquo and enters this value in the cell below the one that you started in
In the same way you can click the up arrow and the previous segment value will be entered
in the cell above the one that you started in
- Discover Left
- Discover Right
31
- Discover Right All
The left and right arrows work in a similar manner retrieving the next and previous segment
values but they populate the cells to the left and right of the cell that you start in When
discovering segment values you will notice that some of the values are entered with a bold
font This is because these have been identified as parent values
You do not need to discover segment values one at a time
You can enter a starting segment value choose the segment from the segment list
and then highlight a range of cells
When you click one of the discover buttons now GL Wand fills the selected range
with the next or previous segment values depending on which arrow you click on
The Discover Down All and Discover Right All buttons can be used to retrieve all the segment values in one operation
Discover Period Names
You can discover period names in much the same way that you can discover segment
values
1 Select a cell and enter a valid starting period name eg Jan-03 into the cell
NB ndash make sure that you enter this starting period name as text by first formatting the Excel
cell as text or entering the period name prefixed by an apostrophe bdquo eg bdquoJan-03 If Excel
interprets the value entered as an actual date eg 01012003 then discover period names
will not work
2 Choose the special ldquoPeriodrdquo value from the segment list
3 Now click the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button
32
GL Wand finds the next period name after Jan-07 in the Set of Books calendar and enters this value in the cell below the one that you started in
You can also use the ldquoDiscover Down Allrdquo ldquoDiscover Previousrdquo ldquoDiscover Rightrdquo ldquoDiscover Right Allrdquo and ldquoDiscover Leftrdquo buttons to discover period names
Discover Properties
- Discover segment properties
The ldquoDiscover Propertiesrdquo button will extract a variety of information about the selected segment value
To use this function
1 Select a cell(s) with a valid segment value in it
2 Make sure the correct segment is selected in the segment selector
3 Click the Discover Properties button
The cells to the right of the selected cell are populated with segment information
The first cell indicates the segment description the second cell indicates if the value is a
parent or not (Y means the segment value is a parent) the third cell indicates if the segment
value is enabled or not (Y means that the segment value is enabled) and the fourth cell
indicates what account type the segment value is eg Asset or Liability etc Obviously the forth cell is only valid for the natural account segment
33
Discover Child Ranges
- Discover child ranges
The ldquoDiscover Child Rangesrdquo button can be used to show the child values that are assigned to a particular parent value
1 Select a cell that has a parent segment value
2 Identify its segment number to the GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the segment list dropdown
3 Now click on the ldquoDiscover Child Rangesrdquo button
An Excel note is added to the cell showing the ranges that have been assigned to the selected parent This is useful for understanding and exploring your Chart of Accounts
Discover Hierarchy
To discover the hierarchy for a segment proceed as follows
Enter the starting segment value into an Excel cell This value must be a parent for
the segment you are using
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
Select ldquoDiscover Hierarchyrdquo from the Discover menu
GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy for the selected parent and display it in the
Excel worksheet indenting the various levels in the hierarchy
34
Toggle Discover Level
- Toggle discover level
The ldquoDiscover levelrdquo button is used to restrict the segment values that are returned by the discover tools to parent values only child values only or both parent and child values
When you click on this button it toggles from discovering parents and children to discovering parents only to discovering child values only
For example
1 Select a cell and enter a starting segment value
2 Choose the segment from the segment list
3 Click the discover level until the option is set to ldquoDiscovering Parentsrdquo 4 Now highlight a range of cells and click the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button
GL Wand fills the selected range with the next segment values but skips all child values and
returns only parent values Similarly child values can be discovered by toggling the discover level to ldquoDiscovering childrenrdquo
If you want to discover both parent and children toggle the discover level back to
ldquoDiscovering parents and childrenrdquo
All segment values must be entered using the Excel text format Either format the cell using
the text number format or enter the cell value using the apostrophe bdquo character which marks
the contents of the cell as text eg if you want to enter the segment value 001 enter it as
follows bdquo001
Expand
- Expand
You can perform an expand down to the lowest level children (explained below) or you can expand using the hierarchy going down one level or expanding the full hierarchy
The Expand feature allows you to extract a list of all the lowest level child values that roll up
to a particular segment selection This might be a parent value range wild card or a
combination of these options
1 Select a cell that has a segment selection eg a parent value
2 Identify its segment number to the GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
3 Click the expand button 4 The child values are retrieved from Oracle and are inserted below the selected cell
35
You can also highlight a number of columns and GL Wand will insert the child values and copy the contents of the highlighted cells against each child value that is inserted
1 Select a cell that has a segment selection and highlight the number of columns that you
would like to have copied into the new rows
2 Identify its segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
3 Click the expand button
4 The child values are retrieved from Oracle and are inserted below the selected cell
5 The contents of the additional columns that were selected are copied against each new
row inserted In the example below this contains a generic Get Balance formula which is then resolved for each child value
You also have the option of selecting multiple rows when performing an Expand GL Wand will perform an expand on each selected row
The expand feature can also be used with account combinations Please see the Special Get
Balance Criteria section for details on how this works
Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Expand feature except that it will
expand using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the values one level down the hierarchy and list them below the starting cell
Expand Hierarchy (Full)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Expand feature except that it will
expand using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy and list all the values below the starting cell indenting the various levels in the hierarchy
36
Undo Expand
- Undo Expand
The expand operation inserts rows into the worksheet to allow the child data to be
populated If you would like to quickly remove the expand data click the undo expand button GL Wand will remove the inserted data from the most recent expand operation
Please note that the expand operation formats the inserted rows in a particular way eg the
segment values are indented The undo expand operation relies on this formatting in order
to process correctly If you modify the formatting of the expanded rows the undo expand
may not function correctly
Refresh Expand
- Refresh Expand
The expand operation fetches the child data that meets the criteria that you enter and
inserts it into new rows in the workbook This data may change over time eg you may
expand a parent value and over time the definition of that parent is modified Use the refresh expand button to retrieve the most recent data from Oracle as follows
Highlight the entire range of expanded data
This must include the criteria row that drives the expand operation eg the row
containing the parent value
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
Click the refresh expand button
GL Wand will remove the old expand data and will refresh the expand with the latest information
Please note that the expand operation formats the inserted rows in a particular way eg the
segment values are indented The refresh expand operation relies on this formatting in order
to process correctly If you modify the formatting of the expanded rows the refresh expand
may not function correctly
Explode Report
- Explode report
You can perform an explode down to the lowest level children (explained below) or you can explode using the hierarchy going down one level or expanding the full hierarchy
Explode report works in a similar way to the expand feature The difference is that where
expand inserts a new row in the worksheet for each child value found explode creates a new worksheet in the current workbook for each child value found For example
Start with a complete GL Wand report
Select the cell in the report that drive the Get Balance formulas eg a department
parent value in the report header
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
37
Click the explode report button
GL Wand will duplicate the worksheet for each child value found for the selected parent
Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Explode feature except that it will
Explode using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the values one level down the hierarchy and create a new worksheet for each value
Explode Hierarchy (Full)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Explode feature except that it will
Explode using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy and create a new worksheet for
each value
Open List of Values
- Open list of values
The segment list of values form can be used to search through the segment values and
descriptions for a specific segment First pick the segment from the segment list
dropdown and then click the segment list of values button The list of values for the chosen
segment is displayed
You can enter a value to search for in the find box The list of values will be filtered to show
only items that match the text entered in the find box The text entered in the find box is
38
compared to the segment value and segment description An item will be included in the results if either field contains the text entered in the find box
In the list section you can start entering a segment value (eg Account number) and the list will scroll to the item matching the values that you have entered
Click the ldquoAddrdquo button double click an item in the list or press enter to add the current item
to the selection list on the right You can also click and drag an item to add it to the selection list
39
If you want to add a range like ldquo1000-2000rdquo do the following
Start by adding the ldquo1000rdquo value using one of the options explained above
Then find the ldquo2000rdquo value in the master list
Ensure that the ldquo2000rdquo value is highlighted in the master list and the ldquo1000rdquo value is
highlighted in the selection list and click the ldquoAdd Rangerdquo button
You can also drag a value from the master list onto an existing value in the selection list to create a range
To remove an item from the selection list ensure that it is highlighted and then click the ldquoRemoverdquo button or press the ldquoDeleterdquo key
Every segment will have the additional value called ldquoAllrdquo Selecting this value will add a ldquordquo
to the parameter list which means ldquoAll valuesrdquo If ldquoAllrdquo is selected then all other selections will be removed and replaced with a
If you want to include certain values and exclude others you can use the ldquoAdd Excluderdquo
option This will add the highlighted value to the selection list prefixed by the reserved exclude character ldquo~rdquo
40
You can add any combination of the options mentioned above to produce your own
calculation
Once you have added all the required segment values to the selection list click ldquoOKrdquo to copy
the list to the clipboard You can then paste these values into a Get Balance function or
anywhere else on the Excel sheet
41
Create List of Values
- Create list of values
This feature can be used to quickly format a cell to be a special list of values cell There are
two types The first type inserts a drop down list of values in the cell and is used for balance
types translated flags and actual flags
The second type creates a link to the standard list of values form It is used for segment values periods and balance and encumbrance names
The cell is identified by a note containing the word ldquoLOVrdquo In order to open the list of values
simply double click the cell or select the cell and click the List of Values button on the
toolbar This will open the list of values form for the specific data type that the list of values cell was created for In the example this was the department segment
The checkbox allows you to link the list of values to a specific set of books This option is only applicable if you have the Multiple Sets of Books feature enabled
42
Functions
The GL Wand functions work in a similar way to any other Excel worksheet function You
provide the required parameters and the results of the function are returned to the Excel
cell The difference being that GL Wand functions retrieve information from your Oracle Applications system
GL Wand currently has the following functions
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value
- Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
43
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
Split Text
Combine Text
Functional Currency
Get Daily Rate
You can enter a function into an Excel cell in a number of ways
Click the applicable button on the GL Wand toolbar (or on the GL Wand menu)
Type the function name into the cell manually prefixed by an = sign
You can select the function from the list that Excel provides when you choose the
Insert Function menu item The GL Wand functions are listed under the special GL
Wand category (Prior to Excel 2007 they are listed in the User Defined category)
If you click the applicable function button on the toolbar and the cell you are in contains that
function the Excel formula wizard window will open If you click a function button in a cell
that contains other data GL Wand will warn you that it is going to replace the contents of the cell with the chosen formula and will give you the option of cancelling the action
All parameters must be entered as text values ie enclosed in double quotes eg enter
ldquoUSDrdquo when entering the currency code or enter ldquo001rdquo when entering a segment value
See ldquoDiscovering versus Functionsrdquo for a comparison extracting information using the
discover tools or the functions
44
Get Balance
The Get Balance function is probably the most important function in GL Wand It returns a
General Ledger balance individually or summed based on the parameters that you enter
Example =Get_Balance(Jan-02YTDUSDEABIS CORPORATE01T4000-41600000000)
Clicking the Get Balance function on the GL Wand toolbar will open the Get Balance Wizard
This form has lists of values for items like period name balance type actual flag etc Select
the applicable values and enter a valid currency code and budget or encumbrance name if required
Double clicking a segment value or clicking the list of values button next to the segment will
open the segment list of values form for that segment See the Segment List of Values
section for details on how to use this form When you click the ldquoOKrdquo button on the Segment
List of Values form the selected segment parameters are entered against that segment in the Get Balance Wizard form
If your Oracle configuration includes dependant segments as part of the accounting
flexfield this form will support selecting values based on the independent and dependant
segment values Simply select a value from the available list of values for the independent
segment Then open the list of values for the dependant segment The list of available values
will be limited to only those values that are related to the selected independent segment
value
When you have entered all the parameters click the ldquoOKrdquo button to insert the Get Balance
function into the selected cell with the entered parameters Clicking the ldquoEditrdquo button will
open the Get Balance function in the Excel formula wizard form which will allow you to link
parameters to cells in the Excel sheet
45
You can also open the Get Balance formula in the Excel formula wizard form using the fx
button on the formula bar or by selecting the ldquoInsert Functionrdquo menu item on the Excel menu bar
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Type ldquoCTDrdquo
(Custom to Date) you can specify a custom period selection For
example ldquoFeb-07-Aug-07rdquo will add all the movement for the entered
period range You may enter multiple lists or ranges of periods and can use wild cards as well eg ldquoJan-0rdquo or ldquo-07rdquo
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Types ldquoJEDrdquo
ldquoJEDUrdquo or ldquoJEDPrdquo (Journal Effective Date) the period parameter
becomes a date parameter eg ldquo01012007-0501200710012007rdquo
The format that your date is in is important The ldquo-ldquo character is
used in GL Wand to denote a range of values and therefore it cannot
be used as a date delimiter eg 01-01-2007 would not be valid So
take care if your Windows regional setting use the ldquo-ldquo as a date
delimiter For JED type calculations we recommend that you use the
ldquordquo as a date delimiter and that you always format the date as text
in Excel otherwise Excel will convert the date based on your regional
setting
Balance Type YTD QTD PTD PJTD CTD JED JEDP or JEDU all in upper case
YTD ndash Summarizes the full years balance
QTD ndash Summarizes the balance for the quarter
46
PTD ndash Includes just the current period‟s movement
PJTD ndash Project to date
CTD ndash Summarizes the custom period criteria entered
JED ndash Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for both posted and unposted journals
JEDP - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for posted journals only
JEDU - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered dates for unposted journals only
Currency Code The currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
Translated Flag Enter E T or C Use E to retrieve the entered amount and T for the
translated amount Use C to report on the converted amount ie
the functional currency equivalent of a foreign currency amount
Only E is valid if requesting a balance for the functional currency of the current Set of Books
You must ensure that you have run the currency translation process
in Oracle for the selected currency and period before reporting on
translated balances If you enter T to request the translated balance
and there is no current translated balance available in the system a zero is returned
Oracle Release 12 provides a new feature to allow reporting on the
values entered in the functional currency only ie excludes any
foreign currency transactions converted to the functional currency
Therefore in Release 12 if you use the E (entered) flag in
conjunction with the functional currency any converted amounts will
be excluded To report on the total balance (including values entered
in functional currency and values converted to the functional
currency) use the new ldquoTotalrdquo option This option is only available if
you log on to a release 12 Oracle instance
Actual Flag A ndash Actual B ndash Budget E ndash Encumbrance
Bud Encumb Name If you enter B or E above enter the exact budget name or
encumbrance type here Otherwise simply enter ldquordquo for actual
balances
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter the segment value here You must enter it as a text value
including any leading zeros eg enter segment value ldquo10rdquo as ldquo0010rdquo
if this segment is configured as four characters with leading zeros in Oracle
You may enter your segment values in a variety of flexible ways
including parents child values ranges wildcards excludes etc See
the explanation below on valid values for this parameter
To include all values simply enter ldquordquo Please note as from GL Wand
3850 you can no longer leave the segment blank a value is
required
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
47
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Options This parameter is used to modify the results returned by the Get
Balance function from the standard behavior Currently two options are supported
Source ndash Limit the results to a specific journal source
Category ndash Limit the results to a specific journal category
The criteria needs to be entered as follows - ldquoSource=Manualrdquo or
ldquoCategory=Adjustmentrdquo To specify both a source and category use
the ldquo|rdquo as a delimiter eg ldquoSource=Manual|Category=Adjustmentrdquo
You can specify multiple values by separating them with ldquordquo eg
ldquoSource=PayablesReceivablesrdquo
When creating Get Balance formulas always use ldquordquo to denote all values as this allows more
efficient SQL to be generated Do not use a range like ldquo000-ZZZrdquo as they will require
unnecessary processing
The segment value parameters can be entered as
a single value representing a child or parent account eg ldquo1500rdquo might represent a
parent account
a range of values eg entering ldquo1500-1600rdquo in one of the segment parameters will
sum all the segment values between 1500 and 1600 for that segment
a list of segment values eg entering ldquo150015101590rdquo in one of the segment
parameters will sum the specific segment values entered If any of the segment
values are parents GL Wand will sum the hierarchy for that parent
wild card entries eg 100 will sum 1100 1200 1300 1400 etc or entering the
value 1 will sum all values that start with 1
values to be included and then specific exclusions eg ldquo1000-2000~1500rdquo will sum
the values between 1000 and 2000 but will skip 1500
a combination of any of the above eg 1000-2000237123752560-
25803000~32004000~4161-4169 In this way you can build up your own calculation definition in the segment parameter
Please note ndash there are two additional methods for specifying segment criteria in the Get
Balance function The one allows you to specify account combinations and the other
allows the use of segment descriptive flexfields Please see the Special Get Balance
Criteria section in order to use these options
Segment Description
Returns the segment description for the chosen segment value
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
48
Example =Get_Segment_Description(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
Returns the next or previous segment value
Parameter Description
Last Value The starting segment value
Segment The segment number
Level Enter a P to return the next or previous parent value enter a C to
return the next or previous child value or leave the parameter blank
to return the next or previous segment value irrespective of whether
it is a parent or child
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example = Next_Segment_Value(ldquo1000rdquo3P)
Parent Flag
Returns the parent flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is a
parent
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Parent_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Enabled Flag
Returns the enabled flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is
enabled
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example = Enabled_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
49
Account Type
Returns the account type for the chosen segment value This function is only applicable for
the natural account segment and will return the value Asset Liability etc
Parameter Description
Account Value The account segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Account_Type(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Period Name
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number Optionally the returned value can be a certain number of periods into the future or past
Parameter Description
PeriodYear The year that you want the period name for
PeriodNumber The period number that you want the period name for
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Offset Optionally enter an offset to return the period name which is n
periods before or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3
periods into the future or -1 to return the previous period
Example =Period_Name(20063)
Set of Books Name
Returns the set of books name for the chosen set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Set_of_Books_Name()
Segment Descriptive Flexfield
Returns the segment values descriptive flexfield for the selected criteria
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
50
Segment The segment number
AttributeNo Identify which attribute you want to report on The segment values
descriptive flexfield has 50 possible attribute values The applicable
attributes will depend on your configuration and whether this
Descriptive Flexfield is used by your organization
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Segment_DFF(ldquo100rdquo25) retrieves the 5th attribute on the segment values
descriptive flexfield for segment value 100 on segment 2
Period Offset
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for
this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
Offset Enter an offset to return the period name which is n periods before
or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3 periods into the
future or -1 to return the previous period
RetRange Enter TRUE (or 1) to return the result as a range eg entering
period Mar-07 with an offset of -2 and the RetRange set to true will
return ldquoJan-07-Mar-07rdquo This can be used in conjunction with the
CTD (Custom to Date) balance type in the Get Balance function to
create rolling period reporting
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Period_Offset(Jan-07-2TRUE)
Split Text
Splits delimited text and returns a specific portion based on an offset Especially useful to
split account combinations but can be used to split any text
Parameter Description
Value Some text which has been concatenated using a delimiter eg an
account combination like ldquo011007000rdquo
Offset Identify which portion of the text to return
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Split_Text(0110070002) will return the ldquo100rdquo portion of the text
51
Combine Text
Combines selected text separated by a delimiter Especially useful to combine segment
values to create a delimited account combinations but can be used to combine any text
Parameter Description
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter segment values that you wish to combine into an account
combination
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Combine_Text(011007000) will return ldquo011007000rdquo
Functional Currency
Returns the functional currency for the set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Functional_Currency()
Get Daily Rate
Returns the daily exchange rate for the entered criteria
Parameter Description
FromCurrency The ldquoFromrdquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case
eg ldquoUSDrdquo
ToCurrency The ldquoTordquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
ConversionType The conversion type as configured in Oracle Spelling and case must
be identical to the Oracle configuration
ConversionDate The conversion date This must be in Excel date format Either refer
to a cell which contains a date or use one of the Excel date functions
to return a date in the parameter
Example =Get_Daily_Rate(USDGBPReportingDATE(200911))
Function return values
The GL Wand functions will return a variety of results depending on a number of factors If
all the information is entered correctly and there are no restrictions on access to the data or
the GL Wand itself the result should be the General Ledger balance segment value segment description etc However the following are also possible return values
glwDemo ndash this means that you are using GL Wand without a valid trial key entered
into the GL Wand License Key profile option When trying GL Wand without a valid
52
trial key you are only allowed to use the first 20 rows and 20 columns of the first
sheet in the workbook Any formula entered outside this range will not calculate a
value but will only return the word ldquoglwDemordquo This is called evaluation mode A
trial key needs to be requested from within GL Wand and entered into the profile
option to allow full access to all functionality
glwNoAccess ndash When you log on you will be prompted for your applications user name
and password and will then need to select a responsibility to log on to Any security
rules that have been linked to the selected responsibility will be enforced on the GL
Wand data If you attempt to access a balance on a general ledger account that you
do not have access to the function will return the word ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo Please see
the ldquoAudit Get Balancerdquo section for information on how to identify the security rule that is being contravened
Please note that Oracles Hierarchical Security is not supported
glwError ndash If you enter invalid information in a parameter for a GL Wand function the
GL Wand error value will be returned This may happen when you for example
enter an invalid budget name or period name in the Get Balance function or when you
enter an invalid segment number in the next segment value function This error value
will also be returned when you are not logged on The details of the return value will
indicate where the problem exists eg glwError (Logon) glwError (Balance Type)
glwError (Translated Flag) glwError (Actual Flag) glwError (Missing segment)
glwError (Data error) glwError (Range) glwError (Period)
glwPending ndash This value will be returned during the calculation process Whenever a
cell requires calculation and the process has not been completed yet the cell will
contain the value ldquoglwPendingrdquo
glwEditing ndash Displays in the Excel function arguments window when editing a Get Balance formula
Discovering versus Functions
You may have noticed that you can achieve similar results by using the discover tools and
using the functions For example you could use the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button to retrieve the
next segment value or you could use the ldquoNext Segment Valuerdquo function to return the same result The difference between these two approaches is as follows
Com
paris
on b
etw
een D
iscoverin
g a
nd
Functio
ns
Discovering Functions
Results returned as text string to Excel
cell
Value is calculated based on
parameters
Value is static Value is dynamic
Never changes Recalculated when sheet refreshed
Lower performance overhead Higher performance overhead
Discover Down Next Segment Value
Discover Up Previous Segment Value
Discover Left Next Segment Value
Discover Right Previous Segment Value
Discover Properties
Segment Description
Parent flag
53
Enabled Flag
Account Type
Discover Child Ranges No equivalent
Toggle Discover Level
Parameters of next segment value
determine whether parents children or
both are returned
Use the discover buttons with ldquoPeriodrdquo
selected in the segment drop down Period Name
Balance Extract is similar to Get
Balance though the static values it
produces are refreshable
Get Balance
Special Get Balance Criteria
GL Wand supports two special types of criteria in the Get Balance function namely ldquoAccount
Combinationsrdquo and ldquoSegment Descriptive Flexfieldrdquo criteria These two forms of the Get
Balance criteria have very specific syntax which must be carefully adhered to in order to
achieve the correct results You also have the ability to expand account combinations for a
selection that uses the ldquoAccount Combinationrdquo criteria
Account Combinations
In the past the Get Balance function only supported individual segment values eg segment
2 = 100 or 200 and segment 3 = 1000 or 2000 This would result in GL Wand returning all the possible combinations of those segment 2 and 3 values
Now you have the ability to specify account combinations using the new Get Balance syntax
This means that you can create new complex criteria for your Get Balance formula eg
(segment 2 = 100 and segment 3 = 1000) or (segment 2 = 200 and segment 3 = 2000)
With these criteria GL Wand will no longer return all the possible combinations but rather only the combinations you specify
In order to specify account combinations in a Get Balance function you must tell GL Wand
which segments you are combining You do this by entering a special value into the segment
eg if you want to combine criteria for segment 2 and segment 3 you would enter the
following in the parameter for segment 2 ldquoUse_Seg3rdquo This tells GL Wand that that it must
find the criteria for segment 2 inside the segment 3 parameter In the segment 3 parameter
you now enter the criteria for both segment 2 and segment 3 separated by the special
delimiter character eg ldquo1001000rdquo This tells GL Wand that you are looking for accounts where segment 2 is 100 and segment 3 is 1000 An example could look like this
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg3100100020020000000000)
It is possible to combine multiple segments as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg5Use_Seg5Use_Seg510010000000000)
54
You simply point each applicable segment to the parameter where the account combination
using the special ldquoUse_SegXrdquo syntax Then inside the target parameter you combine the fully qualified account combination for the applicable segments delimited with a ldquordquo character
When you specify your account combination you have full flexibility to use ranges lists wild
cards parents and exclude criteria For example this criteria will fetch all the values where
segment 2 is between 100 and 200 and segment 3 is between 1000 and 2000 And in
addition to that it will include the values where segment 2 is 250 (a parent) and segment 3
starts with 33 but will exclude the specific value where segment 2 is 250 and segment 3 is
3320
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA01Use_Seg31001000-200200025033~25033200000000)
You also have the flexibility to group different parts of the account combination together For
example this criteria combines the values for segment 1 and 3 together and combines segment 2 and 4 together
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA
Use_Seg3Use_Seg401100002115010000002001050000)
These new Get Balance syntax options provide you with tremendous flexibility when building your GL Wand reports
Expand Account Combinations
The expand feature allows you to extract all the detailed child segment values that roll up to
the criteria that the user specifies The expand feature has been extended to support account combinations
In order to expand an account combination you would do the following
Ensure that the correct set of books is selected in the drop down list on the GL Wand
toolbar
Select the cell containing the account combination criteria eg ldquo1007000rdquo Click the expand button
GL Wand will now identify that the selected cell contains an account combination rather than
a single segment value You will now be presented with a window to identify which segments from your chart of accounts are represented in the account combination
55
Select the correct segments and click ldquoOKrdquo GL Wand will now extract all the child
combinations that roll up to the criteria that you entered and insert them into the Excel sheet
The other options are as follows
Fix ndash if you tick this option for a segment GL Wand will ldquopegrdquo that segment using the
selected value (this option only makes sense for a parent segment value) You might
for example want to expand all the account combinations used in a particular parent
cost centre Simply ldquoFixrdquo the cost centre segment and GL Wand will return all the
account combinations used within that parent cost centre
Exclude disabled account combination ndash tick this option to only return account combinations that are currently enabled and have not been end dated
The expand account combinations feature can be used as a normal GL Wand ldquoExpandrdquo in
order to extract the detail behind a total but it is also very useful to extract existing account combinations from your Oracle system
This feature can be used very effectively with the Split Text and Combine Text functions
Segment Descriptive Flexfields
In order to extract balances using the descriptive flexfields stored on the segment values
you need to use special syntax in the Get Balance function The syntax works as follows
1ABC
You wrap the descriptive flexfield using curly brackets
The first character after the open bracket identifies which descriptive flexfield
attribute is being referred to
You then separate the descriptive flexfield attribute from the actual value using a ldquordquo You then specify the criteria for this attribute
An example Get Balance function would look as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC10000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield on segment 2 is equal to the value ldquoABCrdquo
It is possible to specify criteria for multiple descriptive flexfields as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC2XX10000000000)
Simply wrap each descriptive flexfield value in its own and identify the attribute number
At this stage the descriptive flexfield criteria is restricted to a single value or a single range
of values Lists of values and multiple ranges are not supported A range can be specified
using the special range delimiter ldquo|rdquo (pipe character) This character is different to the range
character that is used for normal Get Balance segment parameters The reason is that the
normal range delimiter ldquo-ldquo may easily be used in a segment descriptive flexfields and
therefore is not suitable In future you will be able to configure your own range delimiter
56
character which will provide the best flexibility The range criteria can be specified as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011100|20010000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield
on segment 2 is between 100 and 200 Date values are also supported in this criteria and GL Wand will correctly derive the ldquobetweenrdquo criteria for a date
Calculating
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what cells are refreshed from
Oracle They are used in conjunction with the GL Wand calculation option (onoff) You can stop a calculation at any time by clicking cancel
- Calculate Range (Alt+Ctl+R)
- Calculate Sheet (Alt+Ctl+S)
- Calculate All (Alt+Ctl+A)
- GL Wand calculation on
- GL Wand calculation off
Calculate Range Sheet or All
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what is recalculated
To calculate a range of cells simply
1 Highlight the range
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Rangerdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+R shortcut key
3 Select multiple ranges using the ctrl button (as normal in Excel)
4 Select a range and then select multiple Excel worksheets to calculate the same range on
each sheet
Please note do not use the calculate range option to recalculate the entire sheet ie by
selecting all the cells on the sheet This will take unnecessarily longer Rather use the
calculate sheet option
To calculate a sheet simply
1 Select the applicable sheet
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Sheetrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+S shortcut key
3 Selecting multiple sheets will calculate each of the selected sheets
To calculate all open workbooks simply
1 Click the ldquoCalculate Allrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+A shortcut key
57
GL Wand calculation on or off
You can use the GL Wand calculation toggle button to control when requests for calculations
are sent to the Oracle server
If you toggle GL Wand calculation ldquoOffrdquo calculation requests are not sent to the Oracle server which means you
you can manipulate a worksheet
change cell values
enter new formulae and
perform any other task that would normally cause Excel to recalculate
and the applicable functions will only return the ldquoglwPendingrdquo status and will not
actually calculate a result
This is useful during report development
To calculate the results simply click one of the three calculation buttons ldquoCalculate Range
Sheet or Allrdquo
If you leave the GL Wand calculation option ldquoOnrdquo the applicable functions will be recalculated whenever Excel initiates a calculation process eg
when changing the contents of the cell
changing one of the functions input values deleting a column or row in the worksheet etc
Please note that the GL Wand calculation option has nothing to do with Excel‟s automatic
and manual calculation The GL Wand calculation option controls only the calculation of the
applicable GL Wand functions All other calculations are controlled as normal by the Excel
automatic and manual calculation option
Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
When you perform a recalculation a window will appear to show the progress of the
calculation
58
If you would like to cancel the calculation process simply click the ldquoCancelrdquo button
Please note that GL Wand will need to wait for the next reply from Oracle before the
connection can be closed Therefore it may take some time before the calculation stops and
the window closes
Snapshot
- Snapshot
The snapshot tool can be used to take a snapshot of your GL Wand report This tool will
remove all the GL Wand functions from the workbook and will replace them with the values that the function returned
The results are similar to using the Excel ldquopaste valuesrdquo functionality However this process will only replace GL Wand formulas All other Excel formulas will be left as they were
Please note that you cannot take a snapshot of a protected worksheet rather output the
sheet to PDF format for archive and distribution purposes
When producing a snapshot GL Wand will request a name for the new workbook You can
select an existing workbook and GL Wand will give you the option to append the snapshot
results to the existing workbook or overwrite the existing workbook You therefore have the
option of producing various snapshot reports and combining them into one new workbook in a single operation rather than producing a separate workbook for each snapshot
Hide zeros
- Hide zeros in selected range
Select a report range that contains rows where all the numbers are zero Click the hide zeros
button and GL Wand will hide all the rows in the selected range where all the cells containing
numbers are zero This is very useful for formatting a report which includes many rows
where for example a number of accounts are not used in a particular cost centre or have no
59
balances in a certain period At the click of a button you can hide all the rows that contain only zeros
Select the entire report range when using the hide zeros function GL Wand checks the
selected range for zeros when determining which rows to hide
Excel automatically forces a recalculation of Get Balance formulas when you hide rows on a
report This is normal Excel functionality
This feature can be used on any Excel worksheet and is not limited to GL Wand reports
Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Undo the last hide zeros operation
Click this button to automatically undo the last hide zeros operation
Drill downs
- Drill to default Balance layout
- Drill to default Journal layout
- Drill to default Sub Ledger layout
The drill down options allow you to extract additional detail about a specific ldquoGet Balancerdquo function
1 Select a cell that contains a valid Get Balance function
2 Click on the drill to balance button
3 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
4 The criteria sheet will be populated with the criteria from the Get Balance function
5 The drill down to balance detail will be executed showing all the detailed accounts that make up the total in the Get Balance function
60
See the Create Drill Criteria Sheet section for more details and options on the drill down criteria sheet
Budget variance analysis If you select two cells on the GL Wand report eg one cell with
actual values and one with budget numbers GL Wand will perform a drill down on the Get
Balance function and display the actual and budget values next to each other and a
calculated variance
You now have a variety of options which can be performed from the drill down workbook
1 Modify the parameters on the criteria sheet and perform a new drill to balance Drop
down lists are provided for most of the parameters see the Create Drill Criteria Sheet for
more details
2 Create a summary drill down report
3 If you have performed a balance drill down you can select the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet and then
click drill down to journal details after selecting one or more rows with accounts
4 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo sheet and then click the button to drill down to the full journal
after selecting one or more rows with journal lines The full journal with all the contra
entries for the selected journal lines will be displayed
5 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo or ldquoJournal-Fullrdquo sheet and then click sub-ledger drill down after
selecting one or more rows with journal lines 6 Drill down to Global Consolidation System transactions
When drilling down you have the following options
Double click any cell on the row that you wish to drill down on
61
Select any cell in the row that you want to drill down on and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar
Highlight a range of rows and click the applicable drill down button on the GL Wand
toolbar to drill down on multiple lines at once
Highlight non contiguous rows using the ldquoCtrlrdquo button and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar to drill down on multiple lines which are not adjacent to each other
It is possible to drill from a Get Balance formula directly to the journal or sub ledger
information Similarly you can drill from a detailed balance (on the Balance worksheet)
directly to the sub ledger information If you select these options GL Wand will execute the
interim drill steps automatically Be careful when performing a drill down directly to the
journal or sub ledger detail level as these drill down operations may return many records
GL Wand will automatically group the drill down to journals and sub ledger information using
Excel‟s group and outline functionality This will allow you expand and collapse the data to
show just a portion of the report Headings are also inserted on the journal and sub-ledger drill down to make the report easier to read
On the sub-ledger drill down the heading includes a number in brackets eg ldquo(23) Journal
Name 123rdquo The number indicates which Excel row these sub-ledger lines originated from on
the ldquoJournalsrdquo sheet
You can use the remove drill down report headings button to strip out the headings on
the journal and sub-ledger drill down sheets
A couple of important things to note about drill downs
GL Wand will first count the number of rows that will be retrieved by the drill down
operation
If the row count is more than 1000 you will receive a warning message asking you if
you want to continue
If the row count is more than the defined limit (see Query Limit) you will receive a
warning and the drill down will be cancelled
If the row count is more than the number of rows available in your version of Excel
you will receive an error and the drill down will be cancelled
When you drill down to journal details the ldquoBalance Typerdquo parameter controls how
much detail is returned If this parameter is ldquoPTDrdquo only the current period‟s journals
are returned If this parameter is ldquoYTDrdquo then all the journals for the year are returned and likewise ldquoQTDrdquo will show the journal for the quarter
Ensure that the worksheet is calculated before performing any drill down functions Also
ensure that the cell contains a ldquoGet Balancerdquo function with valid parameter information
A new drill down workbook will be created each time you perform a drill down operation from
a Get Balance function Once you are finished with a drill down workbook simply close it
without saving
You cannot drill down to journal detail on translated balances
Oracle Global Consolidation System
Drill down to Oracle Global Consolidation System (GCS) transactions is also supported
These items will appear on the journal drill down report with a source and category of
62
ldquoConsolidationrdquo If you execute a normal drill down to Sub Ledger on these transactions a
new GL Wand drill workbook will be created and the drill down to the subsidiary set of books will be executed
In order to drill down on a GCS transaction you must be logged on the parent as well as the
subsidiary set of books This can be done using the Multiple Sets of Books logon option
Summary Balance Drill Down
On the drill down Criteria sheet toggle the summarization option to ldquoYrdquo for any segment that
you which to summaries by GL Wand creates a summary trial balance report and
summarizes by the selected segments The report can still be expanded to show the detailed
lines and you can still drill down to journals from these lines
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
26
When you click Login on this web browser the window will close and you will be presented
with a list of responsibilities that are linked to your user name You will see one of the two
windows displayed below If your site is licensed to use the GL Wand Multiple Sets of Books
feature you will see the image on the right Else the screen will appear like the image on the
left Trial users using an in-house trial key will by default have access to the Multiple Set of Books (MSOB) feature
Select the responsibility that you wish to use and click ok If you are licensed to use the GL
Wand MSOB feature you can select multiple responsibilities Click an item to select it and click it again to unselect it
If you are licensed to use the MSOB feature you also have the option of logging on to all the
available sets of books This option must be enabled by setting the applicable profile option
27
at user level With the profile option set to yes for a particular user that user will have an
extra item in the list of available responsibilities This ldquoAll Sets of Booksrdquo option allows a user
to log on to all the sets of books configured in the Oracle instance without needing to select
multiple responsibilities
Please note that when logging on with the ldquoAll Sets of Booksrdquo option no security rules are
enforced For this reason you must enable this option for those GL Wand users that are
authorized to report across all the configured sets of books By default this options is
disabled for all users
If you log on to an Oracle Release 12 instance and the data access set linked to the chosen
responsibility contains more than one ledger or ledger set you will be logged on to all the applicable ledgers
Excel Logon Method
The ldquoExcelrdquo logon method is the same mechanism that was used in previous GL Wand
versions This method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function
correctly Again there are two possible windows that you will be presented with depending in whether you are licensed to use the GL Wand Multiple Sets of Books feature
28
Descriptive Flexfields
If you wish to report on segment value descriptive flexfields tick this option on the logon
form This will load the descriptive flexfield information This option is by default un-ticked as loading this information unnecessarily would slow down the logon process
Proxy Authentication
If you are connecting to an Oracle instance on the Internet and your organization uses a
proxy server that requires authentication to access the Internet (in addition to the domain
logon) GL Wand will prompt you for your proxy user name and password if required
29
Enter the required user name and password and click OK Then click the logon button again
License Key
If you have not yet obtained a trial license key for the instance that you are logging on to
you will prompted with the option to request a key Click ldquoYesrdquo to open a web page where you can request a trial key or ldquoNordquo to continue without requesting a key
Customers that have licensed GL Wand will use this exact same process to request the final non-expiring keys
Set of Books and Segment Selector
- Set of Books and Segment selector
Once you have logged on the set of books and segment list dropdowns will be populated
Set of Books
The set of books drop down list can be used to select the set of books that you wish to work
with If you log on to a single set of books this dropdown list will contain a single value only
However if you are licensed to use the GL Wand Multiple Sets of Books feature or are in trial then this list will contain multiple values in the following situations
If you selected multiple responsibilities during the logon process all the sets of books
linked to those responsibilities will be listed
If you selected the special ldquoAll Sets of Booksrdquo option all the sets of books configured
in the Oracle instance will be listed
If you log on to an Oracle Release 12 instance and the data access set linked to the
chosen responsibility contains more than one ledger or ledger set then each of these ledgers will be listed
The number in brackets () indicates the Set of Books identifier This number can be used in
various GL Wand formulas and other functionality in order to obtain information from a specific Set of Books
Segments
This dropdown list will be populated with a list of the segments that are available in the
currently selected Set of Books The number in brackets indicates the segment number The
segment list also includes the special value ldquoPeriodrdquo which is used for discovering the period
names in your set of books
In the example shown the selected segment is ldquoCompanyrdquo and it is identified as segment 1 Certain dynamic functions require the segment number as an input parameter
Discovering
The discover tools allow you to extract segment information from the Oracle Applications
database and populate Excel cells with this information You can use the discover tools to
30
extract segment values segment properties periods or child ranges or the full segment
hierarchy For segment values you can use the discover level to choose whether to retrieve child values parent values or both
Discover Segment Values
- Discover Down
- Discover Down All
- Discover Up
1 Select a cell and enter a valid starting segment value eg ldquo1000rdquo into the cell
2 Choose the relevant segment from the segment list eg ldquoAccountrdquo
3 Now click the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button
GL Wand finds the next valid account segment value after account ldquo1000rdquo and enters this value in the cell below the one that you started in
In the same way you can click the up arrow and the previous segment value will be entered
in the cell above the one that you started in
- Discover Left
- Discover Right
31
- Discover Right All
The left and right arrows work in a similar manner retrieving the next and previous segment
values but they populate the cells to the left and right of the cell that you start in When
discovering segment values you will notice that some of the values are entered with a bold
font This is because these have been identified as parent values
You do not need to discover segment values one at a time
You can enter a starting segment value choose the segment from the segment list
and then highlight a range of cells
When you click one of the discover buttons now GL Wand fills the selected range
with the next or previous segment values depending on which arrow you click on
The Discover Down All and Discover Right All buttons can be used to retrieve all the segment values in one operation
Discover Period Names
You can discover period names in much the same way that you can discover segment
values
1 Select a cell and enter a valid starting period name eg Jan-03 into the cell
NB ndash make sure that you enter this starting period name as text by first formatting the Excel
cell as text or entering the period name prefixed by an apostrophe bdquo eg bdquoJan-03 If Excel
interprets the value entered as an actual date eg 01012003 then discover period names
will not work
2 Choose the special ldquoPeriodrdquo value from the segment list
3 Now click the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button
32
GL Wand finds the next period name after Jan-07 in the Set of Books calendar and enters this value in the cell below the one that you started in
You can also use the ldquoDiscover Down Allrdquo ldquoDiscover Previousrdquo ldquoDiscover Rightrdquo ldquoDiscover Right Allrdquo and ldquoDiscover Leftrdquo buttons to discover period names
Discover Properties
- Discover segment properties
The ldquoDiscover Propertiesrdquo button will extract a variety of information about the selected segment value
To use this function
1 Select a cell(s) with a valid segment value in it
2 Make sure the correct segment is selected in the segment selector
3 Click the Discover Properties button
The cells to the right of the selected cell are populated with segment information
The first cell indicates the segment description the second cell indicates if the value is a
parent or not (Y means the segment value is a parent) the third cell indicates if the segment
value is enabled or not (Y means that the segment value is enabled) and the fourth cell
indicates what account type the segment value is eg Asset or Liability etc Obviously the forth cell is only valid for the natural account segment
33
Discover Child Ranges
- Discover child ranges
The ldquoDiscover Child Rangesrdquo button can be used to show the child values that are assigned to a particular parent value
1 Select a cell that has a parent segment value
2 Identify its segment number to the GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the segment list dropdown
3 Now click on the ldquoDiscover Child Rangesrdquo button
An Excel note is added to the cell showing the ranges that have been assigned to the selected parent This is useful for understanding and exploring your Chart of Accounts
Discover Hierarchy
To discover the hierarchy for a segment proceed as follows
Enter the starting segment value into an Excel cell This value must be a parent for
the segment you are using
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
Select ldquoDiscover Hierarchyrdquo from the Discover menu
GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy for the selected parent and display it in the
Excel worksheet indenting the various levels in the hierarchy
34
Toggle Discover Level
- Toggle discover level
The ldquoDiscover levelrdquo button is used to restrict the segment values that are returned by the discover tools to parent values only child values only or both parent and child values
When you click on this button it toggles from discovering parents and children to discovering parents only to discovering child values only
For example
1 Select a cell and enter a starting segment value
2 Choose the segment from the segment list
3 Click the discover level until the option is set to ldquoDiscovering Parentsrdquo 4 Now highlight a range of cells and click the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button
GL Wand fills the selected range with the next segment values but skips all child values and
returns only parent values Similarly child values can be discovered by toggling the discover level to ldquoDiscovering childrenrdquo
If you want to discover both parent and children toggle the discover level back to
ldquoDiscovering parents and childrenrdquo
All segment values must be entered using the Excel text format Either format the cell using
the text number format or enter the cell value using the apostrophe bdquo character which marks
the contents of the cell as text eg if you want to enter the segment value 001 enter it as
follows bdquo001
Expand
- Expand
You can perform an expand down to the lowest level children (explained below) or you can expand using the hierarchy going down one level or expanding the full hierarchy
The Expand feature allows you to extract a list of all the lowest level child values that roll up
to a particular segment selection This might be a parent value range wild card or a
combination of these options
1 Select a cell that has a segment selection eg a parent value
2 Identify its segment number to the GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
3 Click the expand button 4 The child values are retrieved from Oracle and are inserted below the selected cell
35
You can also highlight a number of columns and GL Wand will insert the child values and copy the contents of the highlighted cells against each child value that is inserted
1 Select a cell that has a segment selection and highlight the number of columns that you
would like to have copied into the new rows
2 Identify its segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
3 Click the expand button
4 The child values are retrieved from Oracle and are inserted below the selected cell
5 The contents of the additional columns that were selected are copied against each new
row inserted In the example below this contains a generic Get Balance formula which is then resolved for each child value
You also have the option of selecting multiple rows when performing an Expand GL Wand will perform an expand on each selected row
The expand feature can also be used with account combinations Please see the Special Get
Balance Criteria section for details on how this works
Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Expand feature except that it will
expand using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the values one level down the hierarchy and list them below the starting cell
Expand Hierarchy (Full)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Expand feature except that it will
expand using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy and list all the values below the starting cell indenting the various levels in the hierarchy
36
Undo Expand
- Undo Expand
The expand operation inserts rows into the worksheet to allow the child data to be
populated If you would like to quickly remove the expand data click the undo expand button GL Wand will remove the inserted data from the most recent expand operation
Please note that the expand operation formats the inserted rows in a particular way eg the
segment values are indented The undo expand operation relies on this formatting in order
to process correctly If you modify the formatting of the expanded rows the undo expand
may not function correctly
Refresh Expand
- Refresh Expand
The expand operation fetches the child data that meets the criteria that you enter and
inserts it into new rows in the workbook This data may change over time eg you may
expand a parent value and over time the definition of that parent is modified Use the refresh expand button to retrieve the most recent data from Oracle as follows
Highlight the entire range of expanded data
This must include the criteria row that drives the expand operation eg the row
containing the parent value
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
Click the refresh expand button
GL Wand will remove the old expand data and will refresh the expand with the latest information
Please note that the expand operation formats the inserted rows in a particular way eg the
segment values are indented The refresh expand operation relies on this formatting in order
to process correctly If you modify the formatting of the expanded rows the refresh expand
may not function correctly
Explode Report
- Explode report
You can perform an explode down to the lowest level children (explained below) or you can explode using the hierarchy going down one level or expanding the full hierarchy
Explode report works in a similar way to the expand feature The difference is that where
expand inserts a new row in the worksheet for each child value found explode creates a new worksheet in the current workbook for each child value found For example
Start with a complete GL Wand report
Select the cell in the report that drive the Get Balance formulas eg a department
parent value in the report header
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
37
Click the explode report button
GL Wand will duplicate the worksheet for each child value found for the selected parent
Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Explode feature except that it will
Explode using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the values one level down the hierarchy and create a new worksheet for each value
Explode Hierarchy (Full)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Explode feature except that it will
Explode using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy and create a new worksheet for
each value
Open List of Values
- Open list of values
The segment list of values form can be used to search through the segment values and
descriptions for a specific segment First pick the segment from the segment list
dropdown and then click the segment list of values button The list of values for the chosen
segment is displayed
You can enter a value to search for in the find box The list of values will be filtered to show
only items that match the text entered in the find box The text entered in the find box is
38
compared to the segment value and segment description An item will be included in the results if either field contains the text entered in the find box
In the list section you can start entering a segment value (eg Account number) and the list will scroll to the item matching the values that you have entered
Click the ldquoAddrdquo button double click an item in the list or press enter to add the current item
to the selection list on the right You can also click and drag an item to add it to the selection list
39
If you want to add a range like ldquo1000-2000rdquo do the following
Start by adding the ldquo1000rdquo value using one of the options explained above
Then find the ldquo2000rdquo value in the master list
Ensure that the ldquo2000rdquo value is highlighted in the master list and the ldquo1000rdquo value is
highlighted in the selection list and click the ldquoAdd Rangerdquo button
You can also drag a value from the master list onto an existing value in the selection list to create a range
To remove an item from the selection list ensure that it is highlighted and then click the ldquoRemoverdquo button or press the ldquoDeleterdquo key
Every segment will have the additional value called ldquoAllrdquo Selecting this value will add a ldquordquo
to the parameter list which means ldquoAll valuesrdquo If ldquoAllrdquo is selected then all other selections will be removed and replaced with a
If you want to include certain values and exclude others you can use the ldquoAdd Excluderdquo
option This will add the highlighted value to the selection list prefixed by the reserved exclude character ldquo~rdquo
40
You can add any combination of the options mentioned above to produce your own
calculation
Once you have added all the required segment values to the selection list click ldquoOKrdquo to copy
the list to the clipboard You can then paste these values into a Get Balance function or
anywhere else on the Excel sheet
41
Create List of Values
- Create list of values
This feature can be used to quickly format a cell to be a special list of values cell There are
two types The first type inserts a drop down list of values in the cell and is used for balance
types translated flags and actual flags
The second type creates a link to the standard list of values form It is used for segment values periods and balance and encumbrance names
The cell is identified by a note containing the word ldquoLOVrdquo In order to open the list of values
simply double click the cell or select the cell and click the List of Values button on the
toolbar This will open the list of values form for the specific data type that the list of values cell was created for In the example this was the department segment
The checkbox allows you to link the list of values to a specific set of books This option is only applicable if you have the Multiple Sets of Books feature enabled
42
Functions
The GL Wand functions work in a similar way to any other Excel worksheet function You
provide the required parameters and the results of the function are returned to the Excel
cell The difference being that GL Wand functions retrieve information from your Oracle Applications system
GL Wand currently has the following functions
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value
- Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
43
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
Split Text
Combine Text
Functional Currency
Get Daily Rate
You can enter a function into an Excel cell in a number of ways
Click the applicable button on the GL Wand toolbar (or on the GL Wand menu)
Type the function name into the cell manually prefixed by an = sign
You can select the function from the list that Excel provides when you choose the
Insert Function menu item The GL Wand functions are listed under the special GL
Wand category (Prior to Excel 2007 they are listed in the User Defined category)
If you click the applicable function button on the toolbar and the cell you are in contains that
function the Excel formula wizard window will open If you click a function button in a cell
that contains other data GL Wand will warn you that it is going to replace the contents of the cell with the chosen formula and will give you the option of cancelling the action
All parameters must be entered as text values ie enclosed in double quotes eg enter
ldquoUSDrdquo when entering the currency code or enter ldquo001rdquo when entering a segment value
See ldquoDiscovering versus Functionsrdquo for a comparison extracting information using the
discover tools or the functions
44
Get Balance
The Get Balance function is probably the most important function in GL Wand It returns a
General Ledger balance individually or summed based on the parameters that you enter
Example =Get_Balance(Jan-02YTDUSDEABIS CORPORATE01T4000-41600000000)
Clicking the Get Balance function on the GL Wand toolbar will open the Get Balance Wizard
This form has lists of values for items like period name balance type actual flag etc Select
the applicable values and enter a valid currency code and budget or encumbrance name if required
Double clicking a segment value or clicking the list of values button next to the segment will
open the segment list of values form for that segment See the Segment List of Values
section for details on how to use this form When you click the ldquoOKrdquo button on the Segment
List of Values form the selected segment parameters are entered against that segment in the Get Balance Wizard form
If your Oracle configuration includes dependant segments as part of the accounting
flexfield this form will support selecting values based on the independent and dependant
segment values Simply select a value from the available list of values for the independent
segment Then open the list of values for the dependant segment The list of available values
will be limited to only those values that are related to the selected independent segment
value
When you have entered all the parameters click the ldquoOKrdquo button to insert the Get Balance
function into the selected cell with the entered parameters Clicking the ldquoEditrdquo button will
open the Get Balance function in the Excel formula wizard form which will allow you to link
parameters to cells in the Excel sheet
45
You can also open the Get Balance formula in the Excel formula wizard form using the fx
button on the formula bar or by selecting the ldquoInsert Functionrdquo menu item on the Excel menu bar
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Type ldquoCTDrdquo
(Custom to Date) you can specify a custom period selection For
example ldquoFeb-07-Aug-07rdquo will add all the movement for the entered
period range You may enter multiple lists or ranges of periods and can use wild cards as well eg ldquoJan-0rdquo or ldquo-07rdquo
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Types ldquoJEDrdquo
ldquoJEDUrdquo or ldquoJEDPrdquo (Journal Effective Date) the period parameter
becomes a date parameter eg ldquo01012007-0501200710012007rdquo
The format that your date is in is important The ldquo-ldquo character is
used in GL Wand to denote a range of values and therefore it cannot
be used as a date delimiter eg 01-01-2007 would not be valid So
take care if your Windows regional setting use the ldquo-ldquo as a date
delimiter For JED type calculations we recommend that you use the
ldquordquo as a date delimiter and that you always format the date as text
in Excel otherwise Excel will convert the date based on your regional
setting
Balance Type YTD QTD PTD PJTD CTD JED JEDP or JEDU all in upper case
YTD ndash Summarizes the full years balance
QTD ndash Summarizes the balance for the quarter
46
PTD ndash Includes just the current period‟s movement
PJTD ndash Project to date
CTD ndash Summarizes the custom period criteria entered
JED ndash Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for both posted and unposted journals
JEDP - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for posted journals only
JEDU - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered dates for unposted journals only
Currency Code The currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
Translated Flag Enter E T or C Use E to retrieve the entered amount and T for the
translated amount Use C to report on the converted amount ie
the functional currency equivalent of a foreign currency amount
Only E is valid if requesting a balance for the functional currency of the current Set of Books
You must ensure that you have run the currency translation process
in Oracle for the selected currency and period before reporting on
translated balances If you enter T to request the translated balance
and there is no current translated balance available in the system a zero is returned
Oracle Release 12 provides a new feature to allow reporting on the
values entered in the functional currency only ie excludes any
foreign currency transactions converted to the functional currency
Therefore in Release 12 if you use the E (entered) flag in
conjunction with the functional currency any converted amounts will
be excluded To report on the total balance (including values entered
in functional currency and values converted to the functional
currency) use the new ldquoTotalrdquo option This option is only available if
you log on to a release 12 Oracle instance
Actual Flag A ndash Actual B ndash Budget E ndash Encumbrance
Bud Encumb Name If you enter B or E above enter the exact budget name or
encumbrance type here Otherwise simply enter ldquordquo for actual
balances
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter the segment value here You must enter it as a text value
including any leading zeros eg enter segment value ldquo10rdquo as ldquo0010rdquo
if this segment is configured as four characters with leading zeros in Oracle
You may enter your segment values in a variety of flexible ways
including parents child values ranges wildcards excludes etc See
the explanation below on valid values for this parameter
To include all values simply enter ldquordquo Please note as from GL Wand
3850 you can no longer leave the segment blank a value is
required
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
47
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Options This parameter is used to modify the results returned by the Get
Balance function from the standard behavior Currently two options are supported
Source ndash Limit the results to a specific journal source
Category ndash Limit the results to a specific journal category
The criteria needs to be entered as follows - ldquoSource=Manualrdquo or
ldquoCategory=Adjustmentrdquo To specify both a source and category use
the ldquo|rdquo as a delimiter eg ldquoSource=Manual|Category=Adjustmentrdquo
You can specify multiple values by separating them with ldquordquo eg
ldquoSource=PayablesReceivablesrdquo
When creating Get Balance formulas always use ldquordquo to denote all values as this allows more
efficient SQL to be generated Do not use a range like ldquo000-ZZZrdquo as they will require
unnecessary processing
The segment value parameters can be entered as
a single value representing a child or parent account eg ldquo1500rdquo might represent a
parent account
a range of values eg entering ldquo1500-1600rdquo in one of the segment parameters will
sum all the segment values between 1500 and 1600 for that segment
a list of segment values eg entering ldquo150015101590rdquo in one of the segment
parameters will sum the specific segment values entered If any of the segment
values are parents GL Wand will sum the hierarchy for that parent
wild card entries eg 100 will sum 1100 1200 1300 1400 etc or entering the
value 1 will sum all values that start with 1
values to be included and then specific exclusions eg ldquo1000-2000~1500rdquo will sum
the values between 1000 and 2000 but will skip 1500
a combination of any of the above eg 1000-2000237123752560-
25803000~32004000~4161-4169 In this way you can build up your own calculation definition in the segment parameter
Please note ndash there are two additional methods for specifying segment criteria in the Get
Balance function The one allows you to specify account combinations and the other
allows the use of segment descriptive flexfields Please see the Special Get Balance
Criteria section in order to use these options
Segment Description
Returns the segment description for the chosen segment value
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
48
Example =Get_Segment_Description(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
Returns the next or previous segment value
Parameter Description
Last Value The starting segment value
Segment The segment number
Level Enter a P to return the next or previous parent value enter a C to
return the next or previous child value or leave the parameter blank
to return the next or previous segment value irrespective of whether
it is a parent or child
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example = Next_Segment_Value(ldquo1000rdquo3P)
Parent Flag
Returns the parent flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is a
parent
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Parent_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Enabled Flag
Returns the enabled flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is
enabled
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example = Enabled_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
49
Account Type
Returns the account type for the chosen segment value This function is only applicable for
the natural account segment and will return the value Asset Liability etc
Parameter Description
Account Value The account segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Account_Type(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Period Name
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number Optionally the returned value can be a certain number of periods into the future or past
Parameter Description
PeriodYear The year that you want the period name for
PeriodNumber The period number that you want the period name for
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Offset Optionally enter an offset to return the period name which is n
periods before or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3
periods into the future or -1 to return the previous period
Example =Period_Name(20063)
Set of Books Name
Returns the set of books name for the chosen set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Set_of_Books_Name()
Segment Descriptive Flexfield
Returns the segment values descriptive flexfield for the selected criteria
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
50
Segment The segment number
AttributeNo Identify which attribute you want to report on The segment values
descriptive flexfield has 50 possible attribute values The applicable
attributes will depend on your configuration and whether this
Descriptive Flexfield is used by your organization
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Segment_DFF(ldquo100rdquo25) retrieves the 5th attribute on the segment values
descriptive flexfield for segment value 100 on segment 2
Period Offset
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for
this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
Offset Enter an offset to return the period name which is n periods before
or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3 periods into the
future or -1 to return the previous period
RetRange Enter TRUE (or 1) to return the result as a range eg entering
period Mar-07 with an offset of -2 and the RetRange set to true will
return ldquoJan-07-Mar-07rdquo This can be used in conjunction with the
CTD (Custom to Date) balance type in the Get Balance function to
create rolling period reporting
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Period_Offset(Jan-07-2TRUE)
Split Text
Splits delimited text and returns a specific portion based on an offset Especially useful to
split account combinations but can be used to split any text
Parameter Description
Value Some text which has been concatenated using a delimiter eg an
account combination like ldquo011007000rdquo
Offset Identify which portion of the text to return
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Split_Text(0110070002) will return the ldquo100rdquo portion of the text
51
Combine Text
Combines selected text separated by a delimiter Especially useful to combine segment
values to create a delimited account combinations but can be used to combine any text
Parameter Description
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter segment values that you wish to combine into an account
combination
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Combine_Text(011007000) will return ldquo011007000rdquo
Functional Currency
Returns the functional currency for the set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Functional_Currency()
Get Daily Rate
Returns the daily exchange rate for the entered criteria
Parameter Description
FromCurrency The ldquoFromrdquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case
eg ldquoUSDrdquo
ToCurrency The ldquoTordquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
ConversionType The conversion type as configured in Oracle Spelling and case must
be identical to the Oracle configuration
ConversionDate The conversion date This must be in Excel date format Either refer
to a cell which contains a date or use one of the Excel date functions
to return a date in the parameter
Example =Get_Daily_Rate(USDGBPReportingDATE(200911))
Function return values
The GL Wand functions will return a variety of results depending on a number of factors If
all the information is entered correctly and there are no restrictions on access to the data or
the GL Wand itself the result should be the General Ledger balance segment value segment description etc However the following are also possible return values
glwDemo ndash this means that you are using GL Wand without a valid trial key entered
into the GL Wand License Key profile option When trying GL Wand without a valid
52
trial key you are only allowed to use the first 20 rows and 20 columns of the first
sheet in the workbook Any formula entered outside this range will not calculate a
value but will only return the word ldquoglwDemordquo This is called evaluation mode A
trial key needs to be requested from within GL Wand and entered into the profile
option to allow full access to all functionality
glwNoAccess ndash When you log on you will be prompted for your applications user name
and password and will then need to select a responsibility to log on to Any security
rules that have been linked to the selected responsibility will be enforced on the GL
Wand data If you attempt to access a balance on a general ledger account that you
do not have access to the function will return the word ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo Please see
the ldquoAudit Get Balancerdquo section for information on how to identify the security rule that is being contravened
Please note that Oracles Hierarchical Security is not supported
glwError ndash If you enter invalid information in a parameter for a GL Wand function the
GL Wand error value will be returned This may happen when you for example
enter an invalid budget name or period name in the Get Balance function or when you
enter an invalid segment number in the next segment value function This error value
will also be returned when you are not logged on The details of the return value will
indicate where the problem exists eg glwError (Logon) glwError (Balance Type)
glwError (Translated Flag) glwError (Actual Flag) glwError (Missing segment)
glwError (Data error) glwError (Range) glwError (Period)
glwPending ndash This value will be returned during the calculation process Whenever a
cell requires calculation and the process has not been completed yet the cell will
contain the value ldquoglwPendingrdquo
glwEditing ndash Displays in the Excel function arguments window when editing a Get Balance formula
Discovering versus Functions
You may have noticed that you can achieve similar results by using the discover tools and
using the functions For example you could use the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button to retrieve the
next segment value or you could use the ldquoNext Segment Valuerdquo function to return the same result The difference between these two approaches is as follows
Com
paris
on b
etw
een D
iscoverin
g a
nd
Functio
ns
Discovering Functions
Results returned as text string to Excel
cell
Value is calculated based on
parameters
Value is static Value is dynamic
Never changes Recalculated when sheet refreshed
Lower performance overhead Higher performance overhead
Discover Down Next Segment Value
Discover Up Previous Segment Value
Discover Left Next Segment Value
Discover Right Previous Segment Value
Discover Properties
Segment Description
Parent flag
53
Enabled Flag
Account Type
Discover Child Ranges No equivalent
Toggle Discover Level
Parameters of next segment value
determine whether parents children or
both are returned
Use the discover buttons with ldquoPeriodrdquo
selected in the segment drop down Period Name
Balance Extract is similar to Get
Balance though the static values it
produces are refreshable
Get Balance
Special Get Balance Criteria
GL Wand supports two special types of criteria in the Get Balance function namely ldquoAccount
Combinationsrdquo and ldquoSegment Descriptive Flexfieldrdquo criteria These two forms of the Get
Balance criteria have very specific syntax which must be carefully adhered to in order to
achieve the correct results You also have the ability to expand account combinations for a
selection that uses the ldquoAccount Combinationrdquo criteria
Account Combinations
In the past the Get Balance function only supported individual segment values eg segment
2 = 100 or 200 and segment 3 = 1000 or 2000 This would result in GL Wand returning all the possible combinations of those segment 2 and 3 values
Now you have the ability to specify account combinations using the new Get Balance syntax
This means that you can create new complex criteria for your Get Balance formula eg
(segment 2 = 100 and segment 3 = 1000) or (segment 2 = 200 and segment 3 = 2000)
With these criteria GL Wand will no longer return all the possible combinations but rather only the combinations you specify
In order to specify account combinations in a Get Balance function you must tell GL Wand
which segments you are combining You do this by entering a special value into the segment
eg if you want to combine criteria for segment 2 and segment 3 you would enter the
following in the parameter for segment 2 ldquoUse_Seg3rdquo This tells GL Wand that that it must
find the criteria for segment 2 inside the segment 3 parameter In the segment 3 parameter
you now enter the criteria for both segment 2 and segment 3 separated by the special
delimiter character eg ldquo1001000rdquo This tells GL Wand that you are looking for accounts where segment 2 is 100 and segment 3 is 1000 An example could look like this
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg3100100020020000000000)
It is possible to combine multiple segments as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg5Use_Seg5Use_Seg510010000000000)
54
You simply point each applicable segment to the parameter where the account combination
using the special ldquoUse_SegXrdquo syntax Then inside the target parameter you combine the fully qualified account combination for the applicable segments delimited with a ldquordquo character
When you specify your account combination you have full flexibility to use ranges lists wild
cards parents and exclude criteria For example this criteria will fetch all the values where
segment 2 is between 100 and 200 and segment 3 is between 1000 and 2000 And in
addition to that it will include the values where segment 2 is 250 (a parent) and segment 3
starts with 33 but will exclude the specific value where segment 2 is 250 and segment 3 is
3320
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA01Use_Seg31001000-200200025033~25033200000000)
You also have the flexibility to group different parts of the account combination together For
example this criteria combines the values for segment 1 and 3 together and combines segment 2 and 4 together
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA
Use_Seg3Use_Seg401100002115010000002001050000)
These new Get Balance syntax options provide you with tremendous flexibility when building your GL Wand reports
Expand Account Combinations
The expand feature allows you to extract all the detailed child segment values that roll up to
the criteria that the user specifies The expand feature has been extended to support account combinations
In order to expand an account combination you would do the following
Ensure that the correct set of books is selected in the drop down list on the GL Wand
toolbar
Select the cell containing the account combination criteria eg ldquo1007000rdquo Click the expand button
GL Wand will now identify that the selected cell contains an account combination rather than
a single segment value You will now be presented with a window to identify which segments from your chart of accounts are represented in the account combination
55
Select the correct segments and click ldquoOKrdquo GL Wand will now extract all the child
combinations that roll up to the criteria that you entered and insert them into the Excel sheet
The other options are as follows
Fix ndash if you tick this option for a segment GL Wand will ldquopegrdquo that segment using the
selected value (this option only makes sense for a parent segment value) You might
for example want to expand all the account combinations used in a particular parent
cost centre Simply ldquoFixrdquo the cost centre segment and GL Wand will return all the
account combinations used within that parent cost centre
Exclude disabled account combination ndash tick this option to only return account combinations that are currently enabled and have not been end dated
The expand account combinations feature can be used as a normal GL Wand ldquoExpandrdquo in
order to extract the detail behind a total but it is also very useful to extract existing account combinations from your Oracle system
This feature can be used very effectively with the Split Text and Combine Text functions
Segment Descriptive Flexfields
In order to extract balances using the descriptive flexfields stored on the segment values
you need to use special syntax in the Get Balance function The syntax works as follows
1ABC
You wrap the descriptive flexfield using curly brackets
The first character after the open bracket identifies which descriptive flexfield
attribute is being referred to
You then separate the descriptive flexfield attribute from the actual value using a ldquordquo You then specify the criteria for this attribute
An example Get Balance function would look as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC10000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield on segment 2 is equal to the value ldquoABCrdquo
It is possible to specify criteria for multiple descriptive flexfields as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC2XX10000000000)
Simply wrap each descriptive flexfield value in its own and identify the attribute number
At this stage the descriptive flexfield criteria is restricted to a single value or a single range
of values Lists of values and multiple ranges are not supported A range can be specified
using the special range delimiter ldquo|rdquo (pipe character) This character is different to the range
character that is used for normal Get Balance segment parameters The reason is that the
normal range delimiter ldquo-ldquo may easily be used in a segment descriptive flexfields and
therefore is not suitable In future you will be able to configure your own range delimiter
56
character which will provide the best flexibility The range criteria can be specified as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011100|20010000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield
on segment 2 is between 100 and 200 Date values are also supported in this criteria and GL Wand will correctly derive the ldquobetweenrdquo criteria for a date
Calculating
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what cells are refreshed from
Oracle They are used in conjunction with the GL Wand calculation option (onoff) You can stop a calculation at any time by clicking cancel
- Calculate Range (Alt+Ctl+R)
- Calculate Sheet (Alt+Ctl+S)
- Calculate All (Alt+Ctl+A)
- GL Wand calculation on
- GL Wand calculation off
Calculate Range Sheet or All
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what is recalculated
To calculate a range of cells simply
1 Highlight the range
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Rangerdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+R shortcut key
3 Select multiple ranges using the ctrl button (as normal in Excel)
4 Select a range and then select multiple Excel worksheets to calculate the same range on
each sheet
Please note do not use the calculate range option to recalculate the entire sheet ie by
selecting all the cells on the sheet This will take unnecessarily longer Rather use the
calculate sheet option
To calculate a sheet simply
1 Select the applicable sheet
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Sheetrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+S shortcut key
3 Selecting multiple sheets will calculate each of the selected sheets
To calculate all open workbooks simply
1 Click the ldquoCalculate Allrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+A shortcut key
57
GL Wand calculation on or off
You can use the GL Wand calculation toggle button to control when requests for calculations
are sent to the Oracle server
If you toggle GL Wand calculation ldquoOffrdquo calculation requests are not sent to the Oracle server which means you
you can manipulate a worksheet
change cell values
enter new formulae and
perform any other task that would normally cause Excel to recalculate
and the applicable functions will only return the ldquoglwPendingrdquo status and will not
actually calculate a result
This is useful during report development
To calculate the results simply click one of the three calculation buttons ldquoCalculate Range
Sheet or Allrdquo
If you leave the GL Wand calculation option ldquoOnrdquo the applicable functions will be recalculated whenever Excel initiates a calculation process eg
when changing the contents of the cell
changing one of the functions input values deleting a column or row in the worksheet etc
Please note that the GL Wand calculation option has nothing to do with Excel‟s automatic
and manual calculation The GL Wand calculation option controls only the calculation of the
applicable GL Wand functions All other calculations are controlled as normal by the Excel
automatic and manual calculation option
Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
When you perform a recalculation a window will appear to show the progress of the
calculation
58
If you would like to cancel the calculation process simply click the ldquoCancelrdquo button
Please note that GL Wand will need to wait for the next reply from Oracle before the
connection can be closed Therefore it may take some time before the calculation stops and
the window closes
Snapshot
- Snapshot
The snapshot tool can be used to take a snapshot of your GL Wand report This tool will
remove all the GL Wand functions from the workbook and will replace them with the values that the function returned
The results are similar to using the Excel ldquopaste valuesrdquo functionality However this process will only replace GL Wand formulas All other Excel formulas will be left as they were
Please note that you cannot take a snapshot of a protected worksheet rather output the
sheet to PDF format for archive and distribution purposes
When producing a snapshot GL Wand will request a name for the new workbook You can
select an existing workbook and GL Wand will give you the option to append the snapshot
results to the existing workbook or overwrite the existing workbook You therefore have the
option of producing various snapshot reports and combining them into one new workbook in a single operation rather than producing a separate workbook for each snapshot
Hide zeros
- Hide zeros in selected range
Select a report range that contains rows where all the numbers are zero Click the hide zeros
button and GL Wand will hide all the rows in the selected range where all the cells containing
numbers are zero This is very useful for formatting a report which includes many rows
where for example a number of accounts are not used in a particular cost centre or have no
59
balances in a certain period At the click of a button you can hide all the rows that contain only zeros
Select the entire report range when using the hide zeros function GL Wand checks the
selected range for zeros when determining which rows to hide
Excel automatically forces a recalculation of Get Balance formulas when you hide rows on a
report This is normal Excel functionality
This feature can be used on any Excel worksheet and is not limited to GL Wand reports
Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Undo the last hide zeros operation
Click this button to automatically undo the last hide zeros operation
Drill downs
- Drill to default Balance layout
- Drill to default Journal layout
- Drill to default Sub Ledger layout
The drill down options allow you to extract additional detail about a specific ldquoGet Balancerdquo function
1 Select a cell that contains a valid Get Balance function
2 Click on the drill to balance button
3 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
4 The criteria sheet will be populated with the criteria from the Get Balance function
5 The drill down to balance detail will be executed showing all the detailed accounts that make up the total in the Get Balance function
60
See the Create Drill Criteria Sheet section for more details and options on the drill down criteria sheet
Budget variance analysis If you select two cells on the GL Wand report eg one cell with
actual values and one with budget numbers GL Wand will perform a drill down on the Get
Balance function and display the actual and budget values next to each other and a
calculated variance
You now have a variety of options which can be performed from the drill down workbook
1 Modify the parameters on the criteria sheet and perform a new drill to balance Drop
down lists are provided for most of the parameters see the Create Drill Criteria Sheet for
more details
2 Create a summary drill down report
3 If you have performed a balance drill down you can select the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet and then
click drill down to journal details after selecting one or more rows with accounts
4 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo sheet and then click the button to drill down to the full journal
after selecting one or more rows with journal lines The full journal with all the contra
entries for the selected journal lines will be displayed
5 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo or ldquoJournal-Fullrdquo sheet and then click sub-ledger drill down after
selecting one or more rows with journal lines 6 Drill down to Global Consolidation System transactions
When drilling down you have the following options
Double click any cell on the row that you wish to drill down on
61
Select any cell in the row that you want to drill down on and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar
Highlight a range of rows and click the applicable drill down button on the GL Wand
toolbar to drill down on multiple lines at once
Highlight non contiguous rows using the ldquoCtrlrdquo button and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar to drill down on multiple lines which are not adjacent to each other
It is possible to drill from a Get Balance formula directly to the journal or sub ledger
information Similarly you can drill from a detailed balance (on the Balance worksheet)
directly to the sub ledger information If you select these options GL Wand will execute the
interim drill steps automatically Be careful when performing a drill down directly to the
journal or sub ledger detail level as these drill down operations may return many records
GL Wand will automatically group the drill down to journals and sub ledger information using
Excel‟s group and outline functionality This will allow you expand and collapse the data to
show just a portion of the report Headings are also inserted on the journal and sub-ledger drill down to make the report easier to read
On the sub-ledger drill down the heading includes a number in brackets eg ldquo(23) Journal
Name 123rdquo The number indicates which Excel row these sub-ledger lines originated from on
the ldquoJournalsrdquo sheet
You can use the remove drill down report headings button to strip out the headings on
the journal and sub-ledger drill down sheets
A couple of important things to note about drill downs
GL Wand will first count the number of rows that will be retrieved by the drill down
operation
If the row count is more than 1000 you will receive a warning message asking you if
you want to continue
If the row count is more than the defined limit (see Query Limit) you will receive a
warning and the drill down will be cancelled
If the row count is more than the number of rows available in your version of Excel
you will receive an error and the drill down will be cancelled
When you drill down to journal details the ldquoBalance Typerdquo parameter controls how
much detail is returned If this parameter is ldquoPTDrdquo only the current period‟s journals
are returned If this parameter is ldquoYTDrdquo then all the journals for the year are returned and likewise ldquoQTDrdquo will show the journal for the quarter
Ensure that the worksheet is calculated before performing any drill down functions Also
ensure that the cell contains a ldquoGet Balancerdquo function with valid parameter information
A new drill down workbook will be created each time you perform a drill down operation from
a Get Balance function Once you are finished with a drill down workbook simply close it
without saving
You cannot drill down to journal detail on translated balances
Oracle Global Consolidation System
Drill down to Oracle Global Consolidation System (GCS) transactions is also supported
These items will appear on the journal drill down report with a source and category of
62
ldquoConsolidationrdquo If you execute a normal drill down to Sub Ledger on these transactions a
new GL Wand drill workbook will be created and the drill down to the subsidiary set of books will be executed
In order to drill down on a GCS transaction you must be logged on the parent as well as the
subsidiary set of books This can be done using the Multiple Sets of Books logon option
Summary Balance Drill Down
On the drill down Criteria sheet toggle the summarization option to ldquoYrdquo for any segment that
you which to summaries by GL Wand creates a summary trial balance report and
summarizes by the selected segments The report can still be expanded to show the detailed
lines and you can still drill down to journals from these lines
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
27
at user level With the profile option set to yes for a particular user that user will have an
extra item in the list of available responsibilities This ldquoAll Sets of Booksrdquo option allows a user
to log on to all the sets of books configured in the Oracle instance without needing to select
multiple responsibilities
Please note that when logging on with the ldquoAll Sets of Booksrdquo option no security rules are
enforced For this reason you must enable this option for those GL Wand users that are
authorized to report across all the configured sets of books By default this options is
disabled for all users
If you log on to an Oracle Release 12 instance and the data access set linked to the chosen
responsibility contains more than one ledger or ledger set you will be logged on to all the applicable ledgers
Excel Logon Method
The ldquoExcelrdquo logon method is the same mechanism that was used in previous GL Wand
versions This method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function
correctly Again there are two possible windows that you will be presented with depending in whether you are licensed to use the GL Wand Multiple Sets of Books feature
28
Descriptive Flexfields
If you wish to report on segment value descriptive flexfields tick this option on the logon
form This will load the descriptive flexfield information This option is by default un-ticked as loading this information unnecessarily would slow down the logon process
Proxy Authentication
If you are connecting to an Oracle instance on the Internet and your organization uses a
proxy server that requires authentication to access the Internet (in addition to the domain
logon) GL Wand will prompt you for your proxy user name and password if required
29
Enter the required user name and password and click OK Then click the logon button again
License Key
If you have not yet obtained a trial license key for the instance that you are logging on to
you will prompted with the option to request a key Click ldquoYesrdquo to open a web page where you can request a trial key or ldquoNordquo to continue without requesting a key
Customers that have licensed GL Wand will use this exact same process to request the final non-expiring keys
Set of Books and Segment Selector
- Set of Books and Segment selector
Once you have logged on the set of books and segment list dropdowns will be populated
Set of Books
The set of books drop down list can be used to select the set of books that you wish to work
with If you log on to a single set of books this dropdown list will contain a single value only
However if you are licensed to use the GL Wand Multiple Sets of Books feature or are in trial then this list will contain multiple values in the following situations
If you selected multiple responsibilities during the logon process all the sets of books
linked to those responsibilities will be listed
If you selected the special ldquoAll Sets of Booksrdquo option all the sets of books configured
in the Oracle instance will be listed
If you log on to an Oracle Release 12 instance and the data access set linked to the
chosen responsibility contains more than one ledger or ledger set then each of these ledgers will be listed
The number in brackets () indicates the Set of Books identifier This number can be used in
various GL Wand formulas and other functionality in order to obtain information from a specific Set of Books
Segments
This dropdown list will be populated with a list of the segments that are available in the
currently selected Set of Books The number in brackets indicates the segment number The
segment list also includes the special value ldquoPeriodrdquo which is used for discovering the period
names in your set of books
In the example shown the selected segment is ldquoCompanyrdquo and it is identified as segment 1 Certain dynamic functions require the segment number as an input parameter
Discovering
The discover tools allow you to extract segment information from the Oracle Applications
database and populate Excel cells with this information You can use the discover tools to
30
extract segment values segment properties periods or child ranges or the full segment
hierarchy For segment values you can use the discover level to choose whether to retrieve child values parent values or both
Discover Segment Values
- Discover Down
- Discover Down All
- Discover Up
1 Select a cell and enter a valid starting segment value eg ldquo1000rdquo into the cell
2 Choose the relevant segment from the segment list eg ldquoAccountrdquo
3 Now click the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button
GL Wand finds the next valid account segment value after account ldquo1000rdquo and enters this value in the cell below the one that you started in
In the same way you can click the up arrow and the previous segment value will be entered
in the cell above the one that you started in
- Discover Left
- Discover Right
31
- Discover Right All
The left and right arrows work in a similar manner retrieving the next and previous segment
values but they populate the cells to the left and right of the cell that you start in When
discovering segment values you will notice that some of the values are entered with a bold
font This is because these have been identified as parent values
You do not need to discover segment values one at a time
You can enter a starting segment value choose the segment from the segment list
and then highlight a range of cells
When you click one of the discover buttons now GL Wand fills the selected range
with the next or previous segment values depending on which arrow you click on
The Discover Down All and Discover Right All buttons can be used to retrieve all the segment values in one operation
Discover Period Names
You can discover period names in much the same way that you can discover segment
values
1 Select a cell and enter a valid starting period name eg Jan-03 into the cell
NB ndash make sure that you enter this starting period name as text by first formatting the Excel
cell as text or entering the period name prefixed by an apostrophe bdquo eg bdquoJan-03 If Excel
interprets the value entered as an actual date eg 01012003 then discover period names
will not work
2 Choose the special ldquoPeriodrdquo value from the segment list
3 Now click the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button
32
GL Wand finds the next period name after Jan-07 in the Set of Books calendar and enters this value in the cell below the one that you started in
You can also use the ldquoDiscover Down Allrdquo ldquoDiscover Previousrdquo ldquoDiscover Rightrdquo ldquoDiscover Right Allrdquo and ldquoDiscover Leftrdquo buttons to discover period names
Discover Properties
- Discover segment properties
The ldquoDiscover Propertiesrdquo button will extract a variety of information about the selected segment value
To use this function
1 Select a cell(s) with a valid segment value in it
2 Make sure the correct segment is selected in the segment selector
3 Click the Discover Properties button
The cells to the right of the selected cell are populated with segment information
The first cell indicates the segment description the second cell indicates if the value is a
parent or not (Y means the segment value is a parent) the third cell indicates if the segment
value is enabled or not (Y means that the segment value is enabled) and the fourth cell
indicates what account type the segment value is eg Asset or Liability etc Obviously the forth cell is only valid for the natural account segment
33
Discover Child Ranges
- Discover child ranges
The ldquoDiscover Child Rangesrdquo button can be used to show the child values that are assigned to a particular parent value
1 Select a cell that has a parent segment value
2 Identify its segment number to the GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the segment list dropdown
3 Now click on the ldquoDiscover Child Rangesrdquo button
An Excel note is added to the cell showing the ranges that have been assigned to the selected parent This is useful for understanding and exploring your Chart of Accounts
Discover Hierarchy
To discover the hierarchy for a segment proceed as follows
Enter the starting segment value into an Excel cell This value must be a parent for
the segment you are using
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
Select ldquoDiscover Hierarchyrdquo from the Discover menu
GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy for the selected parent and display it in the
Excel worksheet indenting the various levels in the hierarchy
34
Toggle Discover Level
- Toggle discover level
The ldquoDiscover levelrdquo button is used to restrict the segment values that are returned by the discover tools to parent values only child values only or both parent and child values
When you click on this button it toggles from discovering parents and children to discovering parents only to discovering child values only
For example
1 Select a cell and enter a starting segment value
2 Choose the segment from the segment list
3 Click the discover level until the option is set to ldquoDiscovering Parentsrdquo 4 Now highlight a range of cells and click the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button
GL Wand fills the selected range with the next segment values but skips all child values and
returns only parent values Similarly child values can be discovered by toggling the discover level to ldquoDiscovering childrenrdquo
If you want to discover both parent and children toggle the discover level back to
ldquoDiscovering parents and childrenrdquo
All segment values must be entered using the Excel text format Either format the cell using
the text number format or enter the cell value using the apostrophe bdquo character which marks
the contents of the cell as text eg if you want to enter the segment value 001 enter it as
follows bdquo001
Expand
- Expand
You can perform an expand down to the lowest level children (explained below) or you can expand using the hierarchy going down one level or expanding the full hierarchy
The Expand feature allows you to extract a list of all the lowest level child values that roll up
to a particular segment selection This might be a parent value range wild card or a
combination of these options
1 Select a cell that has a segment selection eg a parent value
2 Identify its segment number to the GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
3 Click the expand button 4 The child values are retrieved from Oracle and are inserted below the selected cell
35
You can also highlight a number of columns and GL Wand will insert the child values and copy the contents of the highlighted cells against each child value that is inserted
1 Select a cell that has a segment selection and highlight the number of columns that you
would like to have copied into the new rows
2 Identify its segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
3 Click the expand button
4 The child values are retrieved from Oracle and are inserted below the selected cell
5 The contents of the additional columns that were selected are copied against each new
row inserted In the example below this contains a generic Get Balance formula which is then resolved for each child value
You also have the option of selecting multiple rows when performing an Expand GL Wand will perform an expand on each selected row
The expand feature can also be used with account combinations Please see the Special Get
Balance Criteria section for details on how this works
Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Expand feature except that it will
expand using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the values one level down the hierarchy and list them below the starting cell
Expand Hierarchy (Full)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Expand feature except that it will
expand using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy and list all the values below the starting cell indenting the various levels in the hierarchy
36
Undo Expand
- Undo Expand
The expand operation inserts rows into the worksheet to allow the child data to be
populated If you would like to quickly remove the expand data click the undo expand button GL Wand will remove the inserted data from the most recent expand operation
Please note that the expand operation formats the inserted rows in a particular way eg the
segment values are indented The undo expand operation relies on this formatting in order
to process correctly If you modify the formatting of the expanded rows the undo expand
may not function correctly
Refresh Expand
- Refresh Expand
The expand operation fetches the child data that meets the criteria that you enter and
inserts it into new rows in the workbook This data may change over time eg you may
expand a parent value and over time the definition of that parent is modified Use the refresh expand button to retrieve the most recent data from Oracle as follows
Highlight the entire range of expanded data
This must include the criteria row that drives the expand operation eg the row
containing the parent value
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
Click the refresh expand button
GL Wand will remove the old expand data and will refresh the expand with the latest information
Please note that the expand operation formats the inserted rows in a particular way eg the
segment values are indented The refresh expand operation relies on this formatting in order
to process correctly If you modify the formatting of the expanded rows the refresh expand
may not function correctly
Explode Report
- Explode report
You can perform an explode down to the lowest level children (explained below) or you can explode using the hierarchy going down one level or expanding the full hierarchy
Explode report works in a similar way to the expand feature The difference is that where
expand inserts a new row in the worksheet for each child value found explode creates a new worksheet in the current workbook for each child value found For example
Start with a complete GL Wand report
Select the cell in the report that drive the Get Balance formulas eg a department
parent value in the report header
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
37
Click the explode report button
GL Wand will duplicate the worksheet for each child value found for the selected parent
Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Explode feature except that it will
Explode using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the values one level down the hierarchy and create a new worksheet for each value
Explode Hierarchy (Full)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Explode feature except that it will
Explode using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy and create a new worksheet for
each value
Open List of Values
- Open list of values
The segment list of values form can be used to search through the segment values and
descriptions for a specific segment First pick the segment from the segment list
dropdown and then click the segment list of values button The list of values for the chosen
segment is displayed
You can enter a value to search for in the find box The list of values will be filtered to show
only items that match the text entered in the find box The text entered in the find box is
38
compared to the segment value and segment description An item will be included in the results if either field contains the text entered in the find box
In the list section you can start entering a segment value (eg Account number) and the list will scroll to the item matching the values that you have entered
Click the ldquoAddrdquo button double click an item in the list or press enter to add the current item
to the selection list on the right You can also click and drag an item to add it to the selection list
39
If you want to add a range like ldquo1000-2000rdquo do the following
Start by adding the ldquo1000rdquo value using one of the options explained above
Then find the ldquo2000rdquo value in the master list
Ensure that the ldquo2000rdquo value is highlighted in the master list and the ldquo1000rdquo value is
highlighted in the selection list and click the ldquoAdd Rangerdquo button
You can also drag a value from the master list onto an existing value in the selection list to create a range
To remove an item from the selection list ensure that it is highlighted and then click the ldquoRemoverdquo button or press the ldquoDeleterdquo key
Every segment will have the additional value called ldquoAllrdquo Selecting this value will add a ldquordquo
to the parameter list which means ldquoAll valuesrdquo If ldquoAllrdquo is selected then all other selections will be removed and replaced with a
If you want to include certain values and exclude others you can use the ldquoAdd Excluderdquo
option This will add the highlighted value to the selection list prefixed by the reserved exclude character ldquo~rdquo
40
You can add any combination of the options mentioned above to produce your own
calculation
Once you have added all the required segment values to the selection list click ldquoOKrdquo to copy
the list to the clipboard You can then paste these values into a Get Balance function or
anywhere else on the Excel sheet
41
Create List of Values
- Create list of values
This feature can be used to quickly format a cell to be a special list of values cell There are
two types The first type inserts a drop down list of values in the cell and is used for balance
types translated flags and actual flags
The second type creates a link to the standard list of values form It is used for segment values periods and balance and encumbrance names
The cell is identified by a note containing the word ldquoLOVrdquo In order to open the list of values
simply double click the cell or select the cell and click the List of Values button on the
toolbar This will open the list of values form for the specific data type that the list of values cell was created for In the example this was the department segment
The checkbox allows you to link the list of values to a specific set of books This option is only applicable if you have the Multiple Sets of Books feature enabled
42
Functions
The GL Wand functions work in a similar way to any other Excel worksheet function You
provide the required parameters and the results of the function are returned to the Excel
cell The difference being that GL Wand functions retrieve information from your Oracle Applications system
GL Wand currently has the following functions
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value
- Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
43
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
Split Text
Combine Text
Functional Currency
Get Daily Rate
You can enter a function into an Excel cell in a number of ways
Click the applicable button on the GL Wand toolbar (or on the GL Wand menu)
Type the function name into the cell manually prefixed by an = sign
You can select the function from the list that Excel provides when you choose the
Insert Function menu item The GL Wand functions are listed under the special GL
Wand category (Prior to Excel 2007 they are listed in the User Defined category)
If you click the applicable function button on the toolbar and the cell you are in contains that
function the Excel formula wizard window will open If you click a function button in a cell
that contains other data GL Wand will warn you that it is going to replace the contents of the cell with the chosen formula and will give you the option of cancelling the action
All parameters must be entered as text values ie enclosed in double quotes eg enter
ldquoUSDrdquo when entering the currency code or enter ldquo001rdquo when entering a segment value
See ldquoDiscovering versus Functionsrdquo for a comparison extracting information using the
discover tools or the functions
44
Get Balance
The Get Balance function is probably the most important function in GL Wand It returns a
General Ledger balance individually or summed based on the parameters that you enter
Example =Get_Balance(Jan-02YTDUSDEABIS CORPORATE01T4000-41600000000)
Clicking the Get Balance function on the GL Wand toolbar will open the Get Balance Wizard
This form has lists of values for items like period name balance type actual flag etc Select
the applicable values and enter a valid currency code and budget or encumbrance name if required
Double clicking a segment value or clicking the list of values button next to the segment will
open the segment list of values form for that segment See the Segment List of Values
section for details on how to use this form When you click the ldquoOKrdquo button on the Segment
List of Values form the selected segment parameters are entered against that segment in the Get Balance Wizard form
If your Oracle configuration includes dependant segments as part of the accounting
flexfield this form will support selecting values based on the independent and dependant
segment values Simply select a value from the available list of values for the independent
segment Then open the list of values for the dependant segment The list of available values
will be limited to only those values that are related to the selected independent segment
value
When you have entered all the parameters click the ldquoOKrdquo button to insert the Get Balance
function into the selected cell with the entered parameters Clicking the ldquoEditrdquo button will
open the Get Balance function in the Excel formula wizard form which will allow you to link
parameters to cells in the Excel sheet
45
You can also open the Get Balance formula in the Excel formula wizard form using the fx
button on the formula bar or by selecting the ldquoInsert Functionrdquo menu item on the Excel menu bar
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Type ldquoCTDrdquo
(Custom to Date) you can specify a custom period selection For
example ldquoFeb-07-Aug-07rdquo will add all the movement for the entered
period range You may enter multiple lists or ranges of periods and can use wild cards as well eg ldquoJan-0rdquo or ldquo-07rdquo
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Types ldquoJEDrdquo
ldquoJEDUrdquo or ldquoJEDPrdquo (Journal Effective Date) the period parameter
becomes a date parameter eg ldquo01012007-0501200710012007rdquo
The format that your date is in is important The ldquo-ldquo character is
used in GL Wand to denote a range of values and therefore it cannot
be used as a date delimiter eg 01-01-2007 would not be valid So
take care if your Windows regional setting use the ldquo-ldquo as a date
delimiter For JED type calculations we recommend that you use the
ldquordquo as a date delimiter and that you always format the date as text
in Excel otherwise Excel will convert the date based on your regional
setting
Balance Type YTD QTD PTD PJTD CTD JED JEDP or JEDU all in upper case
YTD ndash Summarizes the full years balance
QTD ndash Summarizes the balance for the quarter
46
PTD ndash Includes just the current period‟s movement
PJTD ndash Project to date
CTD ndash Summarizes the custom period criteria entered
JED ndash Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for both posted and unposted journals
JEDP - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for posted journals only
JEDU - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered dates for unposted journals only
Currency Code The currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
Translated Flag Enter E T or C Use E to retrieve the entered amount and T for the
translated amount Use C to report on the converted amount ie
the functional currency equivalent of a foreign currency amount
Only E is valid if requesting a balance for the functional currency of the current Set of Books
You must ensure that you have run the currency translation process
in Oracle for the selected currency and period before reporting on
translated balances If you enter T to request the translated balance
and there is no current translated balance available in the system a zero is returned
Oracle Release 12 provides a new feature to allow reporting on the
values entered in the functional currency only ie excludes any
foreign currency transactions converted to the functional currency
Therefore in Release 12 if you use the E (entered) flag in
conjunction with the functional currency any converted amounts will
be excluded To report on the total balance (including values entered
in functional currency and values converted to the functional
currency) use the new ldquoTotalrdquo option This option is only available if
you log on to a release 12 Oracle instance
Actual Flag A ndash Actual B ndash Budget E ndash Encumbrance
Bud Encumb Name If you enter B or E above enter the exact budget name or
encumbrance type here Otherwise simply enter ldquordquo for actual
balances
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter the segment value here You must enter it as a text value
including any leading zeros eg enter segment value ldquo10rdquo as ldquo0010rdquo
if this segment is configured as four characters with leading zeros in Oracle
You may enter your segment values in a variety of flexible ways
including parents child values ranges wildcards excludes etc See
the explanation below on valid values for this parameter
To include all values simply enter ldquordquo Please note as from GL Wand
3850 you can no longer leave the segment blank a value is
required
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
47
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Options This parameter is used to modify the results returned by the Get
Balance function from the standard behavior Currently two options are supported
Source ndash Limit the results to a specific journal source
Category ndash Limit the results to a specific journal category
The criteria needs to be entered as follows - ldquoSource=Manualrdquo or
ldquoCategory=Adjustmentrdquo To specify both a source and category use
the ldquo|rdquo as a delimiter eg ldquoSource=Manual|Category=Adjustmentrdquo
You can specify multiple values by separating them with ldquordquo eg
ldquoSource=PayablesReceivablesrdquo
When creating Get Balance formulas always use ldquordquo to denote all values as this allows more
efficient SQL to be generated Do not use a range like ldquo000-ZZZrdquo as they will require
unnecessary processing
The segment value parameters can be entered as
a single value representing a child or parent account eg ldquo1500rdquo might represent a
parent account
a range of values eg entering ldquo1500-1600rdquo in one of the segment parameters will
sum all the segment values between 1500 and 1600 for that segment
a list of segment values eg entering ldquo150015101590rdquo in one of the segment
parameters will sum the specific segment values entered If any of the segment
values are parents GL Wand will sum the hierarchy for that parent
wild card entries eg 100 will sum 1100 1200 1300 1400 etc or entering the
value 1 will sum all values that start with 1
values to be included and then specific exclusions eg ldquo1000-2000~1500rdquo will sum
the values between 1000 and 2000 but will skip 1500
a combination of any of the above eg 1000-2000237123752560-
25803000~32004000~4161-4169 In this way you can build up your own calculation definition in the segment parameter
Please note ndash there are two additional methods for specifying segment criteria in the Get
Balance function The one allows you to specify account combinations and the other
allows the use of segment descriptive flexfields Please see the Special Get Balance
Criteria section in order to use these options
Segment Description
Returns the segment description for the chosen segment value
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
48
Example =Get_Segment_Description(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
Returns the next or previous segment value
Parameter Description
Last Value The starting segment value
Segment The segment number
Level Enter a P to return the next or previous parent value enter a C to
return the next or previous child value or leave the parameter blank
to return the next or previous segment value irrespective of whether
it is a parent or child
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example = Next_Segment_Value(ldquo1000rdquo3P)
Parent Flag
Returns the parent flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is a
parent
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Parent_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Enabled Flag
Returns the enabled flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is
enabled
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example = Enabled_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
49
Account Type
Returns the account type for the chosen segment value This function is only applicable for
the natural account segment and will return the value Asset Liability etc
Parameter Description
Account Value The account segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Account_Type(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Period Name
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number Optionally the returned value can be a certain number of periods into the future or past
Parameter Description
PeriodYear The year that you want the period name for
PeriodNumber The period number that you want the period name for
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Offset Optionally enter an offset to return the period name which is n
periods before or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3
periods into the future or -1 to return the previous period
Example =Period_Name(20063)
Set of Books Name
Returns the set of books name for the chosen set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Set_of_Books_Name()
Segment Descriptive Flexfield
Returns the segment values descriptive flexfield for the selected criteria
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
50
Segment The segment number
AttributeNo Identify which attribute you want to report on The segment values
descriptive flexfield has 50 possible attribute values The applicable
attributes will depend on your configuration and whether this
Descriptive Flexfield is used by your organization
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Segment_DFF(ldquo100rdquo25) retrieves the 5th attribute on the segment values
descriptive flexfield for segment value 100 on segment 2
Period Offset
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for
this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
Offset Enter an offset to return the period name which is n periods before
or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3 periods into the
future or -1 to return the previous period
RetRange Enter TRUE (or 1) to return the result as a range eg entering
period Mar-07 with an offset of -2 and the RetRange set to true will
return ldquoJan-07-Mar-07rdquo This can be used in conjunction with the
CTD (Custom to Date) balance type in the Get Balance function to
create rolling period reporting
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Period_Offset(Jan-07-2TRUE)
Split Text
Splits delimited text and returns a specific portion based on an offset Especially useful to
split account combinations but can be used to split any text
Parameter Description
Value Some text which has been concatenated using a delimiter eg an
account combination like ldquo011007000rdquo
Offset Identify which portion of the text to return
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Split_Text(0110070002) will return the ldquo100rdquo portion of the text
51
Combine Text
Combines selected text separated by a delimiter Especially useful to combine segment
values to create a delimited account combinations but can be used to combine any text
Parameter Description
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter segment values that you wish to combine into an account
combination
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Combine_Text(011007000) will return ldquo011007000rdquo
Functional Currency
Returns the functional currency for the set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Functional_Currency()
Get Daily Rate
Returns the daily exchange rate for the entered criteria
Parameter Description
FromCurrency The ldquoFromrdquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case
eg ldquoUSDrdquo
ToCurrency The ldquoTordquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
ConversionType The conversion type as configured in Oracle Spelling and case must
be identical to the Oracle configuration
ConversionDate The conversion date This must be in Excel date format Either refer
to a cell which contains a date or use one of the Excel date functions
to return a date in the parameter
Example =Get_Daily_Rate(USDGBPReportingDATE(200911))
Function return values
The GL Wand functions will return a variety of results depending on a number of factors If
all the information is entered correctly and there are no restrictions on access to the data or
the GL Wand itself the result should be the General Ledger balance segment value segment description etc However the following are also possible return values
glwDemo ndash this means that you are using GL Wand without a valid trial key entered
into the GL Wand License Key profile option When trying GL Wand without a valid
52
trial key you are only allowed to use the first 20 rows and 20 columns of the first
sheet in the workbook Any formula entered outside this range will not calculate a
value but will only return the word ldquoglwDemordquo This is called evaluation mode A
trial key needs to be requested from within GL Wand and entered into the profile
option to allow full access to all functionality
glwNoAccess ndash When you log on you will be prompted for your applications user name
and password and will then need to select a responsibility to log on to Any security
rules that have been linked to the selected responsibility will be enforced on the GL
Wand data If you attempt to access a balance on a general ledger account that you
do not have access to the function will return the word ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo Please see
the ldquoAudit Get Balancerdquo section for information on how to identify the security rule that is being contravened
Please note that Oracles Hierarchical Security is not supported
glwError ndash If you enter invalid information in a parameter for a GL Wand function the
GL Wand error value will be returned This may happen when you for example
enter an invalid budget name or period name in the Get Balance function or when you
enter an invalid segment number in the next segment value function This error value
will also be returned when you are not logged on The details of the return value will
indicate where the problem exists eg glwError (Logon) glwError (Balance Type)
glwError (Translated Flag) glwError (Actual Flag) glwError (Missing segment)
glwError (Data error) glwError (Range) glwError (Period)
glwPending ndash This value will be returned during the calculation process Whenever a
cell requires calculation and the process has not been completed yet the cell will
contain the value ldquoglwPendingrdquo
glwEditing ndash Displays in the Excel function arguments window when editing a Get Balance formula
Discovering versus Functions
You may have noticed that you can achieve similar results by using the discover tools and
using the functions For example you could use the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button to retrieve the
next segment value or you could use the ldquoNext Segment Valuerdquo function to return the same result The difference between these two approaches is as follows
Com
paris
on b
etw
een D
iscoverin
g a
nd
Functio
ns
Discovering Functions
Results returned as text string to Excel
cell
Value is calculated based on
parameters
Value is static Value is dynamic
Never changes Recalculated when sheet refreshed
Lower performance overhead Higher performance overhead
Discover Down Next Segment Value
Discover Up Previous Segment Value
Discover Left Next Segment Value
Discover Right Previous Segment Value
Discover Properties
Segment Description
Parent flag
53
Enabled Flag
Account Type
Discover Child Ranges No equivalent
Toggle Discover Level
Parameters of next segment value
determine whether parents children or
both are returned
Use the discover buttons with ldquoPeriodrdquo
selected in the segment drop down Period Name
Balance Extract is similar to Get
Balance though the static values it
produces are refreshable
Get Balance
Special Get Balance Criteria
GL Wand supports two special types of criteria in the Get Balance function namely ldquoAccount
Combinationsrdquo and ldquoSegment Descriptive Flexfieldrdquo criteria These two forms of the Get
Balance criteria have very specific syntax which must be carefully adhered to in order to
achieve the correct results You also have the ability to expand account combinations for a
selection that uses the ldquoAccount Combinationrdquo criteria
Account Combinations
In the past the Get Balance function only supported individual segment values eg segment
2 = 100 or 200 and segment 3 = 1000 or 2000 This would result in GL Wand returning all the possible combinations of those segment 2 and 3 values
Now you have the ability to specify account combinations using the new Get Balance syntax
This means that you can create new complex criteria for your Get Balance formula eg
(segment 2 = 100 and segment 3 = 1000) or (segment 2 = 200 and segment 3 = 2000)
With these criteria GL Wand will no longer return all the possible combinations but rather only the combinations you specify
In order to specify account combinations in a Get Balance function you must tell GL Wand
which segments you are combining You do this by entering a special value into the segment
eg if you want to combine criteria for segment 2 and segment 3 you would enter the
following in the parameter for segment 2 ldquoUse_Seg3rdquo This tells GL Wand that that it must
find the criteria for segment 2 inside the segment 3 parameter In the segment 3 parameter
you now enter the criteria for both segment 2 and segment 3 separated by the special
delimiter character eg ldquo1001000rdquo This tells GL Wand that you are looking for accounts where segment 2 is 100 and segment 3 is 1000 An example could look like this
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg3100100020020000000000)
It is possible to combine multiple segments as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg5Use_Seg5Use_Seg510010000000000)
54
You simply point each applicable segment to the parameter where the account combination
using the special ldquoUse_SegXrdquo syntax Then inside the target parameter you combine the fully qualified account combination for the applicable segments delimited with a ldquordquo character
When you specify your account combination you have full flexibility to use ranges lists wild
cards parents and exclude criteria For example this criteria will fetch all the values where
segment 2 is between 100 and 200 and segment 3 is between 1000 and 2000 And in
addition to that it will include the values where segment 2 is 250 (a parent) and segment 3
starts with 33 but will exclude the specific value where segment 2 is 250 and segment 3 is
3320
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA01Use_Seg31001000-200200025033~25033200000000)
You also have the flexibility to group different parts of the account combination together For
example this criteria combines the values for segment 1 and 3 together and combines segment 2 and 4 together
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA
Use_Seg3Use_Seg401100002115010000002001050000)
These new Get Balance syntax options provide you with tremendous flexibility when building your GL Wand reports
Expand Account Combinations
The expand feature allows you to extract all the detailed child segment values that roll up to
the criteria that the user specifies The expand feature has been extended to support account combinations
In order to expand an account combination you would do the following
Ensure that the correct set of books is selected in the drop down list on the GL Wand
toolbar
Select the cell containing the account combination criteria eg ldquo1007000rdquo Click the expand button
GL Wand will now identify that the selected cell contains an account combination rather than
a single segment value You will now be presented with a window to identify which segments from your chart of accounts are represented in the account combination
55
Select the correct segments and click ldquoOKrdquo GL Wand will now extract all the child
combinations that roll up to the criteria that you entered and insert them into the Excel sheet
The other options are as follows
Fix ndash if you tick this option for a segment GL Wand will ldquopegrdquo that segment using the
selected value (this option only makes sense for a parent segment value) You might
for example want to expand all the account combinations used in a particular parent
cost centre Simply ldquoFixrdquo the cost centre segment and GL Wand will return all the
account combinations used within that parent cost centre
Exclude disabled account combination ndash tick this option to only return account combinations that are currently enabled and have not been end dated
The expand account combinations feature can be used as a normal GL Wand ldquoExpandrdquo in
order to extract the detail behind a total but it is also very useful to extract existing account combinations from your Oracle system
This feature can be used very effectively with the Split Text and Combine Text functions
Segment Descriptive Flexfields
In order to extract balances using the descriptive flexfields stored on the segment values
you need to use special syntax in the Get Balance function The syntax works as follows
1ABC
You wrap the descriptive flexfield using curly brackets
The first character after the open bracket identifies which descriptive flexfield
attribute is being referred to
You then separate the descriptive flexfield attribute from the actual value using a ldquordquo You then specify the criteria for this attribute
An example Get Balance function would look as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC10000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield on segment 2 is equal to the value ldquoABCrdquo
It is possible to specify criteria for multiple descriptive flexfields as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC2XX10000000000)
Simply wrap each descriptive flexfield value in its own and identify the attribute number
At this stage the descriptive flexfield criteria is restricted to a single value or a single range
of values Lists of values and multiple ranges are not supported A range can be specified
using the special range delimiter ldquo|rdquo (pipe character) This character is different to the range
character that is used for normal Get Balance segment parameters The reason is that the
normal range delimiter ldquo-ldquo may easily be used in a segment descriptive flexfields and
therefore is not suitable In future you will be able to configure your own range delimiter
56
character which will provide the best flexibility The range criteria can be specified as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011100|20010000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield
on segment 2 is between 100 and 200 Date values are also supported in this criteria and GL Wand will correctly derive the ldquobetweenrdquo criteria for a date
Calculating
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what cells are refreshed from
Oracle They are used in conjunction with the GL Wand calculation option (onoff) You can stop a calculation at any time by clicking cancel
- Calculate Range (Alt+Ctl+R)
- Calculate Sheet (Alt+Ctl+S)
- Calculate All (Alt+Ctl+A)
- GL Wand calculation on
- GL Wand calculation off
Calculate Range Sheet or All
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what is recalculated
To calculate a range of cells simply
1 Highlight the range
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Rangerdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+R shortcut key
3 Select multiple ranges using the ctrl button (as normal in Excel)
4 Select a range and then select multiple Excel worksheets to calculate the same range on
each sheet
Please note do not use the calculate range option to recalculate the entire sheet ie by
selecting all the cells on the sheet This will take unnecessarily longer Rather use the
calculate sheet option
To calculate a sheet simply
1 Select the applicable sheet
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Sheetrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+S shortcut key
3 Selecting multiple sheets will calculate each of the selected sheets
To calculate all open workbooks simply
1 Click the ldquoCalculate Allrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+A shortcut key
57
GL Wand calculation on or off
You can use the GL Wand calculation toggle button to control when requests for calculations
are sent to the Oracle server
If you toggle GL Wand calculation ldquoOffrdquo calculation requests are not sent to the Oracle server which means you
you can manipulate a worksheet
change cell values
enter new formulae and
perform any other task that would normally cause Excel to recalculate
and the applicable functions will only return the ldquoglwPendingrdquo status and will not
actually calculate a result
This is useful during report development
To calculate the results simply click one of the three calculation buttons ldquoCalculate Range
Sheet or Allrdquo
If you leave the GL Wand calculation option ldquoOnrdquo the applicable functions will be recalculated whenever Excel initiates a calculation process eg
when changing the contents of the cell
changing one of the functions input values deleting a column or row in the worksheet etc
Please note that the GL Wand calculation option has nothing to do with Excel‟s automatic
and manual calculation The GL Wand calculation option controls only the calculation of the
applicable GL Wand functions All other calculations are controlled as normal by the Excel
automatic and manual calculation option
Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
When you perform a recalculation a window will appear to show the progress of the
calculation
58
If you would like to cancel the calculation process simply click the ldquoCancelrdquo button
Please note that GL Wand will need to wait for the next reply from Oracle before the
connection can be closed Therefore it may take some time before the calculation stops and
the window closes
Snapshot
- Snapshot
The snapshot tool can be used to take a snapshot of your GL Wand report This tool will
remove all the GL Wand functions from the workbook and will replace them with the values that the function returned
The results are similar to using the Excel ldquopaste valuesrdquo functionality However this process will only replace GL Wand formulas All other Excel formulas will be left as they were
Please note that you cannot take a snapshot of a protected worksheet rather output the
sheet to PDF format for archive and distribution purposes
When producing a snapshot GL Wand will request a name for the new workbook You can
select an existing workbook and GL Wand will give you the option to append the snapshot
results to the existing workbook or overwrite the existing workbook You therefore have the
option of producing various snapshot reports and combining them into one new workbook in a single operation rather than producing a separate workbook for each snapshot
Hide zeros
- Hide zeros in selected range
Select a report range that contains rows where all the numbers are zero Click the hide zeros
button and GL Wand will hide all the rows in the selected range where all the cells containing
numbers are zero This is very useful for formatting a report which includes many rows
where for example a number of accounts are not used in a particular cost centre or have no
59
balances in a certain period At the click of a button you can hide all the rows that contain only zeros
Select the entire report range when using the hide zeros function GL Wand checks the
selected range for zeros when determining which rows to hide
Excel automatically forces a recalculation of Get Balance formulas when you hide rows on a
report This is normal Excel functionality
This feature can be used on any Excel worksheet and is not limited to GL Wand reports
Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Undo the last hide zeros operation
Click this button to automatically undo the last hide zeros operation
Drill downs
- Drill to default Balance layout
- Drill to default Journal layout
- Drill to default Sub Ledger layout
The drill down options allow you to extract additional detail about a specific ldquoGet Balancerdquo function
1 Select a cell that contains a valid Get Balance function
2 Click on the drill to balance button
3 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
4 The criteria sheet will be populated with the criteria from the Get Balance function
5 The drill down to balance detail will be executed showing all the detailed accounts that make up the total in the Get Balance function
60
See the Create Drill Criteria Sheet section for more details and options on the drill down criteria sheet
Budget variance analysis If you select two cells on the GL Wand report eg one cell with
actual values and one with budget numbers GL Wand will perform a drill down on the Get
Balance function and display the actual and budget values next to each other and a
calculated variance
You now have a variety of options which can be performed from the drill down workbook
1 Modify the parameters on the criteria sheet and perform a new drill to balance Drop
down lists are provided for most of the parameters see the Create Drill Criteria Sheet for
more details
2 Create a summary drill down report
3 If you have performed a balance drill down you can select the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet and then
click drill down to journal details after selecting one or more rows with accounts
4 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo sheet and then click the button to drill down to the full journal
after selecting one or more rows with journal lines The full journal with all the contra
entries for the selected journal lines will be displayed
5 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo or ldquoJournal-Fullrdquo sheet and then click sub-ledger drill down after
selecting one or more rows with journal lines 6 Drill down to Global Consolidation System transactions
When drilling down you have the following options
Double click any cell on the row that you wish to drill down on
61
Select any cell in the row that you want to drill down on and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar
Highlight a range of rows and click the applicable drill down button on the GL Wand
toolbar to drill down on multiple lines at once
Highlight non contiguous rows using the ldquoCtrlrdquo button and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar to drill down on multiple lines which are not adjacent to each other
It is possible to drill from a Get Balance formula directly to the journal or sub ledger
information Similarly you can drill from a detailed balance (on the Balance worksheet)
directly to the sub ledger information If you select these options GL Wand will execute the
interim drill steps automatically Be careful when performing a drill down directly to the
journal or sub ledger detail level as these drill down operations may return many records
GL Wand will automatically group the drill down to journals and sub ledger information using
Excel‟s group and outline functionality This will allow you expand and collapse the data to
show just a portion of the report Headings are also inserted on the journal and sub-ledger drill down to make the report easier to read
On the sub-ledger drill down the heading includes a number in brackets eg ldquo(23) Journal
Name 123rdquo The number indicates which Excel row these sub-ledger lines originated from on
the ldquoJournalsrdquo sheet
You can use the remove drill down report headings button to strip out the headings on
the journal and sub-ledger drill down sheets
A couple of important things to note about drill downs
GL Wand will first count the number of rows that will be retrieved by the drill down
operation
If the row count is more than 1000 you will receive a warning message asking you if
you want to continue
If the row count is more than the defined limit (see Query Limit) you will receive a
warning and the drill down will be cancelled
If the row count is more than the number of rows available in your version of Excel
you will receive an error and the drill down will be cancelled
When you drill down to journal details the ldquoBalance Typerdquo parameter controls how
much detail is returned If this parameter is ldquoPTDrdquo only the current period‟s journals
are returned If this parameter is ldquoYTDrdquo then all the journals for the year are returned and likewise ldquoQTDrdquo will show the journal for the quarter
Ensure that the worksheet is calculated before performing any drill down functions Also
ensure that the cell contains a ldquoGet Balancerdquo function with valid parameter information
A new drill down workbook will be created each time you perform a drill down operation from
a Get Balance function Once you are finished with a drill down workbook simply close it
without saving
You cannot drill down to journal detail on translated balances
Oracle Global Consolidation System
Drill down to Oracle Global Consolidation System (GCS) transactions is also supported
These items will appear on the journal drill down report with a source and category of
62
ldquoConsolidationrdquo If you execute a normal drill down to Sub Ledger on these transactions a
new GL Wand drill workbook will be created and the drill down to the subsidiary set of books will be executed
In order to drill down on a GCS transaction you must be logged on the parent as well as the
subsidiary set of books This can be done using the Multiple Sets of Books logon option
Summary Balance Drill Down
On the drill down Criteria sheet toggle the summarization option to ldquoYrdquo for any segment that
you which to summaries by GL Wand creates a summary trial balance report and
summarizes by the selected segments The report can still be expanded to show the detailed
lines and you can still drill down to journals from these lines
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
28
Descriptive Flexfields
If you wish to report on segment value descriptive flexfields tick this option on the logon
form This will load the descriptive flexfield information This option is by default un-ticked as loading this information unnecessarily would slow down the logon process
Proxy Authentication
If you are connecting to an Oracle instance on the Internet and your organization uses a
proxy server that requires authentication to access the Internet (in addition to the domain
logon) GL Wand will prompt you for your proxy user name and password if required
29
Enter the required user name and password and click OK Then click the logon button again
License Key
If you have not yet obtained a trial license key for the instance that you are logging on to
you will prompted with the option to request a key Click ldquoYesrdquo to open a web page where you can request a trial key or ldquoNordquo to continue without requesting a key
Customers that have licensed GL Wand will use this exact same process to request the final non-expiring keys
Set of Books and Segment Selector
- Set of Books and Segment selector
Once you have logged on the set of books and segment list dropdowns will be populated
Set of Books
The set of books drop down list can be used to select the set of books that you wish to work
with If you log on to a single set of books this dropdown list will contain a single value only
However if you are licensed to use the GL Wand Multiple Sets of Books feature or are in trial then this list will contain multiple values in the following situations
If you selected multiple responsibilities during the logon process all the sets of books
linked to those responsibilities will be listed
If you selected the special ldquoAll Sets of Booksrdquo option all the sets of books configured
in the Oracle instance will be listed
If you log on to an Oracle Release 12 instance and the data access set linked to the
chosen responsibility contains more than one ledger or ledger set then each of these ledgers will be listed
The number in brackets () indicates the Set of Books identifier This number can be used in
various GL Wand formulas and other functionality in order to obtain information from a specific Set of Books
Segments
This dropdown list will be populated with a list of the segments that are available in the
currently selected Set of Books The number in brackets indicates the segment number The
segment list also includes the special value ldquoPeriodrdquo which is used for discovering the period
names in your set of books
In the example shown the selected segment is ldquoCompanyrdquo and it is identified as segment 1 Certain dynamic functions require the segment number as an input parameter
Discovering
The discover tools allow you to extract segment information from the Oracle Applications
database and populate Excel cells with this information You can use the discover tools to
30
extract segment values segment properties periods or child ranges or the full segment
hierarchy For segment values you can use the discover level to choose whether to retrieve child values parent values or both
Discover Segment Values
- Discover Down
- Discover Down All
- Discover Up
1 Select a cell and enter a valid starting segment value eg ldquo1000rdquo into the cell
2 Choose the relevant segment from the segment list eg ldquoAccountrdquo
3 Now click the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button
GL Wand finds the next valid account segment value after account ldquo1000rdquo and enters this value in the cell below the one that you started in
In the same way you can click the up arrow and the previous segment value will be entered
in the cell above the one that you started in
- Discover Left
- Discover Right
31
- Discover Right All
The left and right arrows work in a similar manner retrieving the next and previous segment
values but they populate the cells to the left and right of the cell that you start in When
discovering segment values you will notice that some of the values are entered with a bold
font This is because these have been identified as parent values
You do not need to discover segment values one at a time
You can enter a starting segment value choose the segment from the segment list
and then highlight a range of cells
When you click one of the discover buttons now GL Wand fills the selected range
with the next or previous segment values depending on which arrow you click on
The Discover Down All and Discover Right All buttons can be used to retrieve all the segment values in one operation
Discover Period Names
You can discover period names in much the same way that you can discover segment
values
1 Select a cell and enter a valid starting period name eg Jan-03 into the cell
NB ndash make sure that you enter this starting period name as text by first formatting the Excel
cell as text or entering the period name prefixed by an apostrophe bdquo eg bdquoJan-03 If Excel
interprets the value entered as an actual date eg 01012003 then discover period names
will not work
2 Choose the special ldquoPeriodrdquo value from the segment list
3 Now click the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button
32
GL Wand finds the next period name after Jan-07 in the Set of Books calendar and enters this value in the cell below the one that you started in
You can also use the ldquoDiscover Down Allrdquo ldquoDiscover Previousrdquo ldquoDiscover Rightrdquo ldquoDiscover Right Allrdquo and ldquoDiscover Leftrdquo buttons to discover period names
Discover Properties
- Discover segment properties
The ldquoDiscover Propertiesrdquo button will extract a variety of information about the selected segment value
To use this function
1 Select a cell(s) with a valid segment value in it
2 Make sure the correct segment is selected in the segment selector
3 Click the Discover Properties button
The cells to the right of the selected cell are populated with segment information
The first cell indicates the segment description the second cell indicates if the value is a
parent or not (Y means the segment value is a parent) the third cell indicates if the segment
value is enabled or not (Y means that the segment value is enabled) and the fourth cell
indicates what account type the segment value is eg Asset or Liability etc Obviously the forth cell is only valid for the natural account segment
33
Discover Child Ranges
- Discover child ranges
The ldquoDiscover Child Rangesrdquo button can be used to show the child values that are assigned to a particular parent value
1 Select a cell that has a parent segment value
2 Identify its segment number to the GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the segment list dropdown
3 Now click on the ldquoDiscover Child Rangesrdquo button
An Excel note is added to the cell showing the ranges that have been assigned to the selected parent This is useful for understanding and exploring your Chart of Accounts
Discover Hierarchy
To discover the hierarchy for a segment proceed as follows
Enter the starting segment value into an Excel cell This value must be a parent for
the segment you are using
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
Select ldquoDiscover Hierarchyrdquo from the Discover menu
GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy for the selected parent and display it in the
Excel worksheet indenting the various levels in the hierarchy
34
Toggle Discover Level
- Toggle discover level
The ldquoDiscover levelrdquo button is used to restrict the segment values that are returned by the discover tools to parent values only child values only or both parent and child values
When you click on this button it toggles from discovering parents and children to discovering parents only to discovering child values only
For example
1 Select a cell and enter a starting segment value
2 Choose the segment from the segment list
3 Click the discover level until the option is set to ldquoDiscovering Parentsrdquo 4 Now highlight a range of cells and click the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button
GL Wand fills the selected range with the next segment values but skips all child values and
returns only parent values Similarly child values can be discovered by toggling the discover level to ldquoDiscovering childrenrdquo
If you want to discover both parent and children toggle the discover level back to
ldquoDiscovering parents and childrenrdquo
All segment values must be entered using the Excel text format Either format the cell using
the text number format or enter the cell value using the apostrophe bdquo character which marks
the contents of the cell as text eg if you want to enter the segment value 001 enter it as
follows bdquo001
Expand
- Expand
You can perform an expand down to the lowest level children (explained below) or you can expand using the hierarchy going down one level or expanding the full hierarchy
The Expand feature allows you to extract a list of all the lowest level child values that roll up
to a particular segment selection This might be a parent value range wild card or a
combination of these options
1 Select a cell that has a segment selection eg a parent value
2 Identify its segment number to the GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
3 Click the expand button 4 The child values are retrieved from Oracle and are inserted below the selected cell
35
You can also highlight a number of columns and GL Wand will insert the child values and copy the contents of the highlighted cells against each child value that is inserted
1 Select a cell that has a segment selection and highlight the number of columns that you
would like to have copied into the new rows
2 Identify its segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
3 Click the expand button
4 The child values are retrieved from Oracle and are inserted below the selected cell
5 The contents of the additional columns that were selected are copied against each new
row inserted In the example below this contains a generic Get Balance formula which is then resolved for each child value
You also have the option of selecting multiple rows when performing an Expand GL Wand will perform an expand on each selected row
The expand feature can also be used with account combinations Please see the Special Get
Balance Criteria section for details on how this works
Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Expand feature except that it will
expand using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the values one level down the hierarchy and list them below the starting cell
Expand Hierarchy (Full)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Expand feature except that it will
expand using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy and list all the values below the starting cell indenting the various levels in the hierarchy
36
Undo Expand
- Undo Expand
The expand operation inserts rows into the worksheet to allow the child data to be
populated If you would like to quickly remove the expand data click the undo expand button GL Wand will remove the inserted data from the most recent expand operation
Please note that the expand operation formats the inserted rows in a particular way eg the
segment values are indented The undo expand operation relies on this formatting in order
to process correctly If you modify the formatting of the expanded rows the undo expand
may not function correctly
Refresh Expand
- Refresh Expand
The expand operation fetches the child data that meets the criteria that you enter and
inserts it into new rows in the workbook This data may change over time eg you may
expand a parent value and over time the definition of that parent is modified Use the refresh expand button to retrieve the most recent data from Oracle as follows
Highlight the entire range of expanded data
This must include the criteria row that drives the expand operation eg the row
containing the parent value
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
Click the refresh expand button
GL Wand will remove the old expand data and will refresh the expand with the latest information
Please note that the expand operation formats the inserted rows in a particular way eg the
segment values are indented The refresh expand operation relies on this formatting in order
to process correctly If you modify the formatting of the expanded rows the refresh expand
may not function correctly
Explode Report
- Explode report
You can perform an explode down to the lowest level children (explained below) or you can explode using the hierarchy going down one level or expanding the full hierarchy
Explode report works in a similar way to the expand feature The difference is that where
expand inserts a new row in the worksheet for each child value found explode creates a new worksheet in the current workbook for each child value found For example
Start with a complete GL Wand report
Select the cell in the report that drive the Get Balance formulas eg a department
parent value in the report header
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
37
Click the explode report button
GL Wand will duplicate the worksheet for each child value found for the selected parent
Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Explode feature except that it will
Explode using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the values one level down the hierarchy and create a new worksheet for each value
Explode Hierarchy (Full)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Explode feature except that it will
Explode using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy and create a new worksheet for
each value
Open List of Values
- Open list of values
The segment list of values form can be used to search through the segment values and
descriptions for a specific segment First pick the segment from the segment list
dropdown and then click the segment list of values button The list of values for the chosen
segment is displayed
You can enter a value to search for in the find box The list of values will be filtered to show
only items that match the text entered in the find box The text entered in the find box is
38
compared to the segment value and segment description An item will be included in the results if either field contains the text entered in the find box
In the list section you can start entering a segment value (eg Account number) and the list will scroll to the item matching the values that you have entered
Click the ldquoAddrdquo button double click an item in the list or press enter to add the current item
to the selection list on the right You can also click and drag an item to add it to the selection list
39
If you want to add a range like ldquo1000-2000rdquo do the following
Start by adding the ldquo1000rdquo value using one of the options explained above
Then find the ldquo2000rdquo value in the master list
Ensure that the ldquo2000rdquo value is highlighted in the master list and the ldquo1000rdquo value is
highlighted in the selection list and click the ldquoAdd Rangerdquo button
You can also drag a value from the master list onto an existing value in the selection list to create a range
To remove an item from the selection list ensure that it is highlighted and then click the ldquoRemoverdquo button or press the ldquoDeleterdquo key
Every segment will have the additional value called ldquoAllrdquo Selecting this value will add a ldquordquo
to the parameter list which means ldquoAll valuesrdquo If ldquoAllrdquo is selected then all other selections will be removed and replaced with a
If you want to include certain values and exclude others you can use the ldquoAdd Excluderdquo
option This will add the highlighted value to the selection list prefixed by the reserved exclude character ldquo~rdquo
40
You can add any combination of the options mentioned above to produce your own
calculation
Once you have added all the required segment values to the selection list click ldquoOKrdquo to copy
the list to the clipboard You can then paste these values into a Get Balance function or
anywhere else on the Excel sheet
41
Create List of Values
- Create list of values
This feature can be used to quickly format a cell to be a special list of values cell There are
two types The first type inserts a drop down list of values in the cell and is used for balance
types translated flags and actual flags
The second type creates a link to the standard list of values form It is used for segment values periods and balance and encumbrance names
The cell is identified by a note containing the word ldquoLOVrdquo In order to open the list of values
simply double click the cell or select the cell and click the List of Values button on the
toolbar This will open the list of values form for the specific data type that the list of values cell was created for In the example this was the department segment
The checkbox allows you to link the list of values to a specific set of books This option is only applicable if you have the Multiple Sets of Books feature enabled
42
Functions
The GL Wand functions work in a similar way to any other Excel worksheet function You
provide the required parameters and the results of the function are returned to the Excel
cell The difference being that GL Wand functions retrieve information from your Oracle Applications system
GL Wand currently has the following functions
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value
- Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
43
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
Split Text
Combine Text
Functional Currency
Get Daily Rate
You can enter a function into an Excel cell in a number of ways
Click the applicable button on the GL Wand toolbar (or on the GL Wand menu)
Type the function name into the cell manually prefixed by an = sign
You can select the function from the list that Excel provides when you choose the
Insert Function menu item The GL Wand functions are listed under the special GL
Wand category (Prior to Excel 2007 they are listed in the User Defined category)
If you click the applicable function button on the toolbar and the cell you are in contains that
function the Excel formula wizard window will open If you click a function button in a cell
that contains other data GL Wand will warn you that it is going to replace the contents of the cell with the chosen formula and will give you the option of cancelling the action
All parameters must be entered as text values ie enclosed in double quotes eg enter
ldquoUSDrdquo when entering the currency code or enter ldquo001rdquo when entering a segment value
See ldquoDiscovering versus Functionsrdquo for a comparison extracting information using the
discover tools or the functions
44
Get Balance
The Get Balance function is probably the most important function in GL Wand It returns a
General Ledger balance individually or summed based on the parameters that you enter
Example =Get_Balance(Jan-02YTDUSDEABIS CORPORATE01T4000-41600000000)
Clicking the Get Balance function on the GL Wand toolbar will open the Get Balance Wizard
This form has lists of values for items like period name balance type actual flag etc Select
the applicable values and enter a valid currency code and budget or encumbrance name if required
Double clicking a segment value or clicking the list of values button next to the segment will
open the segment list of values form for that segment See the Segment List of Values
section for details on how to use this form When you click the ldquoOKrdquo button on the Segment
List of Values form the selected segment parameters are entered against that segment in the Get Balance Wizard form
If your Oracle configuration includes dependant segments as part of the accounting
flexfield this form will support selecting values based on the independent and dependant
segment values Simply select a value from the available list of values for the independent
segment Then open the list of values for the dependant segment The list of available values
will be limited to only those values that are related to the selected independent segment
value
When you have entered all the parameters click the ldquoOKrdquo button to insert the Get Balance
function into the selected cell with the entered parameters Clicking the ldquoEditrdquo button will
open the Get Balance function in the Excel formula wizard form which will allow you to link
parameters to cells in the Excel sheet
45
You can also open the Get Balance formula in the Excel formula wizard form using the fx
button on the formula bar or by selecting the ldquoInsert Functionrdquo menu item on the Excel menu bar
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Type ldquoCTDrdquo
(Custom to Date) you can specify a custom period selection For
example ldquoFeb-07-Aug-07rdquo will add all the movement for the entered
period range You may enter multiple lists or ranges of periods and can use wild cards as well eg ldquoJan-0rdquo or ldquo-07rdquo
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Types ldquoJEDrdquo
ldquoJEDUrdquo or ldquoJEDPrdquo (Journal Effective Date) the period parameter
becomes a date parameter eg ldquo01012007-0501200710012007rdquo
The format that your date is in is important The ldquo-ldquo character is
used in GL Wand to denote a range of values and therefore it cannot
be used as a date delimiter eg 01-01-2007 would not be valid So
take care if your Windows regional setting use the ldquo-ldquo as a date
delimiter For JED type calculations we recommend that you use the
ldquordquo as a date delimiter and that you always format the date as text
in Excel otherwise Excel will convert the date based on your regional
setting
Balance Type YTD QTD PTD PJTD CTD JED JEDP or JEDU all in upper case
YTD ndash Summarizes the full years balance
QTD ndash Summarizes the balance for the quarter
46
PTD ndash Includes just the current period‟s movement
PJTD ndash Project to date
CTD ndash Summarizes the custom period criteria entered
JED ndash Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for both posted and unposted journals
JEDP - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for posted journals only
JEDU - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered dates for unposted journals only
Currency Code The currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
Translated Flag Enter E T or C Use E to retrieve the entered amount and T for the
translated amount Use C to report on the converted amount ie
the functional currency equivalent of a foreign currency amount
Only E is valid if requesting a balance for the functional currency of the current Set of Books
You must ensure that you have run the currency translation process
in Oracle for the selected currency and period before reporting on
translated balances If you enter T to request the translated balance
and there is no current translated balance available in the system a zero is returned
Oracle Release 12 provides a new feature to allow reporting on the
values entered in the functional currency only ie excludes any
foreign currency transactions converted to the functional currency
Therefore in Release 12 if you use the E (entered) flag in
conjunction with the functional currency any converted amounts will
be excluded To report on the total balance (including values entered
in functional currency and values converted to the functional
currency) use the new ldquoTotalrdquo option This option is only available if
you log on to a release 12 Oracle instance
Actual Flag A ndash Actual B ndash Budget E ndash Encumbrance
Bud Encumb Name If you enter B or E above enter the exact budget name or
encumbrance type here Otherwise simply enter ldquordquo for actual
balances
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter the segment value here You must enter it as a text value
including any leading zeros eg enter segment value ldquo10rdquo as ldquo0010rdquo
if this segment is configured as four characters with leading zeros in Oracle
You may enter your segment values in a variety of flexible ways
including parents child values ranges wildcards excludes etc See
the explanation below on valid values for this parameter
To include all values simply enter ldquordquo Please note as from GL Wand
3850 you can no longer leave the segment blank a value is
required
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
47
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Options This parameter is used to modify the results returned by the Get
Balance function from the standard behavior Currently two options are supported
Source ndash Limit the results to a specific journal source
Category ndash Limit the results to a specific journal category
The criteria needs to be entered as follows - ldquoSource=Manualrdquo or
ldquoCategory=Adjustmentrdquo To specify both a source and category use
the ldquo|rdquo as a delimiter eg ldquoSource=Manual|Category=Adjustmentrdquo
You can specify multiple values by separating them with ldquordquo eg
ldquoSource=PayablesReceivablesrdquo
When creating Get Balance formulas always use ldquordquo to denote all values as this allows more
efficient SQL to be generated Do not use a range like ldquo000-ZZZrdquo as they will require
unnecessary processing
The segment value parameters can be entered as
a single value representing a child or parent account eg ldquo1500rdquo might represent a
parent account
a range of values eg entering ldquo1500-1600rdquo in one of the segment parameters will
sum all the segment values between 1500 and 1600 for that segment
a list of segment values eg entering ldquo150015101590rdquo in one of the segment
parameters will sum the specific segment values entered If any of the segment
values are parents GL Wand will sum the hierarchy for that parent
wild card entries eg 100 will sum 1100 1200 1300 1400 etc or entering the
value 1 will sum all values that start with 1
values to be included and then specific exclusions eg ldquo1000-2000~1500rdquo will sum
the values between 1000 and 2000 but will skip 1500
a combination of any of the above eg 1000-2000237123752560-
25803000~32004000~4161-4169 In this way you can build up your own calculation definition in the segment parameter
Please note ndash there are two additional methods for specifying segment criteria in the Get
Balance function The one allows you to specify account combinations and the other
allows the use of segment descriptive flexfields Please see the Special Get Balance
Criteria section in order to use these options
Segment Description
Returns the segment description for the chosen segment value
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
48
Example =Get_Segment_Description(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
Returns the next or previous segment value
Parameter Description
Last Value The starting segment value
Segment The segment number
Level Enter a P to return the next or previous parent value enter a C to
return the next or previous child value or leave the parameter blank
to return the next or previous segment value irrespective of whether
it is a parent or child
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example = Next_Segment_Value(ldquo1000rdquo3P)
Parent Flag
Returns the parent flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is a
parent
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Parent_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Enabled Flag
Returns the enabled flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is
enabled
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example = Enabled_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
49
Account Type
Returns the account type for the chosen segment value This function is only applicable for
the natural account segment and will return the value Asset Liability etc
Parameter Description
Account Value The account segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Account_Type(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Period Name
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number Optionally the returned value can be a certain number of periods into the future or past
Parameter Description
PeriodYear The year that you want the period name for
PeriodNumber The period number that you want the period name for
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Offset Optionally enter an offset to return the period name which is n
periods before or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3
periods into the future or -1 to return the previous period
Example =Period_Name(20063)
Set of Books Name
Returns the set of books name for the chosen set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Set_of_Books_Name()
Segment Descriptive Flexfield
Returns the segment values descriptive flexfield for the selected criteria
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
50
Segment The segment number
AttributeNo Identify which attribute you want to report on The segment values
descriptive flexfield has 50 possible attribute values The applicable
attributes will depend on your configuration and whether this
Descriptive Flexfield is used by your organization
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Segment_DFF(ldquo100rdquo25) retrieves the 5th attribute on the segment values
descriptive flexfield for segment value 100 on segment 2
Period Offset
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for
this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
Offset Enter an offset to return the period name which is n periods before
or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3 periods into the
future or -1 to return the previous period
RetRange Enter TRUE (or 1) to return the result as a range eg entering
period Mar-07 with an offset of -2 and the RetRange set to true will
return ldquoJan-07-Mar-07rdquo This can be used in conjunction with the
CTD (Custom to Date) balance type in the Get Balance function to
create rolling period reporting
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Period_Offset(Jan-07-2TRUE)
Split Text
Splits delimited text and returns a specific portion based on an offset Especially useful to
split account combinations but can be used to split any text
Parameter Description
Value Some text which has been concatenated using a delimiter eg an
account combination like ldquo011007000rdquo
Offset Identify which portion of the text to return
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Split_Text(0110070002) will return the ldquo100rdquo portion of the text
51
Combine Text
Combines selected text separated by a delimiter Especially useful to combine segment
values to create a delimited account combinations but can be used to combine any text
Parameter Description
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter segment values that you wish to combine into an account
combination
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Combine_Text(011007000) will return ldquo011007000rdquo
Functional Currency
Returns the functional currency for the set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Functional_Currency()
Get Daily Rate
Returns the daily exchange rate for the entered criteria
Parameter Description
FromCurrency The ldquoFromrdquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case
eg ldquoUSDrdquo
ToCurrency The ldquoTordquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
ConversionType The conversion type as configured in Oracle Spelling and case must
be identical to the Oracle configuration
ConversionDate The conversion date This must be in Excel date format Either refer
to a cell which contains a date or use one of the Excel date functions
to return a date in the parameter
Example =Get_Daily_Rate(USDGBPReportingDATE(200911))
Function return values
The GL Wand functions will return a variety of results depending on a number of factors If
all the information is entered correctly and there are no restrictions on access to the data or
the GL Wand itself the result should be the General Ledger balance segment value segment description etc However the following are also possible return values
glwDemo ndash this means that you are using GL Wand without a valid trial key entered
into the GL Wand License Key profile option When trying GL Wand without a valid
52
trial key you are only allowed to use the first 20 rows and 20 columns of the first
sheet in the workbook Any formula entered outside this range will not calculate a
value but will only return the word ldquoglwDemordquo This is called evaluation mode A
trial key needs to be requested from within GL Wand and entered into the profile
option to allow full access to all functionality
glwNoAccess ndash When you log on you will be prompted for your applications user name
and password and will then need to select a responsibility to log on to Any security
rules that have been linked to the selected responsibility will be enforced on the GL
Wand data If you attempt to access a balance on a general ledger account that you
do not have access to the function will return the word ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo Please see
the ldquoAudit Get Balancerdquo section for information on how to identify the security rule that is being contravened
Please note that Oracles Hierarchical Security is not supported
glwError ndash If you enter invalid information in a parameter for a GL Wand function the
GL Wand error value will be returned This may happen when you for example
enter an invalid budget name or period name in the Get Balance function or when you
enter an invalid segment number in the next segment value function This error value
will also be returned when you are not logged on The details of the return value will
indicate where the problem exists eg glwError (Logon) glwError (Balance Type)
glwError (Translated Flag) glwError (Actual Flag) glwError (Missing segment)
glwError (Data error) glwError (Range) glwError (Period)
glwPending ndash This value will be returned during the calculation process Whenever a
cell requires calculation and the process has not been completed yet the cell will
contain the value ldquoglwPendingrdquo
glwEditing ndash Displays in the Excel function arguments window when editing a Get Balance formula
Discovering versus Functions
You may have noticed that you can achieve similar results by using the discover tools and
using the functions For example you could use the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button to retrieve the
next segment value or you could use the ldquoNext Segment Valuerdquo function to return the same result The difference between these two approaches is as follows
Com
paris
on b
etw
een D
iscoverin
g a
nd
Functio
ns
Discovering Functions
Results returned as text string to Excel
cell
Value is calculated based on
parameters
Value is static Value is dynamic
Never changes Recalculated when sheet refreshed
Lower performance overhead Higher performance overhead
Discover Down Next Segment Value
Discover Up Previous Segment Value
Discover Left Next Segment Value
Discover Right Previous Segment Value
Discover Properties
Segment Description
Parent flag
53
Enabled Flag
Account Type
Discover Child Ranges No equivalent
Toggle Discover Level
Parameters of next segment value
determine whether parents children or
both are returned
Use the discover buttons with ldquoPeriodrdquo
selected in the segment drop down Period Name
Balance Extract is similar to Get
Balance though the static values it
produces are refreshable
Get Balance
Special Get Balance Criteria
GL Wand supports two special types of criteria in the Get Balance function namely ldquoAccount
Combinationsrdquo and ldquoSegment Descriptive Flexfieldrdquo criteria These two forms of the Get
Balance criteria have very specific syntax which must be carefully adhered to in order to
achieve the correct results You also have the ability to expand account combinations for a
selection that uses the ldquoAccount Combinationrdquo criteria
Account Combinations
In the past the Get Balance function only supported individual segment values eg segment
2 = 100 or 200 and segment 3 = 1000 or 2000 This would result in GL Wand returning all the possible combinations of those segment 2 and 3 values
Now you have the ability to specify account combinations using the new Get Balance syntax
This means that you can create new complex criteria for your Get Balance formula eg
(segment 2 = 100 and segment 3 = 1000) or (segment 2 = 200 and segment 3 = 2000)
With these criteria GL Wand will no longer return all the possible combinations but rather only the combinations you specify
In order to specify account combinations in a Get Balance function you must tell GL Wand
which segments you are combining You do this by entering a special value into the segment
eg if you want to combine criteria for segment 2 and segment 3 you would enter the
following in the parameter for segment 2 ldquoUse_Seg3rdquo This tells GL Wand that that it must
find the criteria for segment 2 inside the segment 3 parameter In the segment 3 parameter
you now enter the criteria for both segment 2 and segment 3 separated by the special
delimiter character eg ldquo1001000rdquo This tells GL Wand that you are looking for accounts where segment 2 is 100 and segment 3 is 1000 An example could look like this
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg3100100020020000000000)
It is possible to combine multiple segments as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg5Use_Seg5Use_Seg510010000000000)
54
You simply point each applicable segment to the parameter where the account combination
using the special ldquoUse_SegXrdquo syntax Then inside the target parameter you combine the fully qualified account combination for the applicable segments delimited with a ldquordquo character
When you specify your account combination you have full flexibility to use ranges lists wild
cards parents and exclude criteria For example this criteria will fetch all the values where
segment 2 is between 100 and 200 and segment 3 is between 1000 and 2000 And in
addition to that it will include the values where segment 2 is 250 (a parent) and segment 3
starts with 33 but will exclude the specific value where segment 2 is 250 and segment 3 is
3320
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA01Use_Seg31001000-200200025033~25033200000000)
You also have the flexibility to group different parts of the account combination together For
example this criteria combines the values for segment 1 and 3 together and combines segment 2 and 4 together
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA
Use_Seg3Use_Seg401100002115010000002001050000)
These new Get Balance syntax options provide you with tremendous flexibility when building your GL Wand reports
Expand Account Combinations
The expand feature allows you to extract all the detailed child segment values that roll up to
the criteria that the user specifies The expand feature has been extended to support account combinations
In order to expand an account combination you would do the following
Ensure that the correct set of books is selected in the drop down list on the GL Wand
toolbar
Select the cell containing the account combination criteria eg ldquo1007000rdquo Click the expand button
GL Wand will now identify that the selected cell contains an account combination rather than
a single segment value You will now be presented with a window to identify which segments from your chart of accounts are represented in the account combination
55
Select the correct segments and click ldquoOKrdquo GL Wand will now extract all the child
combinations that roll up to the criteria that you entered and insert them into the Excel sheet
The other options are as follows
Fix ndash if you tick this option for a segment GL Wand will ldquopegrdquo that segment using the
selected value (this option only makes sense for a parent segment value) You might
for example want to expand all the account combinations used in a particular parent
cost centre Simply ldquoFixrdquo the cost centre segment and GL Wand will return all the
account combinations used within that parent cost centre
Exclude disabled account combination ndash tick this option to only return account combinations that are currently enabled and have not been end dated
The expand account combinations feature can be used as a normal GL Wand ldquoExpandrdquo in
order to extract the detail behind a total but it is also very useful to extract existing account combinations from your Oracle system
This feature can be used very effectively with the Split Text and Combine Text functions
Segment Descriptive Flexfields
In order to extract balances using the descriptive flexfields stored on the segment values
you need to use special syntax in the Get Balance function The syntax works as follows
1ABC
You wrap the descriptive flexfield using curly brackets
The first character after the open bracket identifies which descriptive flexfield
attribute is being referred to
You then separate the descriptive flexfield attribute from the actual value using a ldquordquo You then specify the criteria for this attribute
An example Get Balance function would look as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC10000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield on segment 2 is equal to the value ldquoABCrdquo
It is possible to specify criteria for multiple descriptive flexfields as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC2XX10000000000)
Simply wrap each descriptive flexfield value in its own and identify the attribute number
At this stage the descriptive flexfield criteria is restricted to a single value or a single range
of values Lists of values and multiple ranges are not supported A range can be specified
using the special range delimiter ldquo|rdquo (pipe character) This character is different to the range
character that is used for normal Get Balance segment parameters The reason is that the
normal range delimiter ldquo-ldquo may easily be used in a segment descriptive flexfields and
therefore is not suitable In future you will be able to configure your own range delimiter
56
character which will provide the best flexibility The range criteria can be specified as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011100|20010000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield
on segment 2 is between 100 and 200 Date values are also supported in this criteria and GL Wand will correctly derive the ldquobetweenrdquo criteria for a date
Calculating
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what cells are refreshed from
Oracle They are used in conjunction with the GL Wand calculation option (onoff) You can stop a calculation at any time by clicking cancel
- Calculate Range (Alt+Ctl+R)
- Calculate Sheet (Alt+Ctl+S)
- Calculate All (Alt+Ctl+A)
- GL Wand calculation on
- GL Wand calculation off
Calculate Range Sheet or All
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what is recalculated
To calculate a range of cells simply
1 Highlight the range
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Rangerdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+R shortcut key
3 Select multiple ranges using the ctrl button (as normal in Excel)
4 Select a range and then select multiple Excel worksheets to calculate the same range on
each sheet
Please note do not use the calculate range option to recalculate the entire sheet ie by
selecting all the cells on the sheet This will take unnecessarily longer Rather use the
calculate sheet option
To calculate a sheet simply
1 Select the applicable sheet
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Sheetrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+S shortcut key
3 Selecting multiple sheets will calculate each of the selected sheets
To calculate all open workbooks simply
1 Click the ldquoCalculate Allrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+A shortcut key
57
GL Wand calculation on or off
You can use the GL Wand calculation toggle button to control when requests for calculations
are sent to the Oracle server
If you toggle GL Wand calculation ldquoOffrdquo calculation requests are not sent to the Oracle server which means you
you can manipulate a worksheet
change cell values
enter new formulae and
perform any other task that would normally cause Excel to recalculate
and the applicable functions will only return the ldquoglwPendingrdquo status and will not
actually calculate a result
This is useful during report development
To calculate the results simply click one of the three calculation buttons ldquoCalculate Range
Sheet or Allrdquo
If you leave the GL Wand calculation option ldquoOnrdquo the applicable functions will be recalculated whenever Excel initiates a calculation process eg
when changing the contents of the cell
changing one of the functions input values deleting a column or row in the worksheet etc
Please note that the GL Wand calculation option has nothing to do with Excel‟s automatic
and manual calculation The GL Wand calculation option controls only the calculation of the
applicable GL Wand functions All other calculations are controlled as normal by the Excel
automatic and manual calculation option
Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
When you perform a recalculation a window will appear to show the progress of the
calculation
58
If you would like to cancel the calculation process simply click the ldquoCancelrdquo button
Please note that GL Wand will need to wait for the next reply from Oracle before the
connection can be closed Therefore it may take some time before the calculation stops and
the window closes
Snapshot
- Snapshot
The snapshot tool can be used to take a snapshot of your GL Wand report This tool will
remove all the GL Wand functions from the workbook and will replace them with the values that the function returned
The results are similar to using the Excel ldquopaste valuesrdquo functionality However this process will only replace GL Wand formulas All other Excel formulas will be left as they were
Please note that you cannot take a snapshot of a protected worksheet rather output the
sheet to PDF format for archive and distribution purposes
When producing a snapshot GL Wand will request a name for the new workbook You can
select an existing workbook and GL Wand will give you the option to append the snapshot
results to the existing workbook or overwrite the existing workbook You therefore have the
option of producing various snapshot reports and combining them into one new workbook in a single operation rather than producing a separate workbook for each snapshot
Hide zeros
- Hide zeros in selected range
Select a report range that contains rows where all the numbers are zero Click the hide zeros
button and GL Wand will hide all the rows in the selected range where all the cells containing
numbers are zero This is very useful for formatting a report which includes many rows
where for example a number of accounts are not used in a particular cost centre or have no
59
balances in a certain period At the click of a button you can hide all the rows that contain only zeros
Select the entire report range when using the hide zeros function GL Wand checks the
selected range for zeros when determining which rows to hide
Excel automatically forces a recalculation of Get Balance formulas when you hide rows on a
report This is normal Excel functionality
This feature can be used on any Excel worksheet and is not limited to GL Wand reports
Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Undo the last hide zeros operation
Click this button to automatically undo the last hide zeros operation
Drill downs
- Drill to default Balance layout
- Drill to default Journal layout
- Drill to default Sub Ledger layout
The drill down options allow you to extract additional detail about a specific ldquoGet Balancerdquo function
1 Select a cell that contains a valid Get Balance function
2 Click on the drill to balance button
3 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
4 The criteria sheet will be populated with the criteria from the Get Balance function
5 The drill down to balance detail will be executed showing all the detailed accounts that make up the total in the Get Balance function
60
See the Create Drill Criteria Sheet section for more details and options on the drill down criteria sheet
Budget variance analysis If you select two cells on the GL Wand report eg one cell with
actual values and one with budget numbers GL Wand will perform a drill down on the Get
Balance function and display the actual and budget values next to each other and a
calculated variance
You now have a variety of options which can be performed from the drill down workbook
1 Modify the parameters on the criteria sheet and perform a new drill to balance Drop
down lists are provided for most of the parameters see the Create Drill Criteria Sheet for
more details
2 Create a summary drill down report
3 If you have performed a balance drill down you can select the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet and then
click drill down to journal details after selecting one or more rows with accounts
4 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo sheet and then click the button to drill down to the full journal
after selecting one or more rows with journal lines The full journal with all the contra
entries for the selected journal lines will be displayed
5 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo or ldquoJournal-Fullrdquo sheet and then click sub-ledger drill down after
selecting one or more rows with journal lines 6 Drill down to Global Consolidation System transactions
When drilling down you have the following options
Double click any cell on the row that you wish to drill down on
61
Select any cell in the row that you want to drill down on and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar
Highlight a range of rows and click the applicable drill down button on the GL Wand
toolbar to drill down on multiple lines at once
Highlight non contiguous rows using the ldquoCtrlrdquo button and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar to drill down on multiple lines which are not adjacent to each other
It is possible to drill from a Get Balance formula directly to the journal or sub ledger
information Similarly you can drill from a detailed balance (on the Balance worksheet)
directly to the sub ledger information If you select these options GL Wand will execute the
interim drill steps automatically Be careful when performing a drill down directly to the
journal or sub ledger detail level as these drill down operations may return many records
GL Wand will automatically group the drill down to journals and sub ledger information using
Excel‟s group and outline functionality This will allow you expand and collapse the data to
show just a portion of the report Headings are also inserted on the journal and sub-ledger drill down to make the report easier to read
On the sub-ledger drill down the heading includes a number in brackets eg ldquo(23) Journal
Name 123rdquo The number indicates which Excel row these sub-ledger lines originated from on
the ldquoJournalsrdquo sheet
You can use the remove drill down report headings button to strip out the headings on
the journal and sub-ledger drill down sheets
A couple of important things to note about drill downs
GL Wand will first count the number of rows that will be retrieved by the drill down
operation
If the row count is more than 1000 you will receive a warning message asking you if
you want to continue
If the row count is more than the defined limit (see Query Limit) you will receive a
warning and the drill down will be cancelled
If the row count is more than the number of rows available in your version of Excel
you will receive an error and the drill down will be cancelled
When you drill down to journal details the ldquoBalance Typerdquo parameter controls how
much detail is returned If this parameter is ldquoPTDrdquo only the current period‟s journals
are returned If this parameter is ldquoYTDrdquo then all the journals for the year are returned and likewise ldquoQTDrdquo will show the journal for the quarter
Ensure that the worksheet is calculated before performing any drill down functions Also
ensure that the cell contains a ldquoGet Balancerdquo function with valid parameter information
A new drill down workbook will be created each time you perform a drill down operation from
a Get Balance function Once you are finished with a drill down workbook simply close it
without saving
You cannot drill down to journal detail on translated balances
Oracle Global Consolidation System
Drill down to Oracle Global Consolidation System (GCS) transactions is also supported
These items will appear on the journal drill down report with a source and category of
62
ldquoConsolidationrdquo If you execute a normal drill down to Sub Ledger on these transactions a
new GL Wand drill workbook will be created and the drill down to the subsidiary set of books will be executed
In order to drill down on a GCS transaction you must be logged on the parent as well as the
subsidiary set of books This can be done using the Multiple Sets of Books logon option
Summary Balance Drill Down
On the drill down Criteria sheet toggle the summarization option to ldquoYrdquo for any segment that
you which to summaries by GL Wand creates a summary trial balance report and
summarizes by the selected segments The report can still be expanded to show the detailed
lines and you can still drill down to journals from these lines
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
29
Enter the required user name and password and click OK Then click the logon button again
License Key
If you have not yet obtained a trial license key for the instance that you are logging on to
you will prompted with the option to request a key Click ldquoYesrdquo to open a web page where you can request a trial key or ldquoNordquo to continue without requesting a key
Customers that have licensed GL Wand will use this exact same process to request the final non-expiring keys
Set of Books and Segment Selector
- Set of Books and Segment selector
Once you have logged on the set of books and segment list dropdowns will be populated
Set of Books
The set of books drop down list can be used to select the set of books that you wish to work
with If you log on to a single set of books this dropdown list will contain a single value only
However if you are licensed to use the GL Wand Multiple Sets of Books feature or are in trial then this list will contain multiple values in the following situations
If you selected multiple responsibilities during the logon process all the sets of books
linked to those responsibilities will be listed
If you selected the special ldquoAll Sets of Booksrdquo option all the sets of books configured
in the Oracle instance will be listed
If you log on to an Oracle Release 12 instance and the data access set linked to the
chosen responsibility contains more than one ledger or ledger set then each of these ledgers will be listed
The number in brackets () indicates the Set of Books identifier This number can be used in
various GL Wand formulas and other functionality in order to obtain information from a specific Set of Books
Segments
This dropdown list will be populated with a list of the segments that are available in the
currently selected Set of Books The number in brackets indicates the segment number The
segment list also includes the special value ldquoPeriodrdquo which is used for discovering the period
names in your set of books
In the example shown the selected segment is ldquoCompanyrdquo and it is identified as segment 1 Certain dynamic functions require the segment number as an input parameter
Discovering
The discover tools allow you to extract segment information from the Oracle Applications
database and populate Excel cells with this information You can use the discover tools to
30
extract segment values segment properties periods or child ranges or the full segment
hierarchy For segment values you can use the discover level to choose whether to retrieve child values parent values or both
Discover Segment Values
- Discover Down
- Discover Down All
- Discover Up
1 Select a cell and enter a valid starting segment value eg ldquo1000rdquo into the cell
2 Choose the relevant segment from the segment list eg ldquoAccountrdquo
3 Now click the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button
GL Wand finds the next valid account segment value after account ldquo1000rdquo and enters this value in the cell below the one that you started in
In the same way you can click the up arrow and the previous segment value will be entered
in the cell above the one that you started in
- Discover Left
- Discover Right
31
- Discover Right All
The left and right arrows work in a similar manner retrieving the next and previous segment
values but they populate the cells to the left and right of the cell that you start in When
discovering segment values you will notice that some of the values are entered with a bold
font This is because these have been identified as parent values
You do not need to discover segment values one at a time
You can enter a starting segment value choose the segment from the segment list
and then highlight a range of cells
When you click one of the discover buttons now GL Wand fills the selected range
with the next or previous segment values depending on which arrow you click on
The Discover Down All and Discover Right All buttons can be used to retrieve all the segment values in one operation
Discover Period Names
You can discover period names in much the same way that you can discover segment
values
1 Select a cell and enter a valid starting period name eg Jan-03 into the cell
NB ndash make sure that you enter this starting period name as text by first formatting the Excel
cell as text or entering the period name prefixed by an apostrophe bdquo eg bdquoJan-03 If Excel
interprets the value entered as an actual date eg 01012003 then discover period names
will not work
2 Choose the special ldquoPeriodrdquo value from the segment list
3 Now click the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button
32
GL Wand finds the next period name after Jan-07 in the Set of Books calendar and enters this value in the cell below the one that you started in
You can also use the ldquoDiscover Down Allrdquo ldquoDiscover Previousrdquo ldquoDiscover Rightrdquo ldquoDiscover Right Allrdquo and ldquoDiscover Leftrdquo buttons to discover period names
Discover Properties
- Discover segment properties
The ldquoDiscover Propertiesrdquo button will extract a variety of information about the selected segment value
To use this function
1 Select a cell(s) with a valid segment value in it
2 Make sure the correct segment is selected in the segment selector
3 Click the Discover Properties button
The cells to the right of the selected cell are populated with segment information
The first cell indicates the segment description the second cell indicates if the value is a
parent or not (Y means the segment value is a parent) the third cell indicates if the segment
value is enabled or not (Y means that the segment value is enabled) and the fourth cell
indicates what account type the segment value is eg Asset or Liability etc Obviously the forth cell is only valid for the natural account segment
33
Discover Child Ranges
- Discover child ranges
The ldquoDiscover Child Rangesrdquo button can be used to show the child values that are assigned to a particular parent value
1 Select a cell that has a parent segment value
2 Identify its segment number to the GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the segment list dropdown
3 Now click on the ldquoDiscover Child Rangesrdquo button
An Excel note is added to the cell showing the ranges that have been assigned to the selected parent This is useful for understanding and exploring your Chart of Accounts
Discover Hierarchy
To discover the hierarchy for a segment proceed as follows
Enter the starting segment value into an Excel cell This value must be a parent for
the segment you are using
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
Select ldquoDiscover Hierarchyrdquo from the Discover menu
GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy for the selected parent and display it in the
Excel worksheet indenting the various levels in the hierarchy
34
Toggle Discover Level
- Toggle discover level
The ldquoDiscover levelrdquo button is used to restrict the segment values that are returned by the discover tools to parent values only child values only or both parent and child values
When you click on this button it toggles from discovering parents and children to discovering parents only to discovering child values only
For example
1 Select a cell and enter a starting segment value
2 Choose the segment from the segment list
3 Click the discover level until the option is set to ldquoDiscovering Parentsrdquo 4 Now highlight a range of cells and click the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button
GL Wand fills the selected range with the next segment values but skips all child values and
returns only parent values Similarly child values can be discovered by toggling the discover level to ldquoDiscovering childrenrdquo
If you want to discover both parent and children toggle the discover level back to
ldquoDiscovering parents and childrenrdquo
All segment values must be entered using the Excel text format Either format the cell using
the text number format or enter the cell value using the apostrophe bdquo character which marks
the contents of the cell as text eg if you want to enter the segment value 001 enter it as
follows bdquo001
Expand
- Expand
You can perform an expand down to the lowest level children (explained below) or you can expand using the hierarchy going down one level or expanding the full hierarchy
The Expand feature allows you to extract a list of all the lowest level child values that roll up
to a particular segment selection This might be a parent value range wild card or a
combination of these options
1 Select a cell that has a segment selection eg a parent value
2 Identify its segment number to the GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
3 Click the expand button 4 The child values are retrieved from Oracle and are inserted below the selected cell
35
You can also highlight a number of columns and GL Wand will insert the child values and copy the contents of the highlighted cells against each child value that is inserted
1 Select a cell that has a segment selection and highlight the number of columns that you
would like to have copied into the new rows
2 Identify its segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
3 Click the expand button
4 The child values are retrieved from Oracle and are inserted below the selected cell
5 The contents of the additional columns that were selected are copied against each new
row inserted In the example below this contains a generic Get Balance formula which is then resolved for each child value
You also have the option of selecting multiple rows when performing an Expand GL Wand will perform an expand on each selected row
The expand feature can also be used with account combinations Please see the Special Get
Balance Criteria section for details on how this works
Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Expand feature except that it will
expand using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the values one level down the hierarchy and list them below the starting cell
Expand Hierarchy (Full)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Expand feature except that it will
expand using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy and list all the values below the starting cell indenting the various levels in the hierarchy
36
Undo Expand
- Undo Expand
The expand operation inserts rows into the worksheet to allow the child data to be
populated If you would like to quickly remove the expand data click the undo expand button GL Wand will remove the inserted data from the most recent expand operation
Please note that the expand operation formats the inserted rows in a particular way eg the
segment values are indented The undo expand operation relies on this formatting in order
to process correctly If you modify the formatting of the expanded rows the undo expand
may not function correctly
Refresh Expand
- Refresh Expand
The expand operation fetches the child data that meets the criteria that you enter and
inserts it into new rows in the workbook This data may change over time eg you may
expand a parent value and over time the definition of that parent is modified Use the refresh expand button to retrieve the most recent data from Oracle as follows
Highlight the entire range of expanded data
This must include the criteria row that drives the expand operation eg the row
containing the parent value
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
Click the refresh expand button
GL Wand will remove the old expand data and will refresh the expand with the latest information
Please note that the expand operation formats the inserted rows in a particular way eg the
segment values are indented The refresh expand operation relies on this formatting in order
to process correctly If you modify the formatting of the expanded rows the refresh expand
may not function correctly
Explode Report
- Explode report
You can perform an explode down to the lowest level children (explained below) or you can explode using the hierarchy going down one level or expanding the full hierarchy
Explode report works in a similar way to the expand feature The difference is that where
expand inserts a new row in the worksheet for each child value found explode creates a new worksheet in the current workbook for each child value found For example
Start with a complete GL Wand report
Select the cell in the report that drive the Get Balance formulas eg a department
parent value in the report header
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
37
Click the explode report button
GL Wand will duplicate the worksheet for each child value found for the selected parent
Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Explode feature except that it will
Explode using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the values one level down the hierarchy and create a new worksheet for each value
Explode Hierarchy (Full)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Explode feature except that it will
Explode using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy and create a new worksheet for
each value
Open List of Values
- Open list of values
The segment list of values form can be used to search through the segment values and
descriptions for a specific segment First pick the segment from the segment list
dropdown and then click the segment list of values button The list of values for the chosen
segment is displayed
You can enter a value to search for in the find box The list of values will be filtered to show
only items that match the text entered in the find box The text entered in the find box is
38
compared to the segment value and segment description An item will be included in the results if either field contains the text entered in the find box
In the list section you can start entering a segment value (eg Account number) and the list will scroll to the item matching the values that you have entered
Click the ldquoAddrdquo button double click an item in the list or press enter to add the current item
to the selection list on the right You can also click and drag an item to add it to the selection list
39
If you want to add a range like ldquo1000-2000rdquo do the following
Start by adding the ldquo1000rdquo value using one of the options explained above
Then find the ldquo2000rdquo value in the master list
Ensure that the ldquo2000rdquo value is highlighted in the master list and the ldquo1000rdquo value is
highlighted in the selection list and click the ldquoAdd Rangerdquo button
You can also drag a value from the master list onto an existing value in the selection list to create a range
To remove an item from the selection list ensure that it is highlighted and then click the ldquoRemoverdquo button or press the ldquoDeleterdquo key
Every segment will have the additional value called ldquoAllrdquo Selecting this value will add a ldquordquo
to the parameter list which means ldquoAll valuesrdquo If ldquoAllrdquo is selected then all other selections will be removed and replaced with a
If you want to include certain values and exclude others you can use the ldquoAdd Excluderdquo
option This will add the highlighted value to the selection list prefixed by the reserved exclude character ldquo~rdquo
40
You can add any combination of the options mentioned above to produce your own
calculation
Once you have added all the required segment values to the selection list click ldquoOKrdquo to copy
the list to the clipboard You can then paste these values into a Get Balance function or
anywhere else on the Excel sheet
41
Create List of Values
- Create list of values
This feature can be used to quickly format a cell to be a special list of values cell There are
two types The first type inserts a drop down list of values in the cell and is used for balance
types translated flags and actual flags
The second type creates a link to the standard list of values form It is used for segment values periods and balance and encumbrance names
The cell is identified by a note containing the word ldquoLOVrdquo In order to open the list of values
simply double click the cell or select the cell and click the List of Values button on the
toolbar This will open the list of values form for the specific data type that the list of values cell was created for In the example this was the department segment
The checkbox allows you to link the list of values to a specific set of books This option is only applicable if you have the Multiple Sets of Books feature enabled
42
Functions
The GL Wand functions work in a similar way to any other Excel worksheet function You
provide the required parameters and the results of the function are returned to the Excel
cell The difference being that GL Wand functions retrieve information from your Oracle Applications system
GL Wand currently has the following functions
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value
- Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
43
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
Split Text
Combine Text
Functional Currency
Get Daily Rate
You can enter a function into an Excel cell in a number of ways
Click the applicable button on the GL Wand toolbar (or on the GL Wand menu)
Type the function name into the cell manually prefixed by an = sign
You can select the function from the list that Excel provides when you choose the
Insert Function menu item The GL Wand functions are listed under the special GL
Wand category (Prior to Excel 2007 they are listed in the User Defined category)
If you click the applicable function button on the toolbar and the cell you are in contains that
function the Excel formula wizard window will open If you click a function button in a cell
that contains other data GL Wand will warn you that it is going to replace the contents of the cell with the chosen formula and will give you the option of cancelling the action
All parameters must be entered as text values ie enclosed in double quotes eg enter
ldquoUSDrdquo when entering the currency code or enter ldquo001rdquo when entering a segment value
See ldquoDiscovering versus Functionsrdquo for a comparison extracting information using the
discover tools or the functions
44
Get Balance
The Get Balance function is probably the most important function in GL Wand It returns a
General Ledger balance individually or summed based on the parameters that you enter
Example =Get_Balance(Jan-02YTDUSDEABIS CORPORATE01T4000-41600000000)
Clicking the Get Balance function on the GL Wand toolbar will open the Get Balance Wizard
This form has lists of values for items like period name balance type actual flag etc Select
the applicable values and enter a valid currency code and budget or encumbrance name if required
Double clicking a segment value or clicking the list of values button next to the segment will
open the segment list of values form for that segment See the Segment List of Values
section for details on how to use this form When you click the ldquoOKrdquo button on the Segment
List of Values form the selected segment parameters are entered against that segment in the Get Balance Wizard form
If your Oracle configuration includes dependant segments as part of the accounting
flexfield this form will support selecting values based on the independent and dependant
segment values Simply select a value from the available list of values for the independent
segment Then open the list of values for the dependant segment The list of available values
will be limited to only those values that are related to the selected independent segment
value
When you have entered all the parameters click the ldquoOKrdquo button to insert the Get Balance
function into the selected cell with the entered parameters Clicking the ldquoEditrdquo button will
open the Get Balance function in the Excel formula wizard form which will allow you to link
parameters to cells in the Excel sheet
45
You can also open the Get Balance formula in the Excel formula wizard form using the fx
button on the formula bar or by selecting the ldquoInsert Functionrdquo menu item on the Excel menu bar
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Type ldquoCTDrdquo
(Custom to Date) you can specify a custom period selection For
example ldquoFeb-07-Aug-07rdquo will add all the movement for the entered
period range You may enter multiple lists or ranges of periods and can use wild cards as well eg ldquoJan-0rdquo or ldquo-07rdquo
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Types ldquoJEDrdquo
ldquoJEDUrdquo or ldquoJEDPrdquo (Journal Effective Date) the period parameter
becomes a date parameter eg ldquo01012007-0501200710012007rdquo
The format that your date is in is important The ldquo-ldquo character is
used in GL Wand to denote a range of values and therefore it cannot
be used as a date delimiter eg 01-01-2007 would not be valid So
take care if your Windows regional setting use the ldquo-ldquo as a date
delimiter For JED type calculations we recommend that you use the
ldquordquo as a date delimiter and that you always format the date as text
in Excel otherwise Excel will convert the date based on your regional
setting
Balance Type YTD QTD PTD PJTD CTD JED JEDP or JEDU all in upper case
YTD ndash Summarizes the full years balance
QTD ndash Summarizes the balance for the quarter
46
PTD ndash Includes just the current period‟s movement
PJTD ndash Project to date
CTD ndash Summarizes the custom period criteria entered
JED ndash Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for both posted and unposted journals
JEDP - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for posted journals only
JEDU - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered dates for unposted journals only
Currency Code The currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
Translated Flag Enter E T or C Use E to retrieve the entered amount and T for the
translated amount Use C to report on the converted amount ie
the functional currency equivalent of a foreign currency amount
Only E is valid if requesting a balance for the functional currency of the current Set of Books
You must ensure that you have run the currency translation process
in Oracle for the selected currency and period before reporting on
translated balances If you enter T to request the translated balance
and there is no current translated balance available in the system a zero is returned
Oracle Release 12 provides a new feature to allow reporting on the
values entered in the functional currency only ie excludes any
foreign currency transactions converted to the functional currency
Therefore in Release 12 if you use the E (entered) flag in
conjunction with the functional currency any converted amounts will
be excluded To report on the total balance (including values entered
in functional currency and values converted to the functional
currency) use the new ldquoTotalrdquo option This option is only available if
you log on to a release 12 Oracle instance
Actual Flag A ndash Actual B ndash Budget E ndash Encumbrance
Bud Encumb Name If you enter B or E above enter the exact budget name or
encumbrance type here Otherwise simply enter ldquordquo for actual
balances
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter the segment value here You must enter it as a text value
including any leading zeros eg enter segment value ldquo10rdquo as ldquo0010rdquo
if this segment is configured as four characters with leading zeros in Oracle
You may enter your segment values in a variety of flexible ways
including parents child values ranges wildcards excludes etc See
the explanation below on valid values for this parameter
To include all values simply enter ldquordquo Please note as from GL Wand
3850 you can no longer leave the segment blank a value is
required
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
47
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Options This parameter is used to modify the results returned by the Get
Balance function from the standard behavior Currently two options are supported
Source ndash Limit the results to a specific journal source
Category ndash Limit the results to a specific journal category
The criteria needs to be entered as follows - ldquoSource=Manualrdquo or
ldquoCategory=Adjustmentrdquo To specify both a source and category use
the ldquo|rdquo as a delimiter eg ldquoSource=Manual|Category=Adjustmentrdquo
You can specify multiple values by separating them with ldquordquo eg
ldquoSource=PayablesReceivablesrdquo
When creating Get Balance formulas always use ldquordquo to denote all values as this allows more
efficient SQL to be generated Do not use a range like ldquo000-ZZZrdquo as they will require
unnecessary processing
The segment value parameters can be entered as
a single value representing a child or parent account eg ldquo1500rdquo might represent a
parent account
a range of values eg entering ldquo1500-1600rdquo in one of the segment parameters will
sum all the segment values between 1500 and 1600 for that segment
a list of segment values eg entering ldquo150015101590rdquo in one of the segment
parameters will sum the specific segment values entered If any of the segment
values are parents GL Wand will sum the hierarchy for that parent
wild card entries eg 100 will sum 1100 1200 1300 1400 etc or entering the
value 1 will sum all values that start with 1
values to be included and then specific exclusions eg ldquo1000-2000~1500rdquo will sum
the values between 1000 and 2000 but will skip 1500
a combination of any of the above eg 1000-2000237123752560-
25803000~32004000~4161-4169 In this way you can build up your own calculation definition in the segment parameter
Please note ndash there are two additional methods for specifying segment criteria in the Get
Balance function The one allows you to specify account combinations and the other
allows the use of segment descriptive flexfields Please see the Special Get Balance
Criteria section in order to use these options
Segment Description
Returns the segment description for the chosen segment value
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
48
Example =Get_Segment_Description(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
Returns the next or previous segment value
Parameter Description
Last Value The starting segment value
Segment The segment number
Level Enter a P to return the next or previous parent value enter a C to
return the next or previous child value or leave the parameter blank
to return the next or previous segment value irrespective of whether
it is a parent or child
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example = Next_Segment_Value(ldquo1000rdquo3P)
Parent Flag
Returns the parent flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is a
parent
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Parent_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Enabled Flag
Returns the enabled flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is
enabled
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example = Enabled_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
49
Account Type
Returns the account type for the chosen segment value This function is only applicable for
the natural account segment and will return the value Asset Liability etc
Parameter Description
Account Value The account segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Account_Type(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Period Name
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number Optionally the returned value can be a certain number of periods into the future or past
Parameter Description
PeriodYear The year that you want the period name for
PeriodNumber The period number that you want the period name for
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Offset Optionally enter an offset to return the period name which is n
periods before or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3
periods into the future or -1 to return the previous period
Example =Period_Name(20063)
Set of Books Name
Returns the set of books name for the chosen set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Set_of_Books_Name()
Segment Descriptive Flexfield
Returns the segment values descriptive flexfield for the selected criteria
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
50
Segment The segment number
AttributeNo Identify which attribute you want to report on The segment values
descriptive flexfield has 50 possible attribute values The applicable
attributes will depend on your configuration and whether this
Descriptive Flexfield is used by your organization
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Segment_DFF(ldquo100rdquo25) retrieves the 5th attribute on the segment values
descriptive flexfield for segment value 100 on segment 2
Period Offset
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for
this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
Offset Enter an offset to return the period name which is n periods before
or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3 periods into the
future or -1 to return the previous period
RetRange Enter TRUE (or 1) to return the result as a range eg entering
period Mar-07 with an offset of -2 and the RetRange set to true will
return ldquoJan-07-Mar-07rdquo This can be used in conjunction with the
CTD (Custom to Date) balance type in the Get Balance function to
create rolling period reporting
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Period_Offset(Jan-07-2TRUE)
Split Text
Splits delimited text and returns a specific portion based on an offset Especially useful to
split account combinations but can be used to split any text
Parameter Description
Value Some text which has been concatenated using a delimiter eg an
account combination like ldquo011007000rdquo
Offset Identify which portion of the text to return
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Split_Text(0110070002) will return the ldquo100rdquo portion of the text
51
Combine Text
Combines selected text separated by a delimiter Especially useful to combine segment
values to create a delimited account combinations but can be used to combine any text
Parameter Description
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter segment values that you wish to combine into an account
combination
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Combine_Text(011007000) will return ldquo011007000rdquo
Functional Currency
Returns the functional currency for the set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Functional_Currency()
Get Daily Rate
Returns the daily exchange rate for the entered criteria
Parameter Description
FromCurrency The ldquoFromrdquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case
eg ldquoUSDrdquo
ToCurrency The ldquoTordquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
ConversionType The conversion type as configured in Oracle Spelling and case must
be identical to the Oracle configuration
ConversionDate The conversion date This must be in Excel date format Either refer
to a cell which contains a date or use one of the Excel date functions
to return a date in the parameter
Example =Get_Daily_Rate(USDGBPReportingDATE(200911))
Function return values
The GL Wand functions will return a variety of results depending on a number of factors If
all the information is entered correctly and there are no restrictions on access to the data or
the GL Wand itself the result should be the General Ledger balance segment value segment description etc However the following are also possible return values
glwDemo ndash this means that you are using GL Wand without a valid trial key entered
into the GL Wand License Key profile option When trying GL Wand without a valid
52
trial key you are only allowed to use the first 20 rows and 20 columns of the first
sheet in the workbook Any formula entered outside this range will not calculate a
value but will only return the word ldquoglwDemordquo This is called evaluation mode A
trial key needs to be requested from within GL Wand and entered into the profile
option to allow full access to all functionality
glwNoAccess ndash When you log on you will be prompted for your applications user name
and password and will then need to select a responsibility to log on to Any security
rules that have been linked to the selected responsibility will be enforced on the GL
Wand data If you attempt to access a balance on a general ledger account that you
do not have access to the function will return the word ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo Please see
the ldquoAudit Get Balancerdquo section for information on how to identify the security rule that is being contravened
Please note that Oracles Hierarchical Security is not supported
glwError ndash If you enter invalid information in a parameter for a GL Wand function the
GL Wand error value will be returned This may happen when you for example
enter an invalid budget name or period name in the Get Balance function or when you
enter an invalid segment number in the next segment value function This error value
will also be returned when you are not logged on The details of the return value will
indicate where the problem exists eg glwError (Logon) glwError (Balance Type)
glwError (Translated Flag) glwError (Actual Flag) glwError (Missing segment)
glwError (Data error) glwError (Range) glwError (Period)
glwPending ndash This value will be returned during the calculation process Whenever a
cell requires calculation and the process has not been completed yet the cell will
contain the value ldquoglwPendingrdquo
glwEditing ndash Displays in the Excel function arguments window when editing a Get Balance formula
Discovering versus Functions
You may have noticed that you can achieve similar results by using the discover tools and
using the functions For example you could use the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button to retrieve the
next segment value or you could use the ldquoNext Segment Valuerdquo function to return the same result The difference between these two approaches is as follows
Com
paris
on b
etw
een D
iscoverin
g a
nd
Functio
ns
Discovering Functions
Results returned as text string to Excel
cell
Value is calculated based on
parameters
Value is static Value is dynamic
Never changes Recalculated when sheet refreshed
Lower performance overhead Higher performance overhead
Discover Down Next Segment Value
Discover Up Previous Segment Value
Discover Left Next Segment Value
Discover Right Previous Segment Value
Discover Properties
Segment Description
Parent flag
53
Enabled Flag
Account Type
Discover Child Ranges No equivalent
Toggle Discover Level
Parameters of next segment value
determine whether parents children or
both are returned
Use the discover buttons with ldquoPeriodrdquo
selected in the segment drop down Period Name
Balance Extract is similar to Get
Balance though the static values it
produces are refreshable
Get Balance
Special Get Balance Criteria
GL Wand supports two special types of criteria in the Get Balance function namely ldquoAccount
Combinationsrdquo and ldquoSegment Descriptive Flexfieldrdquo criteria These two forms of the Get
Balance criteria have very specific syntax which must be carefully adhered to in order to
achieve the correct results You also have the ability to expand account combinations for a
selection that uses the ldquoAccount Combinationrdquo criteria
Account Combinations
In the past the Get Balance function only supported individual segment values eg segment
2 = 100 or 200 and segment 3 = 1000 or 2000 This would result in GL Wand returning all the possible combinations of those segment 2 and 3 values
Now you have the ability to specify account combinations using the new Get Balance syntax
This means that you can create new complex criteria for your Get Balance formula eg
(segment 2 = 100 and segment 3 = 1000) or (segment 2 = 200 and segment 3 = 2000)
With these criteria GL Wand will no longer return all the possible combinations but rather only the combinations you specify
In order to specify account combinations in a Get Balance function you must tell GL Wand
which segments you are combining You do this by entering a special value into the segment
eg if you want to combine criteria for segment 2 and segment 3 you would enter the
following in the parameter for segment 2 ldquoUse_Seg3rdquo This tells GL Wand that that it must
find the criteria for segment 2 inside the segment 3 parameter In the segment 3 parameter
you now enter the criteria for both segment 2 and segment 3 separated by the special
delimiter character eg ldquo1001000rdquo This tells GL Wand that you are looking for accounts where segment 2 is 100 and segment 3 is 1000 An example could look like this
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg3100100020020000000000)
It is possible to combine multiple segments as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg5Use_Seg5Use_Seg510010000000000)
54
You simply point each applicable segment to the parameter where the account combination
using the special ldquoUse_SegXrdquo syntax Then inside the target parameter you combine the fully qualified account combination for the applicable segments delimited with a ldquordquo character
When you specify your account combination you have full flexibility to use ranges lists wild
cards parents and exclude criteria For example this criteria will fetch all the values where
segment 2 is between 100 and 200 and segment 3 is between 1000 and 2000 And in
addition to that it will include the values where segment 2 is 250 (a parent) and segment 3
starts with 33 but will exclude the specific value where segment 2 is 250 and segment 3 is
3320
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA01Use_Seg31001000-200200025033~25033200000000)
You also have the flexibility to group different parts of the account combination together For
example this criteria combines the values for segment 1 and 3 together and combines segment 2 and 4 together
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA
Use_Seg3Use_Seg401100002115010000002001050000)
These new Get Balance syntax options provide you with tremendous flexibility when building your GL Wand reports
Expand Account Combinations
The expand feature allows you to extract all the detailed child segment values that roll up to
the criteria that the user specifies The expand feature has been extended to support account combinations
In order to expand an account combination you would do the following
Ensure that the correct set of books is selected in the drop down list on the GL Wand
toolbar
Select the cell containing the account combination criteria eg ldquo1007000rdquo Click the expand button
GL Wand will now identify that the selected cell contains an account combination rather than
a single segment value You will now be presented with a window to identify which segments from your chart of accounts are represented in the account combination
55
Select the correct segments and click ldquoOKrdquo GL Wand will now extract all the child
combinations that roll up to the criteria that you entered and insert them into the Excel sheet
The other options are as follows
Fix ndash if you tick this option for a segment GL Wand will ldquopegrdquo that segment using the
selected value (this option only makes sense for a parent segment value) You might
for example want to expand all the account combinations used in a particular parent
cost centre Simply ldquoFixrdquo the cost centre segment and GL Wand will return all the
account combinations used within that parent cost centre
Exclude disabled account combination ndash tick this option to only return account combinations that are currently enabled and have not been end dated
The expand account combinations feature can be used as a normal GL Wand ldquoExpandrdquo in
order to extract the detail behind a total but it is also very useful to extract existing account combinations from your Oracle system
This feature can be used very effectively with the Split Text and Combine Text functions
Segment Descriptive Flexfields
In order to extract balances using the descriptive flexfields stored on the segment values
you need to use special syntax in the Get Balance function The syntax works as follows
1ABC
You wrap the descriptive flexfield using curly brackets
The first character after the open bracket identifies which descriptive flexfield
attribute is being referred to
You then separate the descriptive flexfield attribute from the actual value using a ldquordquo You then specify the criteria for this attribute
An example Get Balance function would look as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC10000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield on segment 2 is equal to the value ldquoABCrdquo
It is possible to specify criteria for multiple descriptive flexfields as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC2XX10000000000)
Simply wrap each descriptive flexfield value in its own and identify the attribute number
At this stage the descriptive flexfield criteria is restricted to a single value or a single range
of values Lists of values and multiple ranges are not supported A range can be specified
using the special range delimiter ldquo|rdquo (pipe character) This character is different to the range
character that is used for normal Get Balance segment parameters The reason is that the
normal range delimiter ldquo-ldquo may easily be used in a segment descriptive flexfields and
therefore is not suitable In future you will be able to configure your own range delimiter
56
character which will provide the best flexibility The range criteria can be specified as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011100|20010000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield
on segment 2 is between 100 and 200 Date values are also supported in this criteria and GL Wand will correctly derive the ldquobetweenrdquo criteria for a date
Calculating
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what cells are refreshed from
Oracle They are used in conjunction with the GL Wand calculation option (onoff) You can stop a calculation at any time by clicking cancel
- Calculate Range (Alt+Ctl+R)
- Calculate Sheet (Alt+Ctl+S)
- Calculate All (Alt+Ctl+A)
- GL Wand calculation on
- GL Wand calculation off
Calculate Range Sheet or All
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what is recalculated
To calculate a range of cells simply
1 Highlight the range
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Rangerdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+R shortcut key
3 Select multiple ranges using the ctrl button (as normal in Excel)
4 Select a range and then select multiple Excel worksheets to calculate the same range on
each sheet
Please note do not use the calculate range option to recalculate the entire sheet ie by
selecting all the cells on the sheet This will take unnecessarily longer Rather use the
calculate sheet option
To calculate a sheet simply
1 Select the applicable sheet
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Sheetrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+S shortcut key
3 Selecting multiple sheets will calculate each of the selected sheets
To calculate all open workbooks simply
1 Click the ldquoCalculate Allrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+A shortcut key
57
GL Wand calculation on or off
You can use the GL Wand calculation toggle button to control when requests for calculations
are sent to the Oracle server
If you toggle GL Wand calculation ldquoOffrdquo calculation requests are not sent to the Oracle server which means you
you can manipulate a worksheet
change cell values
enter new formulae and
perform any other task that would normally cause Excel to recalculate
and the applicable functions will only return the ldquoglwPendingrdquo status and will not
actually calculate a result
This is useful during report development
To calculate the results simply click one of the three calculation buttons ldquoCalculate Range
Sheet or Allrdquo
If you leave the GL Wand calculation option ldquoOnrdquo the applicable functions will be recalculated whenever Excel initiates a calculation process eg
when changing the contents of the cell
changing one of the functions input values deleting a column or row in the worksheet etc
Please note that the GL Wand calculation option has nothing to do with Excel‟s automatic
and manual calculation The GL Wand calculation option controls only the calculation of the
applicable GL Wand functions All other calculations are controlled as normal by the Excel
automatic and manual calculation option
Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
When you perform a recalculation a window will appear to show the progress of the
calculation
58
If you would like to cancel the calculation process simply click the ldquoCancelrdquo button
Please note that GL Wand will need to wait for the next reply from Oracle before the
connection can be closed Therefore it may take some time before the calculation stops and
the window closes
Snapshot
- Snapshot
The snapshot tool can be used to take a snapshot of your GL Wand report This tool will
remove all the GL Wand functions from the workbook and will replace them with the values that the function returned
The results are similar to using the Excel ldquopaste valuesrdquo functionality However this process will only replace GL Wand formulas All other Excel formulas will be left as they were
Please note that you cannot take a snapshot of a protected worksheet rather output the
sheet to PDF format for archive and distribution purposes
When producing a snapshot GL Wand will request a name for the new workbook You can
select an existing workbook and GL Wand will give you the option to append the snapshot
results to the existing workbook or overwrite the existing workbook You therefore have the
option of producing various snapshot reports and combining them into one new workbook in a single operation rather than producing a separate workbook for each snapshot
Hide zeros
- Hide zeros in selected range
Select a report range that contains rows where all the numbers are zero Click the hide zeros
button and GL Wand will hide all the rows in the selected range where all the cells containing
numbers are zero This is very useful for formatting a report which includes many rows
where for example a number of accounts are not used in a particular cost centre or have no
59
balances in a certain period At the click of a button you can hide all the rows that contain only zeros
Select the entire report range when using the hide zeros function GL Wand checks the
selected range for zeros when determining which rows to hide
Excel automatically forces a recalculation of Get Balance formulas when you hide rows on a
report This is normal Excel functionality
This feature can be used on any Excel worksheet and is not limited to GL Wand reports
Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Undo the last hide zeros operation
Click this button to automatically undo the last hide zeros operation
Drill downs
- Drill to default Balance layout
- Drill to default Journal layout
- Drill to default Sub Ledger layout
The drill down options allow you to extract additional detail about a specific ldquoGet Balancerdquo function
1 Select a cell that contains a valid Get Balance function
2 Click on the drill to balance button
3 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
4 The criteria sheet will be populated with the criteria from the Get Balance function
5 The drill down to balance detail will be executed showing all the detailed accounts that make up the total in the Get Balance function
60
See the Create Drill Criteria Sheet section for more details and options on the drill down criteria sheet
Budget variance analysis If you select two cells on the GL Wand report eg one cell with
actual values and one with budget numbers GL Wand will perform a drill down on the Get
Balance function and display the actual and budget values next to each other and a
calculated variance
You now have a variety of options which can be performed from the drill down workbook
1 Modify the parameters on the criteria sheet and perform a new drill to balance Drop
down lists are provided for most of the parameters see the Create Drill Criteria Sheet for
more details
2 Create a summary drill down report
3 If you have performed a balance drill down you can select the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet and then
click drill down to journal details after selecting one or more rows with accounts
4 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo sheet and then click the button to drill down to the full journal
after selecting one or more rows with journal lines The full journal with all the contra
entries for the selected journal lines will be displayed
5 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo or ldquoJournal-Fullrdquo sheet and then click sub-ledger drill down after
selecting one or more rows with journal lines 6 Drill down to Global Consolidation System transactions
When drilling down you have the following options
Double click any cell on the row that you wish to drill down on
61
Select any cell in the row that you want to drill down on and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar
Highlight a range of rows and click the applicable drill down button on the GL Wand
toolbar to drill down on multiple lines at once
Highlight non contiguous rows using the ldquoCtrlrdquo button and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar to drill down on multiple lines which are not adjacent to each other
It is possible to drill from a Get Balance formula directly to the journal or sub ledger
information Similarly you can drill from a detailed balance (on the Balance worksheet)
directly to the sub ledger information If you select these options GL Wand will execute the
interim drill steps automatically Be careful when performing a drill down directly to the
journal or sub ledger detail level as these drill down operations may return many records
GL Wand will automatically group the drill down to journals and sub ledger information using
Excel‟s group and outline functionality This will allow you expand and collapse the data to
show just a portion of the report Headings are also inserted on the journal and sub-ledger drill down to make the report easier to read
On the sub-ledger drill down the heading includes a number in brackets eg ldquo(23) Journal
Name 123rdquo The number indicates which Excel row these sub-ledger lines originated from on
the ldquoJournalsrdquo sheet
You can use the remove drill down report headings button to strip out the headings on
the journal and sub-ledger drill down sheets
A couple of important things to note about drill downs
GL Wand will first count the number of rows that will be retrieved by the drill down
operation
If the row count is more than 1000 you will receive a warning message asking you if
you want to continue
If the row count is more than the defined limit (see Query Limit) you will receive a
warning and the drill down will be cancelled
If the row count is more than the number of rows available in your version of Excel
you will receive an error and the drill down will be cancelled
When you drill down to journal details the ldquoBalance Typerdquo parameter controls how
much detail is returned If this parameter is ldquoPTDrdquo only the current period‟s journals
are returned If this parameter is ldquoYTDrdquo then all the journals for the year are returned and likewise ldquoQTDrdquo will show the journal for the quarter
Ensure that the worksheet is calculated before performing any drill down functions Also
ensure that the cell contains a ldquoGet Balancerdquo function with valid parameter information
A new drill down workbook will be created each time you perform a drill down operation from
a Get Balance function Once you are finished with a drill down workbook simply close it
without saving
You cannot drill down to journal detail on translated balances
Oracle Global Consolidation System
Drill down to Oracle Global Consolidation System (GCS) transactions is also supported
These items will appear on the journal drill down report with a source and category of
62
ldquoConsolidationrdquo If you execute a normal drill down to Sub Ledger on these transactions a
new GL Wand drill workbook will be created and the drill down to the subsidiary set of books will be executed
In order to drill down on a GCS transaction you must be logged on the parent as well as the
subsidiary set of books This can be done using the Multiple Sets of Books logon option
Summary Balance Drill Down
On the drill down Criteria sheet toggle the summarization option to ldquoYrdquo for any segment that
you which to summaries by GL Wand creates a summary trial balance report and
summarizes by the selected segments The report can still be expanded to show the detailed
lines and you can still drill down to journals from these lines
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
30
extract segment values segment properties periods or child ranges or the full segment
hierarchy For segment values you can use the discover level to choose whether to retrieve child values parent values or both
Discover Segment Values
- Discover Down
- Discover Down All
- Discover Up
1 Select a cell and enter a valid starting segment value eg ldquo1000rdquo into the cell
2 Choose the relevant segment from the segment list eg ldquoAccountrdquo
3 Now click the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button
GL Wand finds the next valid account segment value after account ldquo1000rdquo and enters this value in the cell below the one that you started in
In the same way you can click the up arrow and the previous segment value will be entered
in the cell above the one that you started in
- Discover Left
- Discover Right
31
- Discover Right All
The left and right arrows work in a similar manner retrieving the next and previous segment
values but they populate the cells to the left and right of the cell that you start in When
discovering segment values you will notice that some of the values are entered with a bold
font This is because these have been identified as parent values
You do not need to discover segment values one at a time
You can enter a starting segment value choose the segment from the segment list
and then highlight a range of cells
When you click one of the discover buttons now GL Wand fills the selected range
with the next or previous segment values depending on which arrow you click on
The Discover Down All and Discover Right All buttons can be used to retrieve all the segment values in one operation
Discover Period Names
You can discover period names in much the same way that you can discover segment
values
1 Select a cell and enter a valid starting period name eg Jan-03 into the cell
NB ndash make sure that you enter this starting period name as text by first formatting the Excel
cell as text or entering the period name prefixed by an apostrophe bdquo eg bdquoJan-03 If Excel
interprets the value entered as an actual date eg 01012003 then discover period names
will not work
2 Choose the special ldquoPeriodrdquo value from the segment list
3 Now click the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button
32
GL Wand finds the next period name after Jan-07 in the Set of Books calendar and enters this value in the cell below the one that you started in
You can also use the ldquoDiscover Down Allrdquo ldquoDiscover Previousrdquo ldquoDiscover Rightrdquo ldquoDiscover Right Allrdquo and ldquoDiscover Leftrdquo buttons to discover period names
Discover Properties
- Discover segment properties
The ldquoDiscover Propertiesrdquo button will extract a variety of information about the selected segment value
To use this function
1 Select a cell(s) with a valid segment value in it
2 Make sure the correct segment is selected in the segment selector
3 Click the Discover Properties button
The cells to the right of the selected cell are populated with segment information
The first cell indicates the segment description the second cell indicates if the value is a
parent or not (Y means the segment value is a parent) the third cell indicates if the segment
value is enabled or not (Y means that the segment value is enabled) and the fourth cell
indicates what account type the segment value is eg Asset or Liability etc Obviously the forth cell is only valid for the natural account segment
33
Discover Child Ranges
- Discover child ranges
The ldquoDiscover Child Rangesrdquo button can be used to show the child values that are assigned to a particular parent value
1 Select a cell that has a parent segment value
2 Identify its segment number to the GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the segment list dropdown
3 Now click on the ldquoDiscover Child Rangesrdquo button
An Excel note is added to the cell showing the ranges that have been assigned to the selected parent This is useful for understanding and exploring your Chart of Accounts
Discover Hierarchy
To discover the hierarchy for a segment proceed as follows
Enter the starting segment value into an Excel cell This value must be a parent for
the segment you are using
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
Select ldquoDiscover Hierarchyrdquo from the Discover menu
GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy for the selected parent and display it in the
Excel worksheet indenting the various levels in the hierarchy
34
Toggle Discover Level
- Toggle discover level
The ldquoDiscover levelrdquo button is used to restrict the segment values that are returned by the discover tools to parent values only child values only or both parent and child values
When you click on this button it toggles from discovering parents and children to discovering parents only to discovering child values only
For example
1 Select a cell and enter a starting segment value
2 Choose the segment from the segment list
3 Click the discover level until the option is set to ldquoDiscovering Parentsrdquo 4 Now highlight a range of cells and click the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button
GL Wand fills the selected range with the next segment values but skips all child values and
returns only parent values Similarly child values can be discovered by toggling the discover level to ldquoDiscovering childrenrdquo
If you want to discover both parent and children toggle the discover level back to
ldquoDiscovering parents and childrenrdquo
All segment values must be entered using the Excel text format Either format the cell using
the text number format or enter the cell value using the apostrophe bdquo character which marks
the contents of the cell as text eg if you want to enter the segment value 001 enter it as
follows bdquo001
Expand
- Expand
You can perform an expand down to the lowest level children (explained below) or you can expand using the hierarchy going down one level or expanding the full hierarchy
The Expand feature allows you to extract a list of all the lowest level child values that roll up
to a particular segment selection This might be a parent value range wild card or a
combination of these options
1 Select a cell that has a segment selection eg a parent value
2 Identify its segment number to the GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
3 Click the expand button 4 The child values are retrieved from Oracle and are inserted below the selected cell
35
You can also highlight a number of columns and GL Wand will insert the child values and copy the contents of the highlighted cells against each child value that is inserted
1 Select a cell that has a segment selection and highlight the number of columns that you
would like to have copied into the new rows
2 Identify its segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
3 Click the expand button
4 The child values are retrieved from Oracle and are inserted below the selected cell
5 The contents of the additional columns that were selected are copied against each new
row inserted In the example below this contains a generic Get Balance formula which is then resolved for each child value
You also have the option of selecting multiple rows when performing an Expand GL Wand will perform an expand on each selected row
The expand feature can also be used with account combinations Please see the Special Get
Balance Criteria section for details on how this works
Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Expand feature except that it will
expand using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the values one level down the hierarchy and list them below the starting cell
Expand Hierarchy (Full)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Expand feature except that it will
expand using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy and list all the values below the starting cell indenting the various levels in the hierarchy
36
Undo Expand
- Undo Expand
The expand operation inserts rows into the worksheet to allow the child data to be
populated If you would like to quickly remove the expand data click the undo expand button GL Wand will remove the inserted data from the most recent expand operation
Please note that the expand operation formats the inserted rows in a particular way eg the
segment values are indented The undo expand operation relies on this formatting in order
to process correctly If you modify the formatting of the expanded rows the undo expand
may not function correctly
Refresh Expand
- Refresh Expand
The expand operation fetches the child data that meets the criteria that you enter and
inserts it into new rows in the workbook This data may change over time eg you may
expand a parent value and over time the definition of that parent is modified Use the refresh expand button to retrieve the most recent data from Oracle as follows
Highlight the entire range of expanded data
This must include the criteria row that drives the expand operation eg the row
containing the parent value
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
Click the refresh expand button
GL Wand will remove the old expand data and will refresh the expand with the latest information
Please note that the expand operation formats the inserted rows in a particular way eg the
segment values are indented The refresh expand operation relies on this formatting in order
to process correctly If you modify the formatting of the expanded rows the refresh expand
may not function correctly
Explode Report
- Explode report
You can perform an explode down to the lowest level children (explained below) or you can explode using the hierarchy going down one level or expanding the full hierarchy
Explode report works in a similar way to the expand feature The difference is that where
expand inserts a new row in the worksheet for each child value found explode creates a new worksheet in the current workbook for each child value found For example
Start with a complete GL Wand report
Select the cell in the report that drive the Get Balance formulas eg a department
parent value in the report header
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
37
Click the explode report button
GL Wand will duplicate the worksheet for each child value found for the selected parent
Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Explode feature except that it will
Explode using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the values one level down the hierarchy and create a new worksheet for each value
Explode Hierarchy (Full)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Explode feature except that it will
Explode using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy and create a new worksheet for
each value
Open List of Values
- Open list of values
The segment list of values form can be used to search through the segment values and
descriptions for a specific segment First pick the segment from the segment list
dropdown and then click the segment list of values button The list of values for the chosen
segment is displayed
You can enter a value to search for in the find box The list of values will be filtered to show
only items that match the text entered in the find box The text entered in the find box is
38
compared to the segment value and segment description An item will be included in the results if either field contains the text entered in the find box
In the list section you can start entering a segment value (eg Account number) and the list will scroll to the item matching the values that you have entered
Click the ldquoAddrdquo button double click an item in the list or press enter to add the current item
to the selection list on the right You can also click and drag an item to add it to the selection list
39
If you want to add a range like ldquo1000-2000rdquo do the following
Start by adding the ldquo1000rdquo value using one of the options explained above
Then find the ldquo2000rdquo value in the master list
Ensure that the ldquo2000rdquo value is highlighted in the master list and the ldquo1000rdquo value is
highlighted in the selection list and click the ldquoAdd Rangerdquo button
You can also drag a value from the master list onto an existing value in the selection list to create a range
To remove an item from the selection list ensure that it is highlighted and then click the ldquoRemoverdquo button or press the ldquoDeleterdquo key
Every segment will have the additional value called ldquoAllrdquo Selecting this value will add a ldquordquo
to the parameter list which means ldquoAll valuesrdquo If ldquoAllrdquo is selected then all other selections will be removed and replaced with a
If you want to include certain values and exclude others you can use the ldquoAdd Excluderdquo
option This will add the highlighted value to the selection list prefixed by the reserved exclude character ldquo~rdquo
40
You can add any combination of the options mentioned above to produce your own
calculation
Once you have added all the required segment values to the selection list click ldquoOKrdquo to copy
the list to the clipboard You can then paste these values into a Get Balance function or
anywhere else on the Excel sheet
41
Create List of Values
- Create list of values
This feature can be used to quickly format a cell to be a special list of values cell There are
two types The first type inserts a drop down list of values in the cell and is used for balance
types translated flags and actual flags
The second type creates a link to the standard list of values form It is used for segment values periods and balance and encumbrance names
The cell is identified by a note containing the word ldquoLOVrdquo In order to open the list of values
simply double click the cell or select the cell and click the List of Values button on the
toolbar This will open the list of values form for the specific data type that the list of values cell was created for In the example this was the department segment
The checkbox allows you to link the list of values to a specific set of books This option is only applicable if you have the Multiple Sets of Books feature enabled
42
Functions
The GL Wand functions work in a similar way to any other Excel worksheet function You
provide the required parameters and the results of the function are returned to the Excel
cell The difference being that GL Wand functions retrieve information from your Oracle Applications system
GL Wand currently has the following functions
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value
- Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
43
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
Split Text
Combine Text
Functional Currency
Get Daily Rate
You can enter a function into an Excel cell in a number of ways
Click the applicable button on the GL Wand toolbar (or on the GL Wand menu)
Type the function name into the cell manually prefixed by an = sign
You can select the function from the list that Excel provides when you choose the
Insert Function menu item The GL Wand functions are listed under the special GL
Wand category (Prior to Excel 2007 they are listed in the User Defined category)
If you click the applicable function button on the toolbar and the cell you are in contains that
function the Excel formula wizard window will open If you click a function button in a cell
that contains other data GL Wand will warn you that it is going to replace the contents of the cell with the chosen formula and will give you the option of cancelling the action
All parameters must be entered as text values ie enclosed in double quotes eg enter
ldquoUSDrdquo when entering the currency code or enter ldquo001rdquo when entering a segment value
See ldquoDiscovering versus Functionsrdquo for a comparison extracting information using the
discover tools or the functions
44
Get Balance
The Get Balance function is probably the most important function in GL Wand It returns a
General Ledger balance individually or summed based on the parameters that you enter
Example =Get_Balance(Jan-02YTDUSDEABIS CORPORATE01T4000-41600000000)
Clicking the Get Balance function on the GL Wand toolbar will open the Get Balance Wizard
This form has lists of values for items like period name balance type actual flag etc Select
the applicable values and enter a valid currency code and budget or encumbrance name if required
Double clicking a segment value or clicking the list of values button next to the segment will
open the segment list of values form for that segment See the Segment List of Values
section for details on how to use this form When you click the ldquoOKrdquo button on the Segment
List of Values form the selected segment parameters are entered against that segment in the Get Balance Wizard form
If your Oracle configuration includes dependant segments as part of the accounting
flexfield this form will support selecting values based on the independent and dependant
segment values Simply select a value from the available list of values for the independent
segment Then open the list of values for the dependant segment The list of available values
will be limited to only those values that are related to the selected independent segment
value
When you have entered all the parameters click the ldquoOKrdquo button to insert the Get Balance
function into the selected cell with the entered parameters Clicking the ldquoEditrdquo button will
open the Get Balance function in the Excel formula wizard form which will allow you to link
parameters to cells in the Excel sheet
45
You can also open the Get Balance formula in the Excel formula wizard form using the fx
button on the formula bar or by selecting the ldquoInsert Functionrdquo menu item on the Excel menu bar
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Type ldquoCTDrdquo
(Custom to Date) you can specify a custom period selection For
example ldquoFeb-07-Aug-07rdquo will add all the movement for the entered
period range You may enter multiple lists or ranges of periods and can use wild cards as well eg ldquoJan-0rdquo or ldquo-07rdquo
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Types ldquoJEDrdquo
ldquoJEDUrdquo or ldquoJEDPrdquo (Journal Effective Date) the period parameter
becomes a date parameter eg ldquo01012007-0501200710012007rdquo
The format that your date is in is important The ldquo-ldquo character is
used in GL Wand to denote a range of values and therefore it cannot
be used as a date delimiter eg 01-01-2007 would not be valid So
take care if your Windows regional setting use the ldquo-ldquo as a date
delimiter For JED type calculations we recommend that you use the
ldquordquo as a date delimiter and that you always format the date as text
in Excel otherwise Excel will convert the date based on your regional
setting
Balance Type YTD QTD PTD PJTD CTD JED JEDP or JEDU all in upper case
YTD ndash Summarizes the full years balance
QTD ndash Summarizes the balance for the quarter
46
PTD ndash Includes just the current period‟s movement
PJTD ndash Project to date
CTD ndash Summarizes the custom period criteria entered
JED ndash Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for both posted and unposted journals
JEDP - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for posted journals only
JEDU - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered dates for unposted journals only
Currency Code The currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
Translated Flag Enter E T or C Use E to retrieve the entered amount and T for the
translated amount Use C to report on the converted amount ie
the functional currency equivalent of a foreign currency amount
Only E is valid if requesting a balance for the functional currency of the current Set of Books
You must ensure that you have run the currency translation process
in Oracle for the selected currency and period before reporting on
translated balances If you enter T to request the translated balance
and there is no current translated balance available in the system a zero is returned
Oracle Release 12 provides a new feature to allow reporting on the
values entered in the functional currency only ie excludes any
foreign currency transactions converted to the functional currency
Therefore in Release 12 if you use the E (entered) flag in
conjunction with the functional currency any converted amounts will
be excluded To report on the total balance (including values entered
in functional currency and values converted to the functional
currency) use the new ldquoTotalrdquo option This option is only available if
you log on to a release 12 Oracle instance
Actual Flag A ndash Actual B ndash Budget E ndash Encumbrance
Bud Encumb Name If you enter B or E above enter the exact budget name or
encumbrance type here Otherwise simply enter ldquordquo for actual
balances
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter the segment value here You must enter it as a text value
including any leading zeros eg enter segment value ldquo10rdquo as ldquo0010rdquo
if this segment is configured as four characters with leading zeros in Oracle
You may enter your segment values in a variety of flexible ways
including parents child values ranges wildcards excludes etc See
the explanation below on valid values for this parameter
To include all values simply enter ldquordquo Please note as from GL Wand
3850 you can no longer leave the segment blank a value is
required
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
47
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Options This parameter is used to modify the results returned by the Get
Balance function from the standard behavior Currently two options are supported
Source ndash Limit the results to a specific journal source
Category ndash Limit the results to a specific journal category
The criteria needs to be entered as follows - ldquoSource=Manualrdquo or
ldquoCategory=Adjustmentrdquo To specify both a source and category use
the ldquo|rdquo as a delimiter eg ldquoSource=Manual|Category=Adjustmentrdquo
You can specify multiple values by separating them with ldquordquo eg
ldquoSource=PayablesReceivablesrdquo
When creating Get Balance formulas always use ldquordquo to denote all values as this allows more
efficient SQL to be generated Do not use a range like ldquo000-ZZZrdquo as they will require
unnecessary processing
The segment value parameters can be entered as
a single value representing a child or parent account eg ldquo1500rdquo might represent a
parent account
a range of values eg entering ldquo1500-1600rdquo in one of the segment parameters will
sum all the segment values between 1500 and 1600 for that segment
a list of segment values eg entering ldquo150015101590rdquo in one of the segment
parameters will sum the specific segment values entered If any of the segment
values are parents GL Wand will sum the hierarchy for that parent
wild card entries eg 100 will sum 1100 1200 1300 1400 etc or entering the
value 1 will sum all values that start with 1
values to be included and then specific exclusions eg ldquo1000-2000~1500rdquo will sum
the values between 1000 and 2000 but will skip 1500
a combination of any of the above eg 1000-2000237123752560-
25803000~32004000~4161-4169 In this way you can build up your own calculation definition in the segment parameter
Please note ndash there are two additional methods for specifying segment criteria in the Get
Balance function The one allows you to specify account combinations and the other
allows the use of segment descriptive flexfields Please see the Special Get Balance
Criteria section in order to use these options
Segment Description
Returns the segment description for the chosen segment value
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
48
Example =Get_Segment_Description(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
Returns the next or previous segment value
Parameter Description
Last Value The starting segment value
Segment The segment number
Level Enter a P to return the next or previous parent value enter a C to
return the next or previous child value or leave the parameter blank
to return the next or previous segment value irrespective of whether
it is a parent or child
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example = Next_Segment_Value(ldquo1000rdquo3P)
Parent Flag
Returns the parent flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is a
parent
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Parent_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Enabled Flag
Returns the enabled flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is
enabled
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example = Enabled_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
49
Account Type
Returns the account type for the chosen segment value This function is only applicable for
the natural account segment and will return the value Asset Liability etc
Parameter Description
Account Value The account segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Account_Type(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Period Name
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number Optionally the returned value can be a certain number of periods into the future or past
Parameter Description
PeriodYear The year that you want the period name for
PeriodNumber The period number that you want the period name for
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Offset Optionally enter an offset to return the period name which is n
periods before or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3
periods into the future or -1 to return the previous period
Example =Period_Name(20063)
Set of Books Name
Returns the set of books name for the chosen set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Set_of_Books_Name()
Segment Descriptive Flexfield
Returns the segment values descriptive flexfield for the selected criteria
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
50
Segment The segment number
AttributeNo Identify which attribute you want to report on The segment values
descriptive flexfield has 50 possible attribute values The applicable
attributes will depend on your configuration and whether this
Descriptive Flexfield is used by your organization
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Segment_DFF(ldquo100rdquo25) retrieves the 5th attribute on the segment values
descriptive flexfield for segment value 100 on segment 2
Period Offset
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for
this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
Offset Enter an offset to return the period name which is n periods before
or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3 periods into the
future or -1 to return the previous period
RetRange Enter TRUE (or 1) to return the result as a range eg entering
period Mar-07 with an offset of -2 and the RetRange set to true will
return ldquoJan-07-Mar-07rdquo This can be used in conjunction with the
CTD (Custom to Date) balance type in the Get Balance function to
create rolling period reporting
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Period_Offset(Jan-07-2TRUE)
Split Text
Splits delimited text and returns a specific portion based on an offset Especially useful to
split account combinations but can be used to split any text
Parameter Description
Value Some text which has been concatenated using a delimiter eg an
account combination like ldquo011007000rdquo
Offset Identify which portion of the text to return
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Split_Text(0110070002) will return the ldquo100rdquo portion of the text
51
Combine Text
Combines selected text separated by a delimiter Especially useful to combine segment
values to create a delimited account combinations but can be used to combine any text
Parameter Description
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter segment values that you wish to combine into an account
combination
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Combine_Text(011007000) will return ldquo011007000rdquo
Functional Currency
Returns the functional currency for the set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Functional_Currency()
Get Daily Rate
Returns the daily exchange rate for the entered criteria
Parameter Description
FromCurrency The ldquoFromrdquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case
eg ldquoUSDrdquo
ToCurrency The ldquoTordquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
ConversionType The conversion type as configured in Oracle Spelling and case must
be identical to the Oracle configuration
ConversionDate The conversion date This must be in Excel date format Either refer
to a cell which contains a date or use one of the Excel date functions
to return a date in the parameter
Example =Get_Daily_Rate(USDGBPReportingDATE(200911))
Function return values
The GL Wand functions will return a variety of results depending on a number of factors If
all the information is entered correctly and there are no restrictions on access to the data or
the GL Wand itself the result should be the General Ledger balance segment value segment description etc However the following are also possible return values
glwDemo ndash this means that you are using GL Wand without a valid trial key entered
into the GL Wand License Key profile option When trying GL Wand without a valid
52
trial key you are only allowed to use the first 20 rows and 20 columns of the first
sheet in the workbook Any formula entered outside this range will not calculate a
value but will only return the word ldquoglwDemordquo This is called evaluation mode A
trial key needs to be requested from within GL Wand and entered into the profile
option to allow full access to all functionality
glwNoAccess ndash When you log on you will be prompted for your applications user name
and password and will then need to select a responsibility to log on to Any security
rules that have been linked to the selected responsibility will be enforced on the GL
Wand data If you attempt to access a balance on a general ledger account that you
do not have access to the function will return the word ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo Please see
the ldquoAudit Get Balancerdquo section for information on how to identify the security rule that is being contravened
Please note that Oracles Hierarchical Security is not supported
glwError ndash If you enter invalid information in a parameter for a GL Wand function the
GL Wand error value will be returned This may happen when you for example
enter an invalid budget name or period name in the Get Balance function or when you
enter an invalid segment number in the next segment value function This error value
will also be returned when you are not logged on The details of the return value will
indicate where the problem exists eg glwError (Logon) glwError (Balance Type)
glwError (Translated Flag) glwError (Actual Flag) glwError (Missing segment)
glwError (Data error) glwError (Range) glwError (Period)
glwPending ndash This value will be returned during the calculation process Whenever a
cell requires calculation and the process has not been completed yet the cell will
contain the value ldquoglwPendingrdquo
glwEditing ndash Displays in the Excel function arguments window when editing a Get Balance formula
Discovering versus Functions
You may have noticed that you can achieve similar results by using the discover tools and
using the functions For example you could use the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button to retrieve the
next segment value or you could use the ldquoNext Segment Valuerdquo function to return the same result The difference between these two approaches is as follows
Com
paris
on b
etw
een D
iscoverin
g a
nd
Functio
ns
Discovering Functions
Results returned as text string to Excel
cell
Value is calculated based on
parameters
Value is static Value is dynamic
Never changes Recalculated when sheet refreshed
Lower performance overhead Higher performance overhead
Discover Down Next Segment Value
Discover Up Previous Segment Value
Discover Left Next Segment Value
Discover Right Previous Segment Value
Discover Properties
Segment Description
Parent flag
53
Enabled Flag
Account Type
Discover Child Ranges No equivalent
Toggle Discover Level
Parameters of next segment value
determine whether parents children or
both are returned
Use the discover buttons with ldquoPeriodrdquo
selected in the segment drop down Period Name
Balance Extract is similar to Get
Balance though the static values it
produces are refreshable
Get Balance
Special Get Balance Criteria
GL Wand supports two special types of criteria in the Get Balance function namely ldquoAccount
Combinationsrdquo and ldquoSegment Descriptive Flexfieldrdquo criteria These two forms of the Get
Balance criteria have very specific syntax which must be carefully adhered to in order to
achieve the correct results You also have the ability to expand account combinations for a
selection that uses the ldquoAccount Combinationrdquo criteria
Account Combinations
In the past the Get Balance function only supported individual segment values eg segment
2 = 100 or 200 and segment 3 = 1000 or 2000 This would result in GL Wand returning all the possible combinations of those segment 2 and 3 values
Now you have the ability to specify account combinations using the new Get Balance syntax
This means that you can create new complex criteria for your Get Balance formula eg
(segment 2 = 100 and segment 3 = 1000) or (segment 2 = 200 and segment 3 = 2000)
With these criteria GL Wand will no longer return all the possible combinations but rather only the combinations you specify
In order to specify account combinations in a Get Balance function you must tell GL Wand
which segments you are combining You do this by entering a special value into the segment
eg if you want to combine criteria for segment 2 and segment 3 you would enter the
following in the parameter for segment 2 ldquoUse_Seg3rdquo This tells GL Wand that that it must
find the criteria for segment 2 inside the segment 3 parameter In the segment 3 parameter
you now enter the criteria for both segment 2 and segment 3 separated by the special
delimiter character eg ldquo1001000rdquo This tells GL Wand that you are looking for accounts where segment 2 is 100 and segment 3 is 1000 An example could look like this
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg3100100020020000000000)
It is possible to combine multiple segments as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg5Use_Seg5Use_Seg510010000000000)
54
You simply point each applicable segment to the parameter where the account combination
using the special ldquoUse_SegXrdquo syntax Then inside the target parameter you combine the fully qualified account combination for the applicable segments delimited with a ldquordquo character
When you specify your account combination you have full flexibility to use ranges lists wild
cards parents and exclude criteria For example this criteria will fetch all the values where
segment 2 is between 100 and 200 and segment 3 is between 1000 and 2000 And in
addition to that it will include the values where segment 2 is 250 (a parent) and segment 3
starts with 33 but will exclude the specific value where segment 2 is 250 and segment 3 is
3320
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA01Use_Seg31001000-200200025033~25033200000000)
You also have the flexibility to group different parts of the account combination together For
example this criteria combines the values for segment 1 and 3 together and combines segment 2 and 4 together
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA
Use_Seg3Use_Seg401100002115010000002001050000)
These new Get Balance syntax options provide you with tremendous flexibility when building your GL Wand reports
Expand Account Combinations
The expand feature allows you to extract all the detailed child segment values that roll up to
the criteria that the user specifies The expand feature has been extended to support account combinations
In order to expand an account combination you would do the following
Ensure that the correct set of books is selected in the drop down list on the GL Wand
toolbar
Select the cell containing the account combination criteria eg ldquo1007000rdquo Click the expand button
GL Wand will now identify that the selected cell contains an account combination rather than
a single segment value You will now be presented with a window to identify which segments from your chart of accounts are represented in the account combination
55
Select the correct segments and click ldquoOKrdquo GL Wand will now extract all the child
combinations that roll up to the criteria that you entered and insert them into the Excel sheet
The other options are as follows
Fix ndash if you tick this option for a segment GL Wand will ldquopegrdquo that segment using the
selected value (this option only makes sense for a parent segment value) You might
for example want to expand all the account combinations used in a particular parent
cost centre Simply ldquoFixrdquo the cost centre segment and GL Wand will return all the
account combinations used within that parent cost centre
Exclude disabled account combination ndash tick this option to only return account combinations that are currently enabled and have not been end dated
The expand account combinations feature can be used as a normal GL Wand ldquoExpandrdquo in
order to extract the detail behind a total but it is also very useful to extract existing account combinations from your Oracle system
This feature can be used very effectively with the Split Text and Combine Text functions
Segment Descriptive Flexfields
In order to extract balances using the descriptive flexfields stored on the segment values
you need to use special syntax in the Get Balance function The syntax works as follows
1ABC
You wrap the descriptive flexfield using curly brackets
The first character after the open bracket identifies which descriptive flexfield
attribute is being referred to
You then separate the descriptive flexfield attribute from the actual value using a ldquordquo You then specify the criteria for this attribute
An example Get Balance function would look as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC10000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield on segment 2 is equal to the value ldquoABCrdquo
It is possible to specify criteria for multiple descriptive flexfields as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC2XX10000000000)
Simply wrap each descriptive flexfield value in its own and identify the attribute number
At this stage the descriptive flexfield criteria is restricted to a single value or a single range
of values Lists of values and multiple ranges are not supported A range can be specified
using the special range delimiter ldquo|rdquo (pipe character) This character is different to the range
character that is used for normal Get Balance segment parameters The reason is that the
normal range delimiter ldquo-ldquo may easily be used in a segment descriptive flexfields and
therefore is not suitable In future you will be able to configure your own range delimiter
56
character which will provide the best flexibility The range criteria can be specified as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011100|20010000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield
on segment 2 is between 100 and 200 Date values are also supported in this criteria and GL Wand will correctly derive the ldquobetweenrdquo criteria for a date
Calculating
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what cells are refreshed from
Oracle They are used in conjunction with the GL Wand calculation option (onoff) You can stop a calculation at any time by clicking cancel
- Calculate Range (Alt+Ctl+R)
- Calculate Sheet (Alt+Ctl+S)
- Calculate All (Alt+Ctl+A)
- GL Wand calculation on
- GL Wand calculation off
Calculate Range Sheet or All
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what is recalculated
To calculate a range of cells simply
1 Highlight the range
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Rangerdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+R shortcut key
3 Select multiple ranges using the ctrl button (as normal in Excel)
4 Select a range and then select multiple Excel worksheets to calculate the same range on
each sheet
Please note do not use the calculate range option to recalculate the entire sheet ie by
selecting all the cells on the sheet This will take unnecessarily longer Rather use the
calculate sheet option
To calculate a sheet simply
1 Select the applicable sheet
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Sheetrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+S shortcut key
3 Selecting multiple sheets will calculate each of the selected sheets
To calculate all open workbooks simply
1 Click the ldquoCalculate Allrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+A shortcut key
57
GL Wand calculation on or off
You can use the GL Wand calculation toggle button to control when requests for calculations
are sent to the Oracle server
If you toggle GL Wand calculation ldquoOffrdquo calculation requests are not sent to the Oracle server which means you
you can manipulate a worksheet
change cell values
enter new formulae and
perform any other task that would normally cause Excel to recalculate
and the applicable functions will only return the ldquoglwPendingrdquo status and will not
actually calculate a result
This is useful during report development
To calculate the results simply click one of the three calculation buttons ldquoCalculate Range
Sheet or Allrdquo
If you leave the GL Wand calculation option ldquoOnrdquo the applicable functions will be recalculated whenever Excel initiates a calculation process eg
when changing the contents of the cell
changing one of the functions input values deleting a column or row in the worksheet etc
Please note that the GL Wand calculation option has nothing to do with Excel‟s automatic
and manual calculation The GL Wand calculation option controls only the calculation of the
applicable GL Wand functions All other calculations are controlled as normal by the Excel
automatic and manual calculation option
Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
When you perform a recalculation a window will appear to show the progress of the
calculation
58
If you would like to cancel the calculation process simply click the ldquoCancelrdquo button
Please note that GL Wand will need to wait for the next reply from Oracle before the
connection can be closed Therefore it may take some time before the calculation stops and
the window closes
Snapshot
- Snapshot
The snapshot tool can be used to take a snapshot of your GL Wand report This tool will
remove all the GL Wand functions from the workbook and will replace them with the values that the function returned
The results are similar to using the Excel ldquopaste valuesrdquo functionality However this process will only replace GL Wand formulas All other Excel formulas will be left as they were
Please note that you cannot take a snapshot of a protected worksheet rather output the
sheet to PDF format for archive and distribution purposes
When producing a snapshot GL Wand will request a name for the new workbook You can
select an existing workbook and GL Wand will give you the option to append the snapshot
results to the existing workbook or overwrite the existing workbook You therefore have the
option of producing various snapshot reports and combining them into one new workbook in a single operation rather than producing a separate workbook for each snapshot
Hide zeros
- Hide zeros in selected range
Select a report range that contains rows where all the numbers are zero Click the hide zeros
button and GL Wand will hide all the rows in the selected range where all the cells containing
numbers are zero This is very useful for formatting a report which includes many rows
where for example a number of accounts are not used in a particular cost centre or have no
59
balances in a certain period At the click of a button you can hide all the rows that contain only zeros
Select the entire report range when using the hide zeros function GL Wand checks the
selected range for zeros when determining which rows to hide
Excel automatically forces a recalculation of Get Balance formulas when you hide rows on a
report This is normal Excel functionality
This feature can be used on any Excel worksheet and is not limited to GL Wand reports
Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Undo the last hide zeros operation
Click this button to automatically undo the last hide zeros operation
Drill downs
- Drill to default Balance layout
- Drill to default Journal layout
- Drill to default Sub Ledger layout
The drill down options allow you to extract additional detail about a specific ldquoGet Balancerdquo function
1 Select a cell that contains a valid Get Balance function
2 Click on the drill to balance button
3 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
4 The criteria sheet will be populated with the criteria from the Get Balance function
5 The drill down to balance detail will be executed showing all the detailed accounts that make up the total in the Get Balance function
60
See the Create Drill Criteria Sheet section for more details and options on the drill down criteria sheet
Budget variance analysis If you select two cells on the GL Wand report eg one cell with
actual values and one with budget numbers GL Wand will perform a drill down on the Get
Balance function and display the actual and budget values next to each other and a
calculated variance
You now have a variety of options which can be performed from the drill down workbook
1 Modify the parameters on the criteria sheet and perform a new drill to balance Drop
down lists are provided for most of the parameters see the Create Drill Criteria Sheet for
more details
2 Create a summary drill down report
3 If you have performed a balance drill down you can select the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet and then
click drill down to journal details after selecting one or more rows with accounts
4 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo sheet and then click the button to drill down to the full journal
after selecting one or more rows with journal lines The full journal with all the contra
entries for the selected journal lines will be displayed
5 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo or ldquoJournal-Fullrdquo sheet and then click sub-ledger drill down after
selecting one or more rows with journal lines 6 Drill down to Global Consolidation System transactions
When drilling down you have the following options
Double click any cell on the row that you wish to drill down on
61
Select any cell in the row that you want to drill down on and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar
Highlight a range of rows and click the applicable drill down button on the GL Wand
toolbar to drill down on multiple lines at once
Highlight non contiguous rows using the ldquoCtrlrdquo button and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar to drill down on multiple lines which are not adjacent to each other
It is possible to drill from a Get Balance formula directly to the journal or sub ledger
information Similarly you can drill from a detailed balance (on the Balance worksheet)
directly to the sub ledger information If you select these options GL Wand will execute the
interim drill steps automatically Be careful when performing a drill down directly to the
journal or sub ledger detail level as these drill down operations may return many records
GL Wand will automatically group the drill down to journals and sub ledger information using
Excel‟s group and outline functionality This will allow you expand and collapse the data to
show just a portion of the report Headings are also inserted on the journal and sub-ledger drill down to make the report easier to read
On the sub-ledger drill down the heading includes a number in brackets eg ldquo(23) Journal
Name 123rdquo The number indicates which Excel row these sub-ledger lines originated from on
the ldquoJournalsrdquo sheet
You can use the remove drill down report headings button to strip out the headings on
the journal and sub-ledger drill down sheets
A couple of important things to note about drill downs
GL Wand will first count the number of rows that will be retrieved by the drill down
operation
If the row count is more than 1000 you will receive a warning message asking you if
you want to continue
If the row count is more than the defined limit (see Query Limit) you will receive a
warning and the drill down will be cancelled
If the row count is more than the number of rows available in your version of Excel
you will receive an error and the drill down will be cancelled
When you drill down to journal details the ldquoBalance Typerdquo parameter controls how
much detail is returned If this parameter is ldquoPTDrdquo only the current period‟s journals
are returned If this parameter is ldquoYTDrdquo then all the journals for the year are returned and likewise ldquoQTDrdquo will show the journal for the quarter
Ensure that the worksheet is calculated before performing any drill down functions Also
ensure that the cell contains a ldquoGet Balancerdquo function with valid parameter information
A new drill down workbook will be created each time you perform a drill down operation from
a Get Balance function Once you are finished with a drill down workbook simply close it
without saving
You cannot drill down to journal detail on translated balances
Oracle Global Consolidation System
Drill down to Oracle Global Consolidation System (GCS) transactions is also supported
These items will appear on the journal drill down report with a source and category of
62
ldquoConsolidationrdquo If you execute a normal drill down to Sub Ledger on these transactions a
new GL Wand drill workbook will be created and the drill down to the subsidiary set of books will be executed
In order to drill down on a GCS transaction you must be logged on the parent as well as the
subsidiary set of books This can be done using the Multiple Sets of Books logon option
Summary Balance Drill Down
On the drill down Criteria sheet toggle the summarization option to ldquoYrdquo for any segment that
you which to summaries by GL Wand creates a summary trial balance report and
summarizes by the selected segments The report can still be expanded to show the detailed
lines and you can still drill down to journals from these lines
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
31
- Discover Right All
The left and right arrows work in a similar manner retrieving the next and previous segment
values but they populate the cells to the left and right of the cell that you start in When
discovering segment values you will notice that some of the values are entered with a bold
font This is because these have been identified as parent values
You do not need to discover segment values one at a time
You can enter a starting segment value choose the segment from the segment list
and then highlight a range of cells
When you click one of the discover buttons now GL Wand fills the selected range
with the next or previous segment values depending on which arrow you click on
The Discover Down All and Discover Right All buttons can be used to retrieve all the segment values in one operation
Discover Period Names
You can discover period names in much the same way that you can discover segment
values
1 Select a cell and enter a valid starting period name eg Jan-03 into the cell
NB ndash make sure that you enter this starting period name as text by first formatting the Excel
cell as text or entering the period name prefixed by an apostrophe bdquo eg bdquoJan-03 If Excel
interprets the value entered as an actual date eg 01012003 then discover period names
will not work
2 Choose the special ldquoPeriodrdquo value from the segment list
3 Now click the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button
32
GL Wand finds the next period name after Jan-07 in the Set of Books calendar and enters this value in the cell below the one that you started in
You can also use the ldquoDiscover Down Allrdquo ldquoDiscover Previousrdquo ldquoDiscover Rightrdquo ldquoDiscover Right Allrdquo and ldquoDiscover Leftrdquo buttons to discover period names
Discover Properties
- Discover segment properties
The ldquoDiscover Propertiesrdquo button will extract a variety of information about the selected segment value
To use this function
1 Select a cell(s) with a valid segment value in it
2 Make sure the correct segment is selected in the segment selector
3 Click the Discover Properties button
The cells to the right of the selected cell are populated with segment information
The first cell indicates the segment description the second cell indicates if the value is a
parent or not (Y means the segment value is a parent) the third cell indicates if the segment
value is enabled or not (Y means that the segment value is enabled) and the fourth cell
indicates what account type the segment value is eg Asset or Liability etc Obviously the forth cell is only valid for the natural account segment
33
Discover Child Ranges
- Discover child ranges
The ldquoDiscover Child Rangesrdquo button can be used to show the child values that are assigned to a particular parent value
1 Select a cell that has a parent segment value
2 Identify its segment number to the GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the segment list dropdown
3 Now click on the ldquoDiscover Child Rangesrdquo button
An Excel note is added to the cell showing the ranges that have been assigned to the selected parent This is useful for understanding and exploring your Chart of Accounts
Discover Hierarchy
To discover the hierarchy for a segment proceed as follows
Enter the starting segment value into an Excel cell This value must be a parent for
the segment you are using
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
Select ldquoDiscover Hierarchyrdquo from the Discover menu
GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy for the selected parent and display it in the
Excel worksheet indenting the various levels in the hierarchy
34
Toggle Discover Level
- Toggle discover level
The ldquoDiscover levelrdquo button is used to restrict the segment values that are returned by the discover tools to parent values only child values only or both parent and child values
When you click on this button it toggles from discovering parents and children to discovering parents only to discovering child values only
For example
1 Select a cell and enter a starting segment value
2 Choose the segment from the segment list
3 Click the discover level until the option is set to ldquoDiscovering Parentsrdquo 4 Now highlight a range of cells and click the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button
GL Wand fills the selected range with the next segment values but skips all child values and
returns only parent values Similarly child values can be discovered by toggling the discover level to ldquoDiscovering childrenrdquo
If you want to discover both parent and children toggle the discover level back to
ldquoDiscovering parents and childrenrdquo
All segment values must be entered using the Excel text format Either format the cell using
the text number format or enter the cell value using the apostrophe bdquo character which marks
the contents of the cell as text eg if you want to enter the segment value 001 enter it as
follows bdquo001
Expand
- Expand
You can perform an expand down to the lowest level children (explained below) or you can expand using the hierarchy going down one level or expanding the full hierarchy
The Expand feature allows you to extract a list of all the lowest level child values that roll up
to a particular segment selection This might be a parent value range wild card or a
combination of these options
1 Select a cell that has a segment selection eg a parent value
2 Identify its segment number to the GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
3 Click the expand button 4 The child values are retrieved from Oracle and are inserted below the selected cell
35
You can also highlight a number of columns and GL Wand will insert the child values and copy the contents of the highlighted cells against each child value that is inserted
1 Select a cell that has a segment selection and highlight the number of columns that you
would like to have copied into the new rows
2 Identify its segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
3 Click the expand button
4 The child values are retrieved from Oracle and are inserted below the selected cell
5 The contents of the additional columns that were selected are copied against each new
row inserted In the example below this contains a generic Get Balance formula which is then resolved for each child value
You also have the option of selecting multiple rows when performing an Expand GL Wand will perform an expand on each selected row
The expand feature can also be used with account combinations Please see the Special Get
Balance Criteria section for details on how this works
Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Expand feature except that it will
expand using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the values one level down the hierarchy and list them below the starting cell
Expand Hierarchy (Full)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Expand feature except that it will
expand using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy and list all the values below the starting cell indenting the various levels in the hierarchy
36
Undo Expand
- Undo Expand
The expand operation inserts rows into the worksheet to allow the child data to be
populated If you would like to quickly remove the expand data click the undo expand button GL Wand will remove the inserted data from the most recent expand operation
Please note that the expand operation formats the inserted rows in a particular way eg the
segment values are indented The undo expand operation relies on this formatting in order
to process correctly If you modify the formatting of the expanded rows the undo expand
may not function correctly
Refresh Expand
- Refresh Expand
The expand operation fetches the child data that meets the criteria that you enter and
inserts it into new rows in the workbook This data may change over time eg you may
expand a parent value and over time the definition of that parent is modified Use the refresh expand button to retrieve the most recent data from Oracle as follows
Highlight the entire range of expanded data
This must include the criteria row that drives the expand operation eg the row
containing the parent value
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
Click the refresh expand button
GL Wand will remove the old expand data and will refresh the expand with the latest information
Please note that the expand operation formats the inserted rows in a particular way eg the
segment values are indented The refresh expand operation relies on this formatting in order
to process correctly If you modify the formatting of the expanded rows the refresh expand
may not function correctly
Explode Report
- Explode report
You can perform an explode down to the lowest level children (explained below) or you can explode using the hierarchy going down one level or expanding the full hierarchy
Explode report works in a similar way to the expand feature The difference is that where
expand inserts a new row in the worksheet for each child value found explode creates a new worksheet in the current workbook for each child value found For example
Start with a complete GL Wand report
Select the cell in the report that drive the Get Balance formulas eg a department
parent value in the report header
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
37
Click the explode report button
GL Wand will duplicate the worksheet for each child value found for the selected parent
Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Explode feature except that it will
Explode using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the values one level down the hierarchy and create a new worksheet for each value
Explode Hierarchy (Full)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Explode feature except that it will
Explode using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy and create a new worksheet for
each value
Open List of Values
- Open list of values
The segment list of values form can be used to search through the segment values and
descriptions for a specific segment First pick the segment from the segment list
dropdown and then click the segment list of values button The list of values for the chosen
segment is displayed
You can enter a value to search for in the find box The list of values will be filtered to show
only items that match the text entered in the find box The text entered in the find box is
38
compared to the segment value and segment description An item will be included in the results if either field contains the text entered in the find box
In the list section you can start entering a segment value (eg Account number) and the list will scroll to the item matching the values that you have entered
Click the ldquoAddrdquo button double click an item in the list or press enter to add the current item
to the selection list on the right You can also click and drag an item to add it to the selection list
39
If you want to add a range like ldquo1000-2000rdquo do the following
Start by adding the ldquo1000rdquo value using one of the options explained above
Then find the ldquo2000rdquo value in the master list
Ensure that the ldquo2000rdquo value is highlighted in the master list and the ldquo1000rdquo value is
highlighted in the selection list and click the ldquoAdd Rangerdquo button
You can also drag a value from the master list onto an existing value in the selection list to create a range
To remove an item from the selection list ensure that it is highlighted and then click the ldquoRemoverdquo button or press the ldquoDeleterdquo key
Every segment will have the additional value called ldquoAllrdquo Selecting this value will add a ldquordquo
to the parameter list which means ldquoAll valuesrdquo If ldquoAllrdquo is selected then all other selections will be removed and replaced with a
If you want to include certain values and exclude others you can use the ldquoAdd Excluderdquo
option This will add the highlighted value to the selection list prefixed by the reserved exclude character ldquo~rdquo
40
You can add any combination of the options mentioned above to produce your own
calculation
Once you have added all the required segment values to the selection list click ldquoOKrdquo to copy
the list to the clipboard You can then paste these values into a Get Balance function or
anywhere else on the Excel sheet
41
Create List of Values
- Create list of values
This feature can be used to quickly format a cell to be a special list of values cell There are
two types The first type inserts a drop down list of values in the cell and is used for balance
types translated flags and actual flags
The second type creates a link to the standard list of values form It is used for segment values periods and balance and encumbrance names
The cell is identified by a note containing the word ldquoLOVrdquo In order to open the list of values
simply double click the cell or select the cell and click the List of Values button on the
toolbar This will open the list of values form for the specific data type that the list of values cell was created for In the example this was the department segment
The checkbox allows you to link the list of values to a specific set of books This option is only applicable if you have the Multiple Sets of Books feature enabled
42
Functions
The GL Wand functions work in a similar way to any other Excel worksheet function You
provide the required parameters and the results of the function are returned to the Excel
cell The difference being that GL Wand functions retrieve information from your Oracle Applications system
GL Wand currently has the following functions
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value
- Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
43
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
Split Text
Combine Text
Functional Currency
Get Daily Rate
You can enter a function into an Excel cell in a number of ways
Click the applicable button on the GL Wand toolbar (or on the GL Wand menu)
Type the function name into the cell manually prefixed by an = sign
You can select the function from the list that Excel provides when you choose the
Insert Function menu item The GL Wand functions are listed under the special GL
Wand category (Prior to Excel 2007 they are listed in the User Defined category)
If you click the applicable function button on the toolbar and the cell you are in contains that
function the Excel formula wizard window will open If you click a function button in a cell
that contains other data GL Wand will warn you that it is going to replace the contents of the cell with the chosen formula and will give you the option of cancelling the action
All parameters must be entered as text values ie enclosed in double quotes eg enter
ldquoUSDrdquo when entering the currency code or enter ldquo001rdquo when entering a segment value
See ldquoDiscovering versus Functionsrdquo for a comparison extracting information using the
discover tools or the functions
44
Get Balance
The Get Balance function is probably the most important function in GL Wand It returns a
General Ledger balance individually or summed based on the parameters that you enter
Example =Get_Balance(Jan-02YTDUSDEABIS CORPORATE01T4000-41600000000)
Clicking the Get Balance function on the GL Wand toolbar will open the Get Balance Wizard
This form has lists of values for items like period name balance type actual flag etc Select
the applicable values and enter a valid currency code and budget or encumbrance name if required
Double clicking a segment value or clicking the list of values button next to the segment will
open the segment list of values form for that segment See the Segment List of Values
section for details on how to use this form When you click the ldquoOKrdquo button on the Segment
List of Values form the selected segment parameters are entered against that segment in the Get Balance Wizard form
If your Oracle configuration includes dependant segments as part of the accounting
flexfield this form will support selecting values based on the independent and dependant
segment values Simply select a value from the available list of values for the independent
segment Then open the list of values for the dependant segment The list of available values
will be limited to only those values that are related to the selected independent segment
value
When you have entered all the parameters click the ldquoOKrdquo button to insert the Get Balance
function into the selected cell with the entered parameters Clicking the ldquoEditrdquo button will
open the Get Balance function in the Excel formula wizard form which will allow you to link
parameters to cells in the Excel sheet
45
You can also open the Get Balance formula in the Excel formula wizard form using the fx
button on the formula bar or by selecting the ldquoInsert Functionrdquo menu item on the Excel menu bar
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Type ldquoCTDrdquo
(Custom to Date) you can specify a custom period selection For
example ldquoFeb-07-Aug-07rdquo will add all the movement for the entered
period range You may enter multiple lists or ranges of periods and can use wild cards as well eg ldquoJan-0rdquo or ldquo-07rdquo
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Types ldquoJEDrdquo
ldquoJEDUrdquo or ldquoJEDPrdquo (Journal Effective Date) the period parameter
becomes a date parameter eg ldquo01012007-0501200710012007rdquo
The format that your date is in is important The ldquo-ldquo character is
used in GL Wand to denote a range of values and therefore it cannot
be used as a date delimiter eg 01-01-2007 would not be valid So
take care if your Windows regional setting use the ldquo-ldquo as a date
delimiter For JED type calculations we recommend that you use the
ldquordquo as a date delimiter and that you always format the date as text
in Excel otherwise Excel will convert the date based on your regional
setting
Balance Type YTD QTD PTD PJTD CTD JED JEDP or JEDU all in upper case
YTD ndash Summarizes the full years balance
QTD ndash Summarizes the balance for the quarter
46
PTD ndash Includes just the current period‟s movement
PJTD ndash Project to date
CTD ndash Summarizes the custom period criteria entered
JED ndash Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for both posted and unposted journals
JEDP - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for posted journals only
JEDU - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered dates for unposted journals only
Currency Code The currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
Translated Flag Enter E T or C Use E to retrieve the entered amount and T for the
translated amount Use C to report on the converted amount ie
the functional currency equivalent of a foreign currency amount
Only E is valid if requesting a balance for the functional currency of the current Set of Books
You must ensure that you have run the currency translation process
in Oracle for the selected currency and period before reporting on
translated balances If you enter T to request the translated balance
and there is no current translated balance available in the system a zero is returned
Oracle Release 12 provides a new feature to allow reporting on the
values entered in the functional currency only ie excludes any
foreign currency transactions converted to the functional currency
Therefore in Release 12 if you use the E (entered) flag in
conjunction with the functional currency any converted amounts will
be excluded To report on the total balance (including values entered
in functional currency and values converted to the functional
currency) use the new ldquoTotalrdquo option This option is only available if
you log on to a release 12 Oracle instance
Actual Flag A ndash Actual B ndash Budget E ndash Encumbrance
Bud Encumb Name If you enter B or E above enter the exact budget name or
encumbrance type here Otherwise simply enter ldquordquo for actual
balances
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter the segment value here You must enter it as a text value
including any leading zeros eg enter segment value ldquo10rdquo as ldquo0010rdquo
if this segment is configured as four characters with leading zeros in Oracle
You may enter your segment values in a variety of flexible ways
including parents child values ranges wildcards excludes etc See
the explanation below on valid values for this parameter
To include all values simply enter ldquordquo Please note as from GL Wand
3850 you can no longer leave the segment blank a value is
required
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
47
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Options This parameter is used to modify the results returned by the Get
Balance function from the standard behavior Currently two options are supported
Source ndash Limit the results to a specific journal source
Category ndash Limit the results to a specific journal category
The criteria needs to be entered as follows - ldquoSource=Manualrdquo or
ldquoCategory=Adjustmentrdquo To specify both a source and category use
the ldquo|rdquo as a delimiter eg ldquoSource=Manual|Category=Adjustmentrdquo
You can specify multiple values by separating them with ldquordquo eg
ldquoSource=PayablesReceivablesrdquo
When creating Get Balance formulas always use ldquordquo to denote all values as this allows more
efficient SQL to be generated Do not use a range like ldquo000-ZZZrdquo as they will require
unnecessary processing
The segment value parameters can be entered as
a single value representing a child or parent account eg ldquo1500rdquo might represent a
parent account
a range of values eg entering ldquo1500-1600rdquo in one of the segment parameters will
sum all the segment values between 1500 and 1600 for that segment
a list of segment values eg entering ldquo150015101590rdquo in one of the segment
parameters will sum the specific segment values entered If any of the segment
values are parents GL Wand will sum the hierarchy for that parent
wild card entries eg 100 will sum 1100 1200 1300 1400 etc or entering the
value 1 will sum all values that start with 1
values to be included and then specific exclusions eg ldquo1000-2000~1500rdquo will sum
the values between 1000 and 2000 but will skip 1500
a combination of any of the above eg 1000-2000237123752560-
25803000~32004000~4161-4169 In this way you can build up your own calculation definition in the segment parameter
Please note ndash there are two additional methods for specifying segment criteria in the Get
Balance function The one allows you to specify account combinations and the other
allows the use of segment descriptive flexfields Please see the Special Get Balance
Criteria section in order to use these options
Segment Description
Returns the segment description for the chosen segment value
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
48
Example =Get_Segment_Description(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
Returns the next or previous segment value
Parameter Description
Last Value The starting segment value
Segment The segment number
Level Enter a P to return the next or previous parent value enter a C to
return the next or previous child value or leave the parameter blank
to return the next or previous segment value irrespective of whether
it is a parent or child
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example = Next_Segment_Value(ldquo1000rdquo3P)
Parent Flag
Returns the parent flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is a
parent
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Parent_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Enabled Flag
Returns the enabled flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is
enabled
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example = Enabled_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
49
Account Type
Returns the account type for the chosen segment value This function is only applicable for
the natural account segment and will return the value Asset Liability etc
Parameter Description
Account Value The account segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Account_Type(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Period Name
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number Optionally the returned value can be a certain number of periods into the future or past
Parameter Description
PeriodYear The year that you want the period name for
PeriodNumber The period number that you want the period name for
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Offset Optionally enter an offset to return the period name which is n
periods before or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3
periods into the future or -1 to return the previous period
Example =Period_Name(20063)
Set of Books Name
Returns the set of books name for the chosen set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Set_of_Books_Name()
Segment Descriptive Flexfield
Returns the segment values descriptive flexfield for the selected criteria
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
50
Segment The segment number
AttributeNo Identify which attribute you want to report on The segment values
descriptive flexfield has 50 possible attribute values The applicable
attributes will depend on your configuration and whether this
Descriptive Flexfield is used by your organization
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Segment_DFF(ldquo100rdquo25) retrieves the 5th attribute on the segment values
descriptive flexfield for segment value 100 on segment 2
Period Offset
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for
this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
Offset Enter an offset to return the period name which is n periods before
or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3 periods into the
future or -1 to return the previous period
RetRange Enter TRUE (or 1) to return the result as a range eg entering
period Mar-07 with an offset of -2 and the RetRange set to true will
return ldquoJan-07-Mar-07rdquo This can be used in conjunction with the
CTD (Custom to Date) balance type in the Get Balance function to
create rolling period reporting
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Period_Offset(Jan-07-2TRUE)
Split Text
Splits delimited text and returns a specific portion based on an offset Especially useful to
split account combinations but can be used to split any text
Parameter Description
Value Some text which has been concatenated using a delimiter eg an
account combination like ldquo011007000rdquo
Offset Identify which portion of the text to return
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Split_Text(0110070002) will return the ldquo100rdquo portion of the text
51
Combine Text
Combines selected text separated by a delimiter Especially useful to combine segment
values to create a delimited account combinations but can be used to combine any text
Parameter Description
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter segment values that you wish to combine into an account
combination
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Combine_Text(011007000) will return ldquo011007000rdquo
Functional Currency
Returns the functional currency for the set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Functional_Currency()
Get Daily Rate
Returns the daily exchange rate for the entered criteria
Parameter Description
FromCurrency The ldquoFromrdquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case
eg ldquoUSDrdquo
ToCurrency The ldquoTordquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
ConversionType The conversion type as configured in Oracle Spelling and case must
be identical to the Oracle configuration
ConversionDate The conversion date This must be in Excel date format Either refer
to a cell which contains a date or use one of the Excel date functions
to return a date in the parameter
Example =Get_Daily_Rate(USDGBPReportingDATE(200911))
Function return values
The GL Wand functions will return a variety of results depending on a number of factors If
all the information is entered correctly and there are no restrictions on access to the data or
the GL Wand itself the result should be the General Ledger balance segment value segment description etc However the following are also possible return values
glwDemo ndash this means that you are using GL Wand without a valid trial key entered
into the GL Wand License Key profile option When trying GL Wand without a valid
52
trial key you are only allowed to use the first 20 rows and 20 columns of the first
sheet in the workbook Any formula entered outside this range will not calculate a
value but will only return the word ldquoglwDemordquo This is called evaluation mode A
trial key needs to be requested from within GL Wand and entered into the profile
option to allow full access to all functionality
glwNoAccess ndash When you log on you will be prompted for your applications user name
and password and will then need to select a responsibility to log on to Any security
rules that have been linked to the selected responsibility will be enforced on the GL
Wand data If you attempt to access a balance on a general ledger account that you
do not have access to the function will return the word ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo Please see
the ldquoAudit Get Balancerdquo section for information on how to identify the security rule that is being contravened
Please note that Oracles Hierarchical Security is not supported
glwError ndash If you enter invalid information in a parameter for a GL Wand function the
GL Wand error value will be returned This may happen when you for example
enter an invalid budget name or period name in the Get Balance function or when you
enter an invalid segment number in the next segment value function This error value
will also be returned when you are not logged on The details of the return value will
indicate where the problem exists eg glwError (Logon) glwError (Balance Type)
glwError (Translated Flag) glwError (Actual Flag) glwError (Missing segment)
glwError (Data error) glwError (Range) glwError (Period)
glwPending ndash This value will be returned during the calculation process Whenever a
cell requires calculation and the process has not been completed yet the cell will
contain the value ldquoglwPendingrdquo
glwEditing ndash Displays in the Excel function arguments window when editing a Get Balance formula
Discovering versus Functions
You may have noticed that you can achieve similar results by using the discover tools and
using the functions For example you could use the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button to retrieve the
next segment value or you could use the ldquoNext Segment Valuerdquo function to return the same result The difference between these two approaches is as follows
Com
paris
on b
etw
een D
iscoverin
g a
nd
Functio
ns
Discovering Functions
Results returned as text string to Excel
cell
Value is calculated based on
parameters
Value is static Value is dynamic
Never changes Recalculated when sheet refreshed
Lower performance overhead Higher performance overhead
Discover Down Next Segment Value
Discover Up Previous Segment Value
Discover Left Next Segment Value
Discover Right Previous Segment Value
Discover Properties
Segment Description
Parent flag
53
Enabled Flag
Account Type
Discover Child Ranges No equivalent
Toggle Discover Level
Parameters of next segment value
determine whether parents children or
both are returned
Use the discover buttons with ldquoPeriodrdquo
selected in the segment drop down Period Name
Balance Extract is similar to Get
Balance though the static values it
produces are refreshable
Get Balance
Special Get Balance Criteria
GL Wand supports two special types of criteria in the Get Balance function namely ldquoAccount
Combinationsrdquo and ldquoSegment Descriptive Flexfieldrdquo criteria These two forms of the Get
Balance criteria have very specific syntax which must be carefully adhered to in order to
achieve the correct results You also have the ability to expand account combinations for a
selection that uses the ldquoAccount Combinationrdquo criteria
Account Combinations
In the past the Get Balance function only supported individual segment values eg segment
2 = 100 or 200 and segment 3 = 1000 or 2000 This would result in GL Wand returning all the possible combinations of those segment 2 and 3 values
Now you have the ability to specify account combinations using the new Get Balance syntax
This means that you can create new complex criteria for your Get Balance formula eg
(segment 2 = 100 and segment 3 = 1000) or (segment 2 = 200 and segment 3 = 2000)
With these criteria GL Wand will no longer return all the possible combinations but rather only the combinations you specify
In order to specify account combinations in a Get Balance function you must tell GL Wand
which segments you are combining You do this by entering a special value into the segment
eg if you want to combine criteria for segment 2 and segment 3 you would enter the
following in the parameter for segment 2 ldquoUse_Seg3rdquo This tells GL Wand that that it must
find the criteria for segment 2 inside the segment 3 parameter In the segment 3 parameter
you now enter the criteria for both segment 2 and segment 3 separated by the special
delimiter character eg ldquo1001000rdquo This tells GL Wand that you are looking for accounts where segment 2 is 100 and segment 3 is 1000 An example could look like this
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg3100100020020000000000)
It is possible to combine multiple segments as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg5Use_Seg5Use_Seg510010000000000)
54
You simply point each applicable segment to the parameter where the account combination
using the special ldquoUse_SegXrdquo syntax Then inside the target parameter you combine the fully qualified account combination for the applicable segments delimited with a ldquordquo character
When you specify your account combination you have full flexibility to use ranges lists wild
cards parents and exclude criteria For example this criteria will fetch all the values where
segment 2 is between 100 and 200 and segment 3 is between 1000 and 2000 And in
addition to that it will include the values where segment 2 is 250 (a parent) and segment 3
starts with 33 but will exclude the specific value where segment 2 is 250 and segment 3 is
3320
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA01Use_Seg31001000-200200025033~25033200000000)
You also have the flexibility to group different parts of the account combination together For
example this criteria combines the values for segment 1 and 3 together and combines segment 2 and 4 together
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA
Use_Seg3Use_Seg401100002115010000002001050000)
These new Get Balance syntax options provide you with tremendous flexibility when building your GL Wand reports
Expand Account Combinations
The expand feature allows you to extract all the detailed child segment values that roll up to
the criteria that the user specifies The expand feature has been extended to support account combinations
In order to expand an account combination you would do the following
Ensure that the correct set of books is selected in the drop down list on the GL Wand
toolbar
Select the cell containing the account combination criteria eg ldquo1007000rdquo Click the expand button
GL Wand will now identify that the selected cell contains an account combination rather than
a single segment value You will now be presented with a window to identify which segments from your chart of accounts are represented in the account combination
55
Select the correct segments and click ldquoOKrdquo GL Wand will now extract all the child
combinations that roll up to the criteria that you entered and insert them into the Excel sheet
The other options are as follows
Fix ndash if you tick this option for a segment GL Wand will ldquopegrdquo that segment using the
selected value (this option only makes sense for a parent segment value) You might
for example want to expand all the account combinations used in a particular parent
cost centre Simply ldquoFixrdquo the cost centre segment and GL Wand will return all the
account combinations used within that parent cost centre
Exclude disabled account combination ndash tick this option to only return account combinations that are currently enabled and have not been end dated
The expand account combinations feature can be used as a normal GL Wand ldquoExpandrdquo in
order to extract the detail behind a total but it is also very useful to extract existing account combinations from your Oracle system
This feature can be used very effectively with the Split Text and Combine Text functions
Segment Descriptive Flexfields
In order to extract balances using the descriptive flexfields stored on the segment values
you need to use special syntax in the Get Balance function The syntax works as follows
1ABC
You wrap the descriptive flexfield using curly brackets
The first character after the open bracket identifies which descriptive flexfield
attribute is being referred to
You then separate the descriptive flexfield attribute from the actual value using a ldquordquo You then specify the criteria for this attribute
An example Get Balance function would look as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC10000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield on segment 2 is equal to the value ldquoABCrdquo
It is possible to specify criteria for multiple descriptive flexfields as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC2XX10000000000)
Simply wrap each descriptive flexfield value in its own and identify the attribute number
At this stage the descriptive flexfield criteria is restricted to a single value or a single range
of values Lists of values and multiple ranges are not supported A range can be specified
using the special range delimiter ldquo|rdquo (pipe character) This character is different to the range
character that is used for normal Get Balance segment parameters The reason is that the
normal range delimiter ldquo-ldquo may easily be used in a segment descriptive flexfields and
therefore is not suitable In future you will be able to configure your own range delimiter
56
character which will provide the best flexibility The range criteria can be specified as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011100|20010000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield
on segment 2 is between 100 and 200 Date values are also supported in this criteria and GL Wand will correctly derive the ldquobetweenrdquo criteria for a date
Calculating
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what cells are refreshed from
Oracle They are used in conjunction with the GL Wand calculation option (onoff) You can stop a calculation at any time by clicking cancel
- Calculate Range (Alt+Ctl+R)
- Calculate Sheet (Alt+Ctl+S)
- Calculate All (Alt+Ctl+A)
- GL Wand calculation on
- GL Wand calculation off
Calculate Range Sheet or All
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what is recalculated
To calculate a range of cells simply
1 Highlight the range
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Rangerdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+R shortcut key
3 Select multiple ranges using the ctrl button (as normal in Excel)
4 Select a range and then select multiple Excel worksheets to calculate the same range on
each sheet
Please note do not use the calculate range option to recalculate the entire sheet ie by
selecting all the cells on the sheet This will take unnecessarily longer Rather use the
calculate sheet option
To calculate a sheet simply
1 Select the applicable sheet
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Sheetrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+S shortcut key
3 Selecting multiple sheets will calculate each of the selected sheets
To calculate all open workbooks simply
1 Click the ldquoCalculate Allrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+A shortcut key
57
GL Wand calculation on or off
You can use the GL Wand calculation toggle button to control when requests for calculations
are sent to the Oracle server
If you toggle GL Wand calculation ldquoOffrdquo calculation requests are not sent to the Oracle server which means you
you can manipulate a worksheet
change cell values
enter new formulae and
perform any other task that would normally cause Excel to recalculate
and the applicable functions will only return the ldquoglwPendingrdquo status and will not
actually calculate a result
This is useful during report development
To calculate the results simply click one of the three calculation buttons ldquoCalculate Range
Sheet or Allrdquo
If you leave the GL Wand calculation option ldquoOnrdquo the applicable functions will be recalculated whenever Excel initiates a calculation process eg
when changing the contents of the cell
changing one of the functions input values deleting a column or row in the worksheet etc
Please note that the GL Wand calculation option has nothing to do with Excel‟s automatic
and manual calculation The GL Wand calculation option controls only the calculation of the
applicable GL Wand functions All other calculations are controlled as normal by the Excel
automatic and manual calculation option
Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
When you perform a recalculation a window will appear to show the progress of the
calculation
58
If you would like to cancel the calculation process simply click the ldquoCancelrdquo button
Please note that GL Wand will need to wait for the next reply from Oracle before the
connection can be closed Therefore it may take some time before the calculation stops and
the window closes
Snapshot
- Snapshot
The snapshot tool can be used to take a snapshot of your GL Wand report This tool will
remove all the GL Wand functions from the workbook and will replace them with the values that the function returned
The results are similar to using the Excel ldquopaste valuesrdquo functionality However this process will only replace GL Wand formulas All other Excel formulas will be left as they were
Please note that you cannot take a snapshot of a protected worksheet rather output the
sheet to PDF format for archive and distribution purposes
When producing a snapshot GL Wand will request a name for the new workbook You can
select an existing workbook and GL Wand will give you the option to append the snapshot
results to the existing workbook or overwrite the existing workbook You therefore have the
option of producing various snapshot reports and combining them into one new workbook in a single operation rather than producing a separate workbook for each snapshot
Hide zeros
- Hide zeros in selected range
Select a report range that contains rows where all the numbers are zero Click the hide zeros
button and GL Wand will hide all the rows in the selected range where all the cells containing
numbers are zero This is very useful for formatting a report which includes many rows
where for example a number of accounts are not used in a particular cost centre or have no
59
balances in a certain period At the click of a button you can hide all the rows that contain only zeros
Select the entire report range when using the hide zeros function GL Wand checks the
selected range for zeros when determining which rows to hide
Excel automatically forces a recalculation of Get Balance formulas when you hide rows on a
report This is normal Excel functionality
This feature can be used on any Excel worksheet and is not limited to GL Wand reports
Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Undo the last hide zeros operation
Click this button to automatically undo the last hide zeros operation
Drill downs
- Drill to default Balance layout
- Drill to default Journal layout
- Drill to default Sub Ledger layout
The drill down options allow you to extract additional detail about a specific ldquoGet Balancerdquo function
1 Select a cell that contains a valid Get Balance function
2 Click on the drill to balance button
3 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
4 The criteria sheet will be populated with the criteria from the Get Balance function
5 The drill down to balance detail will be executed showing all the detailed accounts that make up the total in the Get Balance function
60
See the Create Drill Criteria Sheet section for more details and options on the drill down criteria sheet
Budget variance analysis If you select two cells on the GL Wand report eg one cell with
actual values and one with budget numbers GL Wand will perform a drill down on the Get
Balance function and display the actual and budget values next to each other and a
calculated variance
You now have a variety of options which can be performed from the drill down workbook
1 Modify the parameters on the criteria sheet and perform a new drill to balance Drop
down lists are provided for most of the parameters see the Create Drill Criteria Sheet for
more details
2 Create a summary drill down report
3 If you have performed a balance drill down you can select the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet and then
click drill down to journal details after selecting one or more rows with accounts
4 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo sheet and then click the button to drill down to the full journal
after selecting one or more rows with journal lines The full journal with all the contra
entries for the selected journal lines will be displayed
5 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo or ldquoJournal-Fullrdquo sheet and then click sub-ledger drill down after
selecting one or more rows with journal lines 6 Drill down to Global Consolidation System transactions
When drilling down you have the following options
Double click any cell on the row that you wish to drill down on
61
Select any cell in the row that you want to drill down on and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar
Highlight a range of rows and click the applicable drill down button on the GL Wand
toolbar to drill down on multiple lines at once
Highlight non contiguous rows using the ldquoCtrlrdquo button and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar to drill down on multiple lines which are not adjacent to each other
It is possible to drill from a Get Balance formula directly to the journal or sub ledger
information Similarly you can drill from a detailed balance (on the Balance worksheet)
directly to the sub ledger information If you select these options GL Wand will execute the
interim drill steps automatically Be careful when performing a drill down directly to the
journal or sub ledger detail level as these drill down operations may return many records
GL Wand will automatically group the drill down to journals and sub ledger information using
Excel‟s group and outline functionality This will allow you expand and collapse the data to
show just a portion of the report Headings are also inserted on the journal and sub-ledger drill down to make the report easier to read
On the sub-ledger drill down the heading includes a number in brackets eg ldquo(23) Journal
Name 123rdquo The number indicates which Excel row these sub-ledger lines originated from on
the ldquoJournalsrdquo sheet
You can use the remove drill down report headings button to strip out the headings on
the journal and sub-ledger drill down sheets
A couple of important things to note about drill downs
GL Wand will first count the number of rows that will be retrieved by the drill down
operation
If the row count is more than 1000 you will receive a warning message asking you if
you want to continue
If the row count is more than the defined limit (see Query Limit) you will receive a
warning and the drill down will be cancelled
If the row count is more than the number of rows available in your version of Excel
you will receive an error and the drill down will be cancelled
When you drill down to journal details the ldquoBalance Typerdquo parameter controls how
much detail is returned If this parameter is ldquoPTDrdquo only the current period‟s journals
are returned If this parameter is ldquoYTDrdquo then all the journals for the year are returned and likewise ldquoQTDrdquo will show the journal for the quarter
Ensure that the worksheet is calculated before performing any drill down functions Also
ensure that the cell contains a ldquoGet Balancerdquo function with valid parameter information
A new drill down workbook will be created each time you perform a drill down operation from
a Get Balance function Once you are finished with a drill down workbook simply close it
without saving
You cannot drill down to journal detail on translated balances
Oracle Global Consolidation System
Drill down to Oracle Global Consolidation System (GCS) transactions is also supported
These items will appear on the journal drill down report with a source and category of
62
ldquoConsolidationrdquo If you execute a normal drill down to Sub Ledger on these transactions a
new GL Wand drill workbook will be created and the drill down to the subsidiary set of books will be executed
In order to drill down on a GCS transaction you must be logged on the parent as well as the
subsidiary set of books This can be done using the Multiple Sets of Books logon option
Summary Balance Drill Down
On the drill down Criteria sheet toggle the summarization option to ldquoYrdquo for any segment that
you which to summaries by GL Wand creates a summary trial balance report and
summarizes by the selected segments The report can still be expanded to show the detailed
lines and you can still drill down to journals from these lines
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
32
GL Wand finds the next period name after Jan-07 in the Set of Books calendar and enters this value in the cell below the one that you started in
You can also use the ldquoDiscover Down Allrdquo ldquoDiscover Previousrdquo ldquoDiscover Rightrdquo ldquoDiscover Right Allrdquo and ldquoDiscover Leftrdquo buttons to discover period names
Discover Properties
- Discover segment properties
The ldquoDiscover Propertiesrdquo button will extract a variety of information about the selected segment value
To use this function
1 Select a cell(s) with a valid segment value in it
2 Make sure the correct segment is selected in the segment selector
3 Click the Discover Properties button
The cells to the right of the selected cell are populated with segment information
The first cell indicates the segment description the second cell indicates if the value is a
parent or not (Y means the segment value is a parent) the third cell indicates if the segment
value is enabled or not (Y means that the segment value is enabled) and the fourth cell
indicates what account type the segment value is eg Asset or Liability etc Obviously the forth cell is only valid for the natural account segment
33
Discover Child Ranges
- Discover child ranges
The ldquoDiscover Child Rangesrdquo button can be used to show the child values that are assigned to a particular parent value
1 Select a cell that has a parent segment value
2 Identify its segment number to the GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the segment list dropdown
3 Now click on the ldquoDiscover Child Rangesrdquo button
An Excel note is added to the cell showing the ranges that have been assigned to the selected parent This is useful for understanding and exploring your Chart of Accounts
Discover Hierarchy
To discover the hierarchy for a segment proceed as follows
Enter the starting segment value into an Excel cell This value must be a parent for
the segment you are using
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
Select ldquoDiscover Hierarchyrdquo from the Discover menu
GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy for the selected parent and display it in the
Excel worksheet indenting the various levels in the hierarchy
34
Toggle Discover Level
- Toggle discover level
The ldquoDiscover levelrdquo button is used to restrict the segment values that are returned by the discover tools to parent values only child values only or both parent and child values
When you click on this button it toggles from discovering parents and children to discovering parents only to discovering child values only
For example
1 Select a cell and enter a starting segment value
2 Choose the segment from the segment list
3 Click the discover level until the option is set to ldquoDiscovering Parentsrdquo 4 Now highlight a range of cells and click the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button
GL Wand fills the selected range with the next segment values but skips all child values and
returns only parent values Similarly child values can be discovered by toggling the discover level to ldquoDiscovering childrenrdquo
If you want to discover both parent and children toggle the discover level back to
ldquoDiscovering parents and childrenrdquo
All segment values must be entered using the Excel text format Either format the cell using
the text number format or enter the cell value using the apostrophe bdquo character which marks
the contents of the cell as text eg if you want to enter the segment value 001 enter it as
follows bdquo001
Expand
- Expand
You can perform an expand down to the lowest level children (explained below) or you can expand using the hierarchy going down one level or expanding the full hierarchy
The Expand feature allows you to extract a list of all the lowest level child values that roll up
to a particular segment selection This might be a parent value range wild card or a
combination of these options
1 Select a cell that has a segment selection eg a parent value
2 Identify its segment number to the GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
3 Click the expand button 4 The child values are retrieved from Oracle and are inserted below the selected cell
35
You can also highlight a number of columns and GL Wand will insert the child values and copy the contents of the highlighted cells against each child value that is inserted
1 Select a cell that has a segment selection and highlight the number of columns that you
would like to have copied into the new rows
2 Identify its segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
3 Click the expand button
4 The child values are retrieved from Oracle and are inserted below the selected cell
5 The contents of the additional columns that were selected are copied against each new
row inserted In the example below this contains a generic Get Balance formula which is then resolved for each child value
You also have the option of selecting multiple rows when performing an Expand GL Wand will perform an expand on each selected row
The expand feature can also be used with account combinations Please see the Special Get
Balance Criteria section for details on how this works
Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Expand feature except that it will
expand using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the values one level down the hierarchy and list them below the starting cell
Expand Hierarchy (Full)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Expand feature except that it will
expand using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy and list all the values below the starting cell indenting the various levels in the hierarchy
36
Undo Expand
- Undo Expand
The expand operation inserts rows into the worksheet to allow the child data to be
populated If you would like to quickly remove the expand data click the undo expand button GL Wand will remove the inserted data from the most recent expand operation
Please note that the expand operation formats the inserted rows in a particular way eg the
segment values are indented The undo expand operation relies on this formatting in order
to process correctly If you modify the formatting of the expanded rows the undo expand
may not function correctly
Refresh Expand
- Refresh Expand
The expand operation fetches the child data that meets the criteria that you enter and
inserts it into new rows in the workbook This data may change over time eg you may
expand a parent value and over time the definition of that parent is modified Use the refresh expand button to retrieve the most recent data from Oracle as follows
Highlight the entire range of expanded data
This must include the criteria row that drives the expand operation eg the row
containing the parent value
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
Click the refresh expand button
GL Wand will remove the old expand data and will refresh the expand with the latest information
Please note that the expand operation formats the inserted rows in a particular way eg the
segment values are indented The refresh expand operation relies on this formatting in order
to process correctly If you modify the formatting of the expanded rows the refresh expand
may not function correctly
Explode Report
- Explode report
You can perform an explode down to the lowest level children (explained below) or you can explode using the hierarchy going down one level or expanding the full hierarchy
Explode report works in a similar way to the expand feature The difference is that where
expand inserts a new row in the worksheet for each child value found explode creates a new worksheet in the current workbook for each child value found For example
Start with a complete GL Wand report
Select the cell in the report that drive the Get Balance formulas eg a department
parent value in the report header
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
37
Click the explode report button
GL Wand will duplicate the worksheet for each child value found for the selected parent
Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Explode feature except that it will
Explode using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the values one level down the hierarchy and create a new worksheet for each value
Explode Hierarchy (Full)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Explode feature except that it will
Explode using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy and create a new worksheet for
each value
Open List of Values
- Open list of values
The segment list of values form can be used to search through the segment values and
descriptions for a specific segment First pick the segment from the segment list
dropdown and then click the segment list of values button The list of values for the chosen
segment is displayed
You can enter a value to search for in the find box The list of values will be filtered to show
only items that match the text entered in the find box The text entered in the find box is
38
compared to the segment value and segment description An item will be included in the results if either field contains the text entered in the find box
In the list section you can start entering a segment value (eg Account number) and the list will scroll to the item matching the values that you have entered
Click the ldquoAddrdquo button double click an item in the list or press enter to add the current item
to the selection list on the right You can also click and drag an item to add it to the selection list
39
If you want to add a range like ldquo1000-2000rdquo do the following
Start by adding the ldquo1000rdquo value using one of the options explained above
Then find the ldquo2000rdquo value in the master list
Ensure that the ldquo2000rdquo value is highlighted in the master list and the ldquo1000rdquo value is
highlighted in the selection list and click the ldquoAdd Rangerdquo button
You can also drag a value from the master list onto an existing value in the selection list to create a range
To remove an item from the selection list ensure that it is highlighted and then click the ldquoRemoverdquo button or press the ldquoDeleterdquo key
Every segment will have the additional value called ldquoAllrdquo Selecting this value will add a ldquordquo
to the parameter list which means ldquoAll valuesrdquo If ldquoAllrdquo is selected then all other selections will be removed and replaced with a
If you want to include certain values and exclude others you can use the ldquoAdd Excluderdquo
option This will add the highlighted value to the selection list prefixed by the reserved exclude character ldquo~rdquo
40
You can add any combination of the options mentioned above to produce your own
calculation
Once you have added all the required segment values to the selection list click ldquoOKrdquo to copy
the list to the clipboard You can then paste these values into a Get Balance function or
anywhere else on the Excel sheet
41
Create List of Values
- Create list of values
This feature can be used to quickly format a cell to be a special list of values cell There are
two types The first type inserts a drop down list of values in the cell and is used for balance
types translated flags and actual flags
The second type creates a link to the standard list of values form It is used for segment values periods and balance and encumbrance names
The cell is identified by a note containing the word ldquoLOVrdquo In order to open the list of values
simply double click the cell or select the cell and click the List of Values button on the
toolbar This will open the list of values form for the specific data type that the list of values cell was created for In the example this was the department segment
The checkbox allows you to link the list of values to a specific set of books This option is only applicable if you have the Multiple Sets of Books feature enabled
42
Functions
The GL Wand functions work in a similar way to any other Excel worksheet function You
provide the required parameters and the results of the function are returned to the Excel
cell The difference being that GL Wand functions retrieve information from your Oracle Applications system
GL Wand currently has the following functions
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value
- Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
43
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
Split Text
Combine Text
Functional Currency
Get Daily Rate
You can enter a function into an Excel cell in a number of ways
Click the applicable button on the GL Wand toolbar (or on the GL Wand menu)
Type the function name into the cell manually prefixed by an = sign
You can select the function from the list that Excel provides when you choose the
Insert Function menu item The GL Wand functions are listed under the special GL
Wand category (Prior to Excel 2007 they are listed in the User Defined category)
If you click the applicable function button on the toolbar and the cell you are in contains that
function the Excel formula wizard window will open If you click a function button in a cell
that contains other data GL Wand will warn you that it is going to replace the contents of the cell with the chosen formula and will give you the option of cancelling the action
All parameters must be entered as text values ie enclosed in double quotes eg enter
ldquoUSDrdquo when entering the currency code or enter ldquo001rdquo when entering a segment value
See ldquoDiscovering versus Functionsrdquo for a comparison extracting information using the
discover tools or the functions
44
Get Balance
The Get Balance function is probably the most important function in GL Wand It returns a
General Ledger balance individually or summed based on the parameters that you enter
Example =Get_Balance(Jan-02YTDUSDEABIS CORPORATE01T4000-41600000000)
Clicking the Get Balance function on the GL Wand toolbar will open the Get Balance Wizard
This form has lists of values for items like period name balance type actual flag etc Select
the applicable values and enter a valid currency code and budget or encumbrance name if required
Double clicking a segment value or clicking the list of values button next to the segment will
open the segment list of values form for that segment See the Segment List of Values
section for details on how to use this form When you click the ldquoOKrdquo button on the Segment
List of Values form the selected segment parameters are entered against that segment in the Get Balance Wizard form
If your Oracle configuration includes dependant segments as part of the accounting
flexfield this form will support selecting values based on the independent and dependant
segment values Simply select a value from the available list of values for the independent
segment Then open the list of values for the dependant segment The list of available values
will be limited to only those values that are related to the selected independent segment
value
When you have entered all the parameters click the ldquoOKrdquo button to insert the Get Balance
function into the selected cell with the entered parameters Clicking the ldquoEditrdquo button will
open the Get Balance function in the Excel formula wizard form which will allow you to link
parameters to cells in the Excel sheet
45
You can also open the Get Balance formula in the Excel formula wizard form using the fx
button on the formula bar or by selecting the ldquoInsert Functionrdquo menu item on the Excel menu bar
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Type ldquoCTDrdquo
(Custom to Date) you can specify a custom period selection For
example ldquoFeb-07-Aug-07rdquo will add all the movement for the entered
period range You may enter multiple lists or ranges of periods and can use wild cards as well eg ldquoJan-0rdquo or ldquo-07rdquo
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Types ldquoJEDrdquo
ldquoJEDUrdquo or ldquoJEDPrdquo (Journal Effective Date) the period parameter
becomes a date parameter eg ldquo01012007-0501200710012007rdquo
The format that your date is in is important The ldquo-ldquo character is
used in GL Wand to denote a range of values and therefore it cannot
be used as a date delimiter eg 01-01-2007 would not be valid So
take care if your Windows regional setting use the ldquo-ldquo as a date
delimiter For JED type calculations we recommend that you use the
ldquordquo as a date delimiter and that you always format the date as text
in Excel otherwise Excel will convert the date based on your regional
setting
Balance Type YTD QTD PTD PJTD CTD JED JEDP or JEDU all in upper case
YTD ndash Summarizes the full years balance
QTD ndash Summarizes the balance for the quarter
46
PTD ndash Includes just the current period‟s movement
PJTD ndash Project to date
CTD ndash Summarizes the custom period criteria entered
JED ndash Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for both posted and unposted journals
JEDP - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for posted journals only
JEDU - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered dates for unposted journals only
Currency Code The currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
Translated Flag Enter E T or C Use E to retrieve the entered amount and T for the
translated amount Use C to report on the converted amount ie
the functional currency equivalent of a foreign currency amount
Only E is valid if requesting a balance for the functional currency of the current Set of Books
You must ensure that you have run the currency translation process
in Oracle for the selected currency and period before reporting on
translated balances If you enter T to request the translated balance
and there is no current translated balance available in the system a zero is returned
Oracle Release 12 provides a new feature to allow reporting on the
values entered in the functional currency only ie excludes any
foreign currency transactions converted to the functional currency
Therefore in Release 12 if you use the E (entered) flag in
conjunction with the functional currency any converted amounts will
be excluded To report on the total balance (including values entered
in functional currency and values converted to the functional
currency) use the new ldquoTotalrdquo option This option is only available if
you log on to a release 12 Oracle instance
Actual Flag A ndash Actual B ndash Budget E ndash Encumbrance
Bud Encumb Name If you enter B or E above enter the exact budget name or
encumbrance type here Otherwise simply enter ldquordquo for actual
balances
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter the segment value here You must enter it as a text value
including any leading zeros eg enter segment value ldquo10rdquo as ldquo0010rdquo
if this segment is configured as four characters with leading zeros in Oracle
You may enter your segment values in a variety of flexible ways
including parents child values ranges wildcards excludes etc See
the explanation below on valid values for this parameter
To include all values simply enter ldquordquo Please note as from GL Wand
3850 you can no longer leave the segment blank a value is
required
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
47
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Options This parameter is used to modify the results returned by the Get
Balance function from the standard behavior Currently two options are supported
Source ndash Limit the results to a specific journal source
Category ndash Limit the results to a specific journal category
The criteria needs to be entered as follows - ldquoSource=Manualrdquo or
ldquoCategory=Adjustmentrdquo To specify both a source and category use
the ldquo|rdquo as a delimiter eg ldquoSource=Manual|Category=Adjustmentrdquo
You can specify multiple values by separating them with ldquordquo eg
ldquoSource=PayablesReceivablesrdquo
When creating Get Balance formulas always use ldquordquo to denote all values as this allows more
efficient SQL to be generated Do not use a range like ldquo000-ZZZrdquo as they will require
unnecessary processing
The segment value parameters can be entered as
a single value representing a child or parent account eg ldquo1500rdquo might represent a
parent account
a range of values eg entering ldquo1500-1600rdquo in one of the segment parameters will
sum all the segment values between 1500 and 1600 for that segment
a list of segment values eg entering ldquo150015101590rdquo in one of the segment
parameters will sum the specific segment values entered If any of the segment
values are parents GL Wand will sum the hierarchy for that parent
wild card entries eg 100 will sum 1100 1200 1300 1400 etc or entering the
value 1 will sum all values that start with 1
values to be included and then specific exclusions eg ldquo1000-2000~1500rdquo will sum
the values between 1000 and 2000 but will skip 1500
a combination of any of the above eg 1000-2000237123752560-
25803000~32004000~4161-4169 In this way you can build up your own calculation definition in the segment parameter
Please note ndash there are two additional methods for specifying segment criteria in the Get
Balance function The one allows you to specify account combinations and the other
allows the use of segment descriptive flexfields Please see the Special Get Balance
Criteria section in order to use these options
Segment Description
Returns the segment description for the chosen segment value
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
48
Example =Get_Segment_Description(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
Returns the next or previous segment value
Parameter Description
Last Value The starting segment value
Segment The segment number
Level Enter a P to return the next or previous parent value enter a C to
return the next or previous child value or leave the parameter blank
to return the next or previous segment value irrespective of whether
it is a parent or child
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example = Next_Segment_Value(ldquo1000rdquo3P)
Parent Flag
Returns the parent flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is a
parent
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Parent_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Enabled Flag
Returns the enabled flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is
enabled
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example = Enabled_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
49
Account Type
Returns the account type for the chosen segment value This function is only applicable for
the natural account segment and will return the value Asset Liability etc
Parameter Description
Account Value The account segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Account_Type(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Period Name
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number Optionally the returned value can be a certain number of periods into the future or past
Parameter Description
PeriodYear The year that you want the period name for
PeriodNumber The period number that you want the period name for
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Offset Optionally enter an offset to return the period name which is n
periods before or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3
periods into the future or -1 to return the previous period
Example =Period_Name(20063)
Set of Books Name
Returns the set of books name for the chosen set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Set_of_Books_Name()
Segment Descriptive Flexfield
Returns the segment values descriptive flexfield for the selected criteria
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
50
Segment The segment number
AttributeNo Identify which attribute you want to report on The segment values
descriptive flexfield has 50 possible attribute values The applicable
attributes will depend on your configuration and whether this
Descriptive Flexfield is used by your organization
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Segment_DFF(ldquo100rdquo25) retrieves the 5th attribute on the segment values
descriptive flexfield for segment value 100 on segment 2
Period Offset
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for
this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
Offset Enter an offset to return the period name which is n periods before
or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3 periods into the
future or -1 to return the previous period
RetRange Enter TRUE (or 1) to return the result as a range eg entering
period Mar-07 with an offset of -2 and the RetRange set to true will
return ldquoJan-07-Mar-07rdquo This can be used in conjunction with the
CTD (Custom to Date) balance type in the Get Balance function to
create rolling period reporting
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Period_Offset(Jan-07-2TRUE)
Split Text
Splits delimited text and returns a specific portion based on an offset Especially useful to
split account combinations but can be used to split any text
Parameter Description
Value Some text which has been concatenated using a delimiter eg an
account combination like ldquo011007000rdquo
Offset Identify which portion of the text to return
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Split_Text(0110070002) will return the ldquo100rdquo portion of the text
51
Combine Text
Combines selected text separated by a delimiter Especially useful to combine segment
values to create a delimited account combinations but can be used to combine any text
Parameter Description
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter segment values that you wish to combine into an account
combination
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Combine_Text(011007000) will return ldquo011007000rdquo
Functional Currency
Returns the functional currency for the set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Functional_Currency()
Get Daily Rate
Returns the daily exchange rate for the entered criteria
Parameter Description
FromCurrency The ldquoFromrdquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case
eg ldquoUSDrdquo
ToCurrency The ldquoTordquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
ConversionType The conversion type as configured in Oracle Spelling and case must
be identical to the Oracle configuration
ConversionDate The conversion date This must be in Excel date format Either refer
to a cell which contains a date or use one of the Excel date functions
to return a date in the parameter
Example =Get_Daily_Rate(USDGBPReportingDATE(200911))
Function return values
The GL Wand functions will return a variety of results depending on a number of factors If
all the information is entered correctly and there are no restrictions on access to the data or
the GL Wand itself the result should be the General Ledger balance segment value segment description etc However the following are also possible return values
glwDemo ndash this means that you are using GL Wand without a valid trial key entered
into the GL Wand License Key profile option When trying GL Wand without a valid
52
trial key you are only allowed to use the first 20 rows and 20 columns of the first
sheet in the workbook Any formula entered outside this range will not calculate a
value but will only return the word ldquoglwDemordquo This is called evaluation mode A
trial key needs to be requested from within GL Wand and entered into the profile
option to allow full access to all functionality
glwNoAccess ndash When you log on you will be prompted for your applications user name
and password and will then need to select a responsibility to log on to Any security
rules that have been linked to the selected responsibility will be enforced on the GL
Wand data If you attempt to access a balance on a general ledger account that you
do not have access to the function will return the word ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo Please see
the ldquoAudit Get Balancerdquo section for information on how to identify the security rule that is being contravened
Please note that Oracles Hierarchical Security is not supported
glwError ndash If you enter invalid information in a parameter for a GL Wand function the
GL Wand error value will be returned This may happen when you for example
enter an invalid budget name or period name in the Get Balance function or when you
enter an invalid segment number in the next segment value function This error value
will also be returned when you are not logged on The details of the return value will
indicate where the problem exists eg glwError (Logon) glwError (Balance Type)
glwError (Translated Flag) glwError (Actual Flag) glwError (Missing segment)
glwError (Data error) glwError (Range) glwError (Period)
glwPending ndash This value will be returned during the calculation process Whenever a
cell requires calculation and the process has not been completed yet the cell will
contain the value ldquoglwPendingrdquo
glwEditing ndash Displays in the Excel function arguments window when editing a Get Balance formula
Discovering versus Functions
You may have noticed that you can achieve similar results by using the discover tools and
using the functions For example you could use the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button to retrieve the
next segment value or you could use the ldquoNext Segment Valuerdquo function to return the same result The difference between these two approaches is as follows
Com
paris
on b
etw
een D
iscoverin
g a
nd
Functio
ns
Discovering Functions
Results returned as text string to Excel
cell
Value is calculated based on
parameters
Value is static Value is dynamic
Never changes Recalculated when sheet refreshed
Lower performance overhead Higher performance overhead
Discover Down Next Segment Value
Discover Up Previous Segment Value
Discover Left Next Segment Value
Discover Right Previous Segment Value
Discover Properties
Segment Description
Parent flag
53
Enabled Flag
Account Type
Discover Child Ranges No equivalent
Toggle Discover Level
Parameters of next segment value
determine whether parents children or
both are returned
Use the discover buttons with ldquoPeriodrdquo
selected in the segment drop down Period Name
Balance Extract is similar to Get
Balance though the static values it
produces are refreshable
Get Balance
Special Get Balance Criteria
GL Wand supports two special types of criteria in the Get Balance function namely ldquoAccount
Combinationsrdquo and ldquoSegment Descriptive Flexfieldrdquo criteria These two forms of the Get
Balance criteria have very specific syntax which must be carefully adhered to in order to
achieve the correct results You also have the ability to expand account combinations for a
selection that uses the ldquoAccount Combinationrdquo criteria
Account Combinations
In the past the Get Balance function only supported individual segment values eg segment
2 = 100 or 200 and segment 3 = 1000 or 2000 This would result in GL Wand returning all the possible combinations of those segment 2 and 3 values
Now you have the ability to specify account combinations using the new Get Balance syntax
This means that you can create new complex criteria for your Get Balance formula eg
(segment 2 = 100 and segment 3 = 1000) or (segment 2 = 200 and segment 3 = 2000)
With these criteria GL Wand will no longer return all the possible combinations but rather only the combinations you specify
In order to specify account combinations in a Get Balance function you must tell GL Wand
which segments you are combining You do this by entering a special value into the segment
eg if you want to combine criteria for segment 2 and segment 3 you would enter the
following in the parameter for segment 2 ldquoUse_Seg3rdquo This tells GL Wand that that it must
find the criteria for segment 2 inside the segment 3 parameter In the segment 3 parameter
you now enter the criteria for both segment 2 and segment 3 separated by the special
delimiter character eg ldquo1001000rdquo This tells GL Wand that you are looking for accounts where segment 2 is 100 and segment 3 is 1000 An example could look like this
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg3100100020020000000000)
It is possible to combine multiple segments as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg5Use_Seg5Use_Seg510010000000000)
54
You simply point each applicable segment to the parameter where the account combination
using the special ldquoUse_SegXrdquo syntax Then inside the target parameter you combine the fully qualified account combination for the applicable segments delimited with a ldquordquo character
When you specify your account combination you have full flexibility to use ranges lists wild
cards parents and exclude criteria For example this criteria will fetch all the values where
segment 2 is between 100 and 200 and segment 3 is between 1000 and 2000 And in
addition to that it will include the values where segment 2 is 250 (a parent) and segment 3
starts with 33 but will exclude the specific value where segment 2 is 250 and segment 3 is
3320
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA01Use_Seg31001000-200200025033~25033200000000)
You also have the flexibility to group different parts of the account combination together For
example this criteria combines the values for segment 1 and 3 together and combines segment 2 and 4 together
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA
Use_Seg3Use_Seg401100002115010000002001050000)
These new Get Balance syntax options provide you with tremendous flexibility when building your GL Wand reports
Expand Account Combinations
The expand feature allows you to extract all the detailed child segment values that roll up to
the criteria that the user specifies The expand feature has been extended to support account combinations
In order to expand an account combination you would do the following
Ensure that the correct set of books is selected in the drop down list on the GL Wand
toolbar
Select the cell containing the account combination criteria eg ldquo1007000rdquo Click the expand button
GL Wand will now identify that the selected cell contains an account combination rather than
a single segment value You will now be presented with a window to identify which segments from your chart of accounts are represented in the account combination
55
Select the correct segments and click ldquoOKrdquo GL Wand will now extract all the child
combinations that roll up to the criteria that you entered and insert them into the Excel sheet
The other options are as follows
Fix ndash if you tick this option for a segment GL Wand will ldquopegrdquo that segment using the
selected value (this option only makes sense for a parent segment value) You might
for example want to expand all the account combinations used in a particular parent
cost centre Simply ldquoFixrdquo the cost centre segment and GL Wand will return all the
account combinations used within that parent cost centre
Exclude disabled account combination ndash tick this option to only return account combinations that are currently enabled and have not been end dated
The expand account combinations feature can be used as a normal GL Wand ldquoExpandrdquo in
order to extract the detail behind a total but it is also very useful to extract existing account combinations from your Oracle system
This feature can be used very effectively with the Split Text and Combine Text functions
Segment Descriptive Flexfields
In order to extract balances using the descriptive flexfields stored on the segment values
you need to use special syntax in the Get Balance function The syntax works as follows
1ABC
You wrap the descriptive flexfield using curly brackets
The first character after the open bracket identifies which descriptive flexfield
attribute is being referred to
You then separate the descriptive flexfield attribute from the actual value using a ldquordquo You then specify the criteria for this attribute
An example Get Balance function would look as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC10000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield on segment 2 is equal to the value ldquoABCrdquo
It is possible to specify criteria for multiple descriptive flexfields as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC2XX10000000000)
Simply wrap each descriptive flexfield value in its own and identify the attribute number
At this stage the descriptive flexfield criteria is restricted to a single value or a single range
of values Lists of values and multiple ranges are not supported A range can be specified
using the special range delimiter ldquo|rdquo (pipe character) This character is different to the range
character that is used for normal Get Balance segment parameters The reason is that the
normal range delimiter ldquo-ldquo may easily be used in a segment descriptive flexfields and
therefore is not suitable In future you will be able to configure your own range delimiter
56
character which will provide the best flexibility The range criteria can be specified as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011100|20010000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield
on segment 2 is between 100 and 200 Date values are also supported in this criteria and GL Wand will correctly derive the ldquobetweenrdquo criteria for a date
Calculating
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what cells are refreshed from
Oracle They are used in conjunction with the GL Wand calculation option (onoff) You can stop a calculation at any time by clicking cancel
- Calculate Range (Alt+Ctl+R)
- Calculate Sheet (Alt+Ctl+S)
- Calculate All (Alt+Ctl+A)
- GL Wand calculation on
- GL Wand calculation off
Calculate Range Sheet or All
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what is recalculated
To calculate a range of cells simply
1 Highlight the range
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Rangerdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+R shortcut key
3 Select multiple ranges using the ctrl button (as normal in Excel)
4 Select a range and then select multiple Excel worksheets to calculate the same range on
each sheet
Please note do not use the calculate range option to recalculate the entire sheet ie by
selecting all the cells on the sheet This will take unnecessarily longer Rather use the
calculate sheet option
To calculate a sheet simply
1 Select the applicable sheet
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Sheetrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+S shortcut key
3 Selecting multiple sheets will calculate each of the selected sheets
To calculate all open workbooks simply
1 Click the ldquoCalculate Allrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+A shortcut key
57
GL Wand calculation on or off
You can use the GL Wand calculation toggle button to control when requests for calculations
are sent to the Oracle server
If you toggle GL Wand calculation ldquoOffrdquo calculation requests are not sent to the Oracle server which means you
you can manipulate a worksheet
change cell values
enter new formulae and
perform any other task that would normally cause Excel to recalculate
and the applicable functions will only return the ldquoglwPendingrdquo status and will not
actually calculate a result
This is useful during report development
To calculate the results simply click one of the three calculation buttons ldquoCalculate Range
Sheet or Allrdquo
If you leave the GL Wand calculation option ldquoOnrdquo the applicable functions will be recalculated whenever Excel initiates a calculation process eg
when changing the contents of the cell
changing one of the functions input values deleting a column or row in the worksheet etc
Please note that the GL Wand calculation option has nothing to do with Excel‟s automatic
and manual calculation The GL Wand calculation option controls only the calculation of the
applicable GL Wand functions All other calculations are controlled as normal by the Excel
automatic and manual calculation option
Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
When you perform a recalculation a window will appear to show the progress of the
calculation
58
If you would like to cancel the calculation process simply click the ldquoCancelrdquo button
Please note that GL Wand will need to wait for the next reply from Oracle before the
connection can be closed Therefore it may take some time before the calculation stops and
the window closes
Snapshot
- Snapshot
The snapshot tool can be used to take a snapshot of your GL Wand report This tool will
remove all the GL Wand functions from the workbook and will replace them with the values that the function returned
The results are similar to using the Excel ldquopaste valuesrdquo functionality However this process will only replace GL Wand formulas All other Excel formulas will be left as they were
Please note that you cannot take a snapshot of a protected worksheet rather output the
sheet to PDF format for archive and distribution purposes
When producing a snapshot GL Wand will request a name for the new workbook You can
select an existing workbook and GL Wand will give you the option to append the snapshot
results to the existing workbook or overwrite the existing workbook You therefore have the
option of producing various snapshot reports and combining them into one new workbook in a single operation rather than producing a separate workbook for each snapshot
Hide zeros
- Hide zeros in selected range
Select a report range that contains rows where all the numbers are zero Click the hide zeros
button and GL Wand will hide all the rows in the selected range where all the cells containing
numbers are zero This is very useful for formatting a report which includes many rows
where for example a number of accounts are not used in a particular cost centre or have no
59
balances in a certain period At the click of a button you can hide all the rows that contain only zeros
Select the entire report range when using the hide zeros function GL Wand checks the
selected range for zeros when determining which rows to hide
Excel automatically forces a recalculation of Get Balance formulas when you hide rows on a
report This is normal Excel functionality
This feature can be used on any Excel worksheet and is not limited to GL Wand reports
Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Undo the last hide zeros operation
Click this button to automatically undo the last hide zeros operation
Drill downs
- Drill to default Balance layout
- Drill to default Journal layout
- Drill to default Sub Ledger layout
The drill down options allow you to extract additional detail about a specific ldquoGet Balancerdquo function
1 Select a cell that contains a valid Get Balance function
2 Click on the drill to balance button
3 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
4 The criteria sheet will be populated with the criteria from the Get Balance function
5 The drill down to balance detail will be executed showing all the detailed accounts that make up the total in the Get Balance function
60
See the Create Drill Criteria Sheet section for more details and options on the drill down criteria sheet
Budget variance analysis If you select two cells on the GL Wand report eg one cell with
actual values and one with budget numbers GL Wand will perform a drill down on the Get
Balance function and display the actual and budget values next to each other and a
calculated variance
You now have a variety of options which can be performed from the drill down workbook
1 Modify the parameters on the criteria sheet and perform a new drill to balance Drop
down lists are provided for most of the parameters see the Create Drill Criteria Sheet for
more details
2 Create a summary drill down report
3 If you have performed a balance drill down you can select the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet and then
click drill down to journal details after selecting one or more rows with accounts
4 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo sheet and then click the button to drill down to the full journal
after selecting one or more rows with journal lines The full journal with all the contra
entries for the selected journal lines will be displayed
5 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo or ldquoJournal-Fullrdquo sheet and then click sub-ledger drill down after
selecting one or more rows with journal lines 6 Drill down to Global Consolidation System transactions
When drilling down you have the following options
Double click any cell on the row that you wish to drill down on
61
Select any cell in the row that you want to drill down on and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar
Highlight a range of rows and click the applicable drill down button on the GL Wand
toolbar to drill down on multiple lines at once
Highlight non contiguous rows using the ldquoCtrlrdquo button and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar to drill down on multiple lines which are not adjacent to each other
It is possible to drill from a Get Balance formula directly to the journal or sub ledger
information Similarly you can drill from a detailed balance (on the Balance worksheet)
directly to the sub ledger information If you select these options GL Wand will execute the
interim drill steps automatically Be careful when performing a drill down directly to the
journal or sub ledger detail level as these drill down operations may return many records
GL Wand will automatically group the drill down to journals and sub ledger information using
Excel‟s group and outline functionality This will allow you expand and collapse the data to
show just a portion of the report Headings are also inserted on the journal and sub-ledger drill down to make the report easier to read
On the sub-ledger drill down the heading includes a number in brackets eg ldquo(23) Journal
Name 123rdquo The number indicates which Excel row these sub-ledger lines originated from on
the ldquoJournalsrdquo sheet
You can use the remove drill down report headings button to strip out the headings on
the journal and sub-ledger drill down sheets
A couple of important things to note about drill downs
GL Wand will first count the number of rows that will be retrieved by the drill down
operation
If the row count is more than 1000 you will receive a warning message asking you if
you want to continue
If the row count is more than the defined limit (see Query Limit) you will receive a
warning and the drill down will be cancelled
If the row count is more than the number of rows available in your version of Excel
you will receive an error and the drill down will be cancelled
When you drill down to journal details the ldquoBalance Typerdquo parameter controls how
much detail is returned If this parameter is ldquoPTDrdquo only the current period‟s journals
are returned If this parameter is ldquoYTDrdquo then all the journals for the year are returned and likewise ldquoQTDrdquo will show the journal for the quarter
Ensure that the worksheet is calculated before performing any drill down functions Also
ensure that the cell contains a ldquoGet Balancerdquo function with valid parameter information
A new drill down workbook will be created each time you perform a drill down operation from
a Get Balance function Once you are finished with a drill down workbook simply close it
without saving
You cannot drill down to journal detail on translated balances
Oracle Global Consolidation System
Drill down to Oracle Global Consolidation System (GCS) transactions is also supported
These items will appear on the journal drill down report with a source and category of
62
ldquoConsolidationrdquo If you execute a normal drill down to Sub Ledger on these transactions a
new GL Wand drill workbook will be created and the drill down to the subsidiary set of books will be executed
In order to drill down on a GCS transaction you must be logged on the parent as well as the
subsidiary set of books This can be done using the Multiple Sets of Books logon option
Summary Balance Drill Down
On the drill down Criteria sheet toggle the summarization option to ldquoYrdquo for any segment that
you which to summaries by GL Wand creates a summary trial balance report and
summarizes by the selected segments The report can still be expanded to show the detailed
lines and you can still drill down to journals from these lines
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
33
Discover Child Ranges
- Discover child ranges
The ldquoDiscover Child Rangesrdquo button can be used to show the child values that are assigned to a particular parent value
1 Select a cell that has a parent segment value
2 Identify its segment number to the GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the segment list dropdown
3 Now click on the ldquoDiscover Child Rangesrdquo button
An Excel note is added to the cell showing the ranges that have been assigned to the selected parent This is useful for understanding and exploring your Chart of Accounts
Discover Hierarchy
To discover the hierarchy for a segment proceed as follows
Enter the starting segment value into an Excel cell This value must be a parent for
the segment you are using
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
Select ldquoDiscover Hierarchyrdquo from the Discover menu
GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy for the selected parent and display it in the
Excel worksheet indenting the various levels in the hierarchy
34
Toggle Discover Level
- Toggle discover level
The ldquoDiscover levelrdquo button is used to restrict the segment values that are returned by the discover tools to parent values only child values only or both parent and child values
When you click on this button it toggles from discovering parents and children to discovering parents only to discovering child values only
For example
1 Select a cell and enter a starting segment value
2 Choose the segment from the segment list
3 Click the discover level until the option is set to ldquoDiscovering Parentsrdquo 4 Now highlight a range of cells and click the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button
GL Wand fills the selected range with the next segment values but skips all child values and
returns only parent values Similarly child values can be discovered by toggling the discover level to ldquoDiscovering childrenrdquo
If you want to discover both parent and children toggle the discover level back to
ldquoDiscovering parents and childrenrdquo
All segment values must be entered using the Excel text format Either format the cell using
the text number format or enter the cell value using the apostrophe bdquo character which marks
the contents of the cell as text eg if you want to enter the segment value 001 enter it as
follows bdquo001
Expand
- Expand
You can perform an expand down to the lowest level children (explained below) or you can expand using the hierarchy going down one level or expanding the full hierarchy
The Expand feature allows you to extract a list of all the lowest level child values that roll up
to a particular segment selection This might be a parent value range wild card or a
combination of these options
1 Select a cell that has a segment selection eg a parent value
2 Identify its segment number to the GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
3 Click the expand button 4 The child values are retrieved from Oracle and are inserted below the selected cell
35
You can also highlight a number of columns and GL Wand will insert the child values and copy the contents of the highlighted cells against each child value that is inserted
1 Select a cell that has a segment selection and highlight the number of columns that you
would like to have copied into the new rows
2 Identify its segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
3 Click the expand button
4 The child values are retrieved from Oracle and are inserted below the selected cell
5 The contents of the additional columns that were selected are copied against each new
row inserted In the example below this contains a generic Get Balance formula which is then resolved for each child value
You also have the option of selecting multiple rows when performing an Expand GL Wand will perform an expand on each selected row
The expand feature can also be used with account combinations Please see the Special Get
Balance Criteria section for details on how this works
Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Expand feature except that it will
expand using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the values one level down the hierarchy and list them below the starting cell
Expand Hierarchy (Full)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Expand feature except that it will
expand using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy and list all the values below the starting cell indenting the various levels in the hierarchy
36
Undo Expand
- Undo Expand
The expand operation inserts rows into the worksheet to allow the child data to be
populated If you would like to quickly remove the expand data click the undo expand button GL Wand will remove the inserted data from the most recent expand operation
Please note that the expand operation formats the inserted rows in a particular way eg the
segment values are indented The undo expand operation relies on this formatting in order
to process correctly If you modify the formatting of the expanded rows the undo expand
may not function correctly
Refresh Expand
- Refresh Expand
The expand operation fetches the child data that meets the criteria that you enter and
inserts it into new rows in the workbook This data may change over time eg you may
expand a parent value and over time the definition of that parent is modified Use the refresh expand button to retrieve the most recent data from Oracle as follows
Highlight the entire range of expanded data
This must include the criteria row that drives the expand operation eg the row
containing the parent value
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
Click the refresh expand button
GL Wand will remove the old expand data and will refresh the expand with the latest information
Please note that the expand operation formats the inserted rows in a particular way eg the
segment values are indented The refresh expand operation relies on this formatting in order
to process correctly If you modify the formatting of the expanded rows the refresh expand
may not function correctly
Explode Report
- Explode report
You can perform an explode down to the lowest level children (explained below) or you can explode using the hierarchy going down one level or expanding the full hierarchy
Explode report works in a similar way to the expand feature The difference is that where
expand inserts a new row in the worksheet for each child value found explode creates a new worksheet in the current workbook for each child value found For example
Start with a complete GL Wand report
Select the cell in the report that drive the Get Balance formulas eg a department
parent value in the report header
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
37
Click the explode report button
GL Wand will duplicate the worksheet for each child value found for the selected parent
Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Explode feature except that it will
Explode using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the values one level down the hierarchy and create a new worksheet for each value
Explode Hierarchy (Full)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Explode feature except that it will
Explode using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy and create a new worksheet for
each value
Open List of Values
- Open list of values
The segment list of values form can be used to search through the segment values and
descriptions for a specific segment First pick the segment from the segment list
dropdown and then click the segment list of values button The list of values for the chosen
segment is displayed
You can enter a value to search for in the find box The list of values will be filtered to show
only items that match the text entered in the find box The text entered in the find box is
38
compared to the segment value and segment description An item will be included in the results if either field contains the text entered in the find box
In the list section you can start entering a segment value (eg Account number) and the list will scroll to the item matching the values that you have entered
Click the ldquoAddrdquo button double click an item in the list or press enter to add the current item
to the selection list on the right You can also click and drag an item to add it to the selection list
39
If you want to add a range like ldquo1000-2000rdquo do the following
Start by adding the ldquo1000rdquo value using one of the options explained above
Then find the ldquo2000rdquo value in the master list
Ensure that the ldquo2000rdquo value is highlighted in the master list and the ldquo1000rdquo value is
highlighted in the selection list and click the ldquoAdd Rangerdquo button
You can also drag a value from the master list onto an existing value in the selection list to create a range
To remove an item from the selection list ensure that it is highlighted and then click the ldquoRemoverdquo button or press the ldquoDeleterdquo key
Every segment will have the additional value called ldquoAllrdquo Selecting this value will add a ldquordquo
to the parameter list which means ldquoAll valuesrdquo If ldquoAllrdquo is selected then all other selections will be removed and replaced with a
If you want to include certain values and exclude others you can use the ldquoAdd Excluderdquo
option This will add the highlighted value to the selection list prefixed by the reserved exclude character ldquo~rdquo
40
You can add any combination of the options mentioned above to produce your own
calculation
Once you have added all the required segment values to the selection list click ldquoOKrdquo to copy
the list to the clipboard You can then paste these values into a Get Balance function or
anywhere else on the Excel sheet
41
Create List of Values
- Create list of values
This feature can be used to quickly format a cell to be a special list of values cell There are
two types The first type inserts a drop down list of values in the cell and is used for balance
types translated flags and actual flags
The second type creates a link to the standard list of values form It is used for segment values periods and balance and encumbrance names
The cell is identified by a note containing the word ldquoLOVrdquo In order to open the list of values
simply double click the cell or select the cell and click the List of Values button on the
toolbar This will open the list of values form for the specific data type that the list of values cell was created for In the example this was the department segment
The checkbox allows you to link the list of values to a specific set of books This option is only applicable if you have the Multiple Sets of Books feature enabled
42
Functions
The GL Wand functions work in a similar way to any other Excel worksheet function You
provide the required parameters and the results of the function are returned to the Excel
cell The difference being that GL Wand functions retrieve information from your Oracle Applications system
GL Wand currently has the following functions
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value
- Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
43
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
Split Text
Combine Text
Functional Currency
Get Daily Rate
You can enter a function into an Excel cell in a number of ways
Click the applicable button on the GL Wand toolbar (or on the GL Wand menu)
Type the function name into the cell manually prefixed by an = sign
You can select the function from the list that Excel provides when you choose the
Insert Function menu item The GL Wand functions are listed under the special GL
Wand category (Prior to Excel 2007 they are listed in the User Defined category)
If you click the applicable function button on the toolbar and the cell you are in contains that
function the Excel formula wizard window will open If you click a function button in a cell
that contains other data GL Wand will warn you that it is going to replace the contents of the cell with the chosen formula and will give you the option of cancelling the action
All parameters must be entered as text values ie enclosed in double quotes eg enter
ldquoUSDrdquo when entering the currency code or enter ldquo001rdquo when entering a segment value
See ldquoDiscovering versus Functionsrdquo for a comparison extracting information using the
discover tools or the functions
44
Get Balance
The Get Balance function is probably the most important function in GL Wand It returns a
General Ledger balance individually or summed based on the parameters that you enter
Example =Get_Balance(Jan-02YTDUSDEABIS CORPORATE01T4000-41600000000)
Clicking the Get Balance function on the GL Wand toolbar will open the Get Balance Wizard
This form has lists of values for items like period name balance type actual flag etc Select
the applicable values and enter a valid currency code and budget or encumbrance name if required
Double clicking a segment value or clicking the list of values button next to the segment will
open the segment list of values form for that segment See the Segment List of Values
section for details on how to use this form When you click the ldquoOKrdquo button on the Segment
List of Values form the selected segment parameters are entered against that segment in the Get Balance Wizard form
If your Oracle configuration includes dependant segments as part of the accounting
flexfield this form will support selecting values based on the independent and dependant
segment values Simply select a value from the available list of values for the independent
segment Then open the list of values for the dependant segment The list of available values
will be limited to only those values that are related to the selected independent segment
value
When you have entered all the parameters click the ldquoOKrdquo button to insert the Get Balance
function into the selected cell with the entered parameters Clicking the ldquoEditrdquo button will
open the Get Balance function in the Excel formula wizard form which will allow you to link
parameters to cells in the Excel sheet
45
You can also open the Get Balance formula in the Excel formula wizard form using the fx
button on the formula bar or by selecting the ldquoInsert Functionrdquo menu item on the Excel menu bar
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Type ldquoCTDrdquo
(Custom to Date) you can specify a custom period selection For
example ldquoFeb-07-Aug-07rdquo will add all the movement for the entered
period range You may enter multiple lists or ranges of periods and can use wild cards as well eg ldquoJan-0rdquo or ldquo-07rdquo
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Types ldquoJEDrdquo
ldquoJEDUrdquo or ldquoJEDPrdquo (Journal Effective Date) the period parameter
becomes a date parameter eg ldquo01012007-0501200710012007rdquo
The format that your date is in is important The ldquo-ldquo character is
used in GL Wand to denote a range of values and therefore it cannot
be used as a date delimiter eg 01-01-2007 would not be valid So
take care if your Windows regional setting use the ldquo-ldquo as a date
delimiter For JED type calculations we recommend that you use the
ldquordquo as a date delimiter and that you always format the date as text
in Excel otherwise Excel will convert the date based on your regional
setting
Balance Type YTD QTD PTD PJTD CTD JED JEDP or JEDU all in upper case
YTD ndash Summarizes the full years balance
QTD ndash Summarizes the balance for the quarter
46
PTD ndash Includes just the current period‟s movement
PJTD ndash Project to date
CTD ndash Summarizes the custom period criteria entered
JED ndash Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for both posted and unposted journals
JEDP - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for posted journals only
JEDU - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered dates for unposted journals only
Currency Code The currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
Translated Flag Enter E T or C Use E to retrieve the entered amount and T for the
translated amount Use C to report on the converted amount ie
the functional currency equivalent of a foreign currency amount
Only E is valid if requesting a balance for the functional currency of the current Set of Books
You must ensure that you have run the currency translation process
in Oracle for the selected currency and period before reporting on
translated balances If you enter T to request the translated balance
and there is no current translated balance available in the system a zero is returned
Oracle Release 12 provides a new feature to allow reporting on the
values entered in the functional currency only ie excludes any
foreign currency transactions converted to the functional currency
Therefore in Release 12 if you use the E (entered) flag in
conjunction with the functional currency any converted amounts will
be excluded To report on the total balance (including values entered
in functional currency and values converted to the functional
currency) use the new ldquoTotalrdquo option This option is only available if
you log on to a release 12 Oracle instance
Actual Flag A ndash Actual B ndash Budget E ndash Encumbrance
Bud Encumb Name If you enter B or E above enter the exact budget name or
encumbrance type here Otherwise simply enter ldquordquo for actual
balances
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter the segment value here You must enter it as a text value
including any leading zeros eg enter segment value ldquo10rdquo as ldquo0010rdquo
if this segment is configured as four characters with leading zeros in Oracle
You may enter your segment values in a variety of flexible ways
including parents child values ranges wildcards excludes etc See
the explanation below on valid values for this parameter
To include all values simply enter ldquordquo Please note as from GL Wand
3850 you can no longer leave the segment blank a value is
required
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
47
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Options This parameter is used to modify the results returned by the Get
Balance function from the standard behavior Currently two options are supported
Source ndash Limit the results to a specific journal source
Category ndash Limit the results to a specific journal category
The criteria needs to be entered as follows - ldquoSource=Manualrdquo or
ldquoCategory=Adjustmentrdquo To specify both a source and category use
the ldquo|rdquo as a delimiter eg ldquoSource=Manual|Category=Adjustmentrdquo
You can specify multiple values by separating them with ldquordquo eg
ldquoSource=PayablesReceivablesrdquo
When creating Get Balance formulas always use ldquordquo to denote all values as this allows more
efficient SQL to be generated Do not use a range like ldquo000-ZZZrdquo as they will require
unnecessary processing
The segment value parameters can be entered as
a single value representing a child or parent account eg ldquo1500rdquo might represent a
parent account
a range of values eg entering ldquo1500-1600rdquo in one of the segment parameters will
sum all the segment values between 1500 and 1600 for that segment
a list of segment values eg entering ldquo150015101590rdquo in one of the segment
parameters will sum the specific segment values entered If any of the segment
values are parents GL Wand will sum the hierarchy for that parent
wild card entries eg 100 will sum 1100 1200 1300 1400 etc or entering the
value 1 will sum all values that start with 1
values to be included and then specific exclusions eg ldquo1000-2000~1500rdquo will sum
the values between 1000 and 2000 but will skip 1500
a combination of any of the above eg 1000-2000237123752560-
25803000~32004000~4161-4169 In this way you can build up your own calculation definition in the segment parameter
Please note ndash there are two additional methods for specifying segment criteria in the Get
Balance function The one allows you to specify account combinations and the other
allows the use of segment descriptive flexfields Please see the Special Get Balance
Criteria section in order to use these options
Segment Description
Returns the segment description for the chosen segment value
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
48
Example =Get_Segment_Description(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
Returns the next or previous segment value
Parameter Description
Last Value The starting segment value
Segment The segment number
Level Enter a P to return the next or previous parent value enter a C to
return the next or previous child value or leave the parameter blank
to return the next or previous segment value irrespective of whether
it is a parent or child
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example = Next_Segment_Value(ldquo1000rdquo3P)
Parent Flag
Returns the parent flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is a
parent
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Parent_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Enabled Flag
Returns the enabled flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is
enabled
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example = Enabled_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
49
Account Type
Returns the account type for the chosen segment value This function is only applicable for
the natural account segment and will return the value Asset Liability etc
Parameter Description
Account Value The account segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Account_Type(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Period Name
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number Optionally the returned value can be a certain number of periods into the future or past
Parameter Description
PeriodYear The year that you want the period name for
PeriodNumber The period number that you want the period name for
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Offset Optionally enter an offset to return the period name which is n
periods before or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3
periods into the future or -1 to return the previous period
Example =Period_Name(20063)
Set of Books Name
Returns the set of books name for the chosen set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Set_of_Books_Name()
Segment Descriptive Flexfield
Returns the segment values descriptive flexfield for the selected criteria
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
50
Segment The segment number
AttributeNo Identify which attribute you want to report on The segment values
descriptive flexfield has 50 possible attribute values The applicable
attributes will depend on your configuration and whether this
Descriptive Flexfield is used by your organization
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Segment_DFF(ldquo100rdquo25) retrieves the 5th attribute on the segment values
descriptive flexfield for segment value 100 on segment 2
Period Offset
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for
this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
Offset Enter an offset to return the period name which is n periods before
or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3 periods into the
future or -1 to return the previous period
RetRange Enter TRUE (or 1) to return the result as a range eg entering
period Mar-07 with an offset of -2 and the RetRange set to true will
return ldquoJan-07-Mar-07rdquo This can be used in conjunction with the
CTD (Custom to Date) balance type in the Get Balance function to
create rolling period reporting
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Period_Offset(Jan-07-2TRUE)
Split Text
Splits delimited text and returns a specific portion based on an offset Especially useful to
split account combinations but can be used to split any text
Parameter Description
Value Some text which has been concatenated using a delimiter eg an
account combination like ldquo011007000rdquo
Offset Identify which portion of the text to return
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Split_Text(0110070002) will return the ldquo100rdquo portion of the text
51
Combine Text
Combines selected text separated by a delimiter Especially useful to combine segment
values to create a delimited account combinations but can be used to combine any text
Parameter Description
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter segment values that you wish to combine into an account
combination
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Combine_Text(011007000) will return ldquo011007000rdquo
Functional Currency
Returns the functional currency for the set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Functional_Currency()
Get Daily Rate
Returns the daily exchange rate for the entered criteria
Parameter Description
FromCurrency The ldquoFromrdquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case
eg ldquoUSDrdquo
ToCurrency The ldquoTordquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
ConversionType The conversion type as configured in Oracle Spelling and case must
be identical to the Oracle configuration
ConversionDate The conversion date This must be in Excel date format Either refer
to a cell which contains a date or use one of the Excel date functions
to return a date in the parameter
Example =Get_Daily_Rate(USDGBPReportingDATE(200911))
Function return values
The GL Wand functions will return a variety of results depending on a number of factors If
all the information is entered correctly and there are no restrictions on access to the data or
the GL Wand itself the result should be the General Ledger balance segment value segment description etc However the following are also possible return values
glwDemo ndash this means that you are using GL Wand without a valid trial key entered
into the GL Wand License Key profile option When trying GL Wand without a valid
52
trial key you are only allowed to use the first 20 rows and 20 columns of the first
sheet in the workbook Any formula entered outside this range will not calculate a
value but will only return the word ldquoglwDemordquo This is called evaluation mode A
trial key needs to be requested from within GL Wand and entered into the profile
option to allow full access to all functionality
glwNoAccess ndash When you log on you will be prompted for your applications user name
and password and will then need to select a responsibility to log on to Any security
rules that have been linked to the selected responsibility will be enforced on the GL
Wand data If you attempt to access a balance on a general ledger account that you
do not have access to the function will return the word ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo Please see
the ldquoAudit Get Balancerdquo section for information on how to identify the security rule that is being contravened
Please note that Oracles Hierarchical Security is not supported
glwError ndash If you enter invalid information in a parameter for a GL Wand function the
GL Wand error value will be returned This may happen when you for example
enter an invalid budget name or period name in the Get Balance function or when you
enter an invalid segment number in the next segment value function This error value
will also be returned when you are not logged on The details of the return value will
indicate where the problem exists eg glwError (Logon) glwError (Balance Type)
glwError (Translated Flag) glwError (Actual Flag) glwError (Missing segment)
glwError (Data error) glwError (Range) glwError (Period)
glwPending ndash This value will be returned during the calculation process Whenever a
cell requires calculation and the process has not been completed yet the cell will
contain the value ldquoglwPendingrdquo
glwEditing ndash Displays in the Excel function arguments window when editing a Get Balance formula
Discovering versus Functions
You may have noticed that you can achieve similar results by using the discover tools and
using the functions For example you could use the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button to retrieve the
next segment value or you could use the ldquoNext Segment Valuerdquo function to return the same result The difference between these two approaches is as follows
Com
paris
on b
etw
een D
iscoverin
g a
nd
Functio
ns
Discovering Functions
Results returned as text string to Excel
cell
Value is calculated based on
parameters
Value is static Value is dynamic
Never changes Recalculated when sheet refreshed
Lower performance overhead Higher performance overhead
Discover Down Next Segment Value
Discover Up Previous Segment Value
Discover Left Next Segment Value
Discover Right Previous Segment Value
Discover Properties
Segment Description
Parent flag
53
Enabled Flag
Account Type
Discover Child Ranges No equivalent
Toggle Discover Level
Parameters of next segment value
determine whether parents children or
both are returned
Use the discover buttons with ldquoPeriodrdquo
selected in the segment drop down Period Name
Balance Extract is similar to Get
Balance though the static values it
produces are refreshable
Get Balance
Special Get Balance Criteria
GL Wand supports two special types of criteria in the Get Balance function namely ldquoAccount
Combinationsrdquo and ldquoSegment Descriptive Flexfieldrdquo criteria These two forms of the Get
Balance criteria have very specific syntax which must be carefully adhered to in order to
achieve the correct results You also have the ability to expand account combinations for a
selection that uses the ldquoAccount Combinationrdquo criteria
Account Combinations
In the past the Get Balance function only supported individual segment values eg segment
2 = 100 or 200 and segment 3 = 1000 or 2000 This would result in GL Wand returning all the possible combinations of those segment 2 and 3 values
Now you have the ability to specify account combinations using the new Get Balance syntax
This means that you can create new complex criteria for your Get Balance formula eg
(segment 2 = 100 and segment 3 = 1000) or (segment 2 = 200 and segment 3 = 2000)
With these criteria GL Wand will no longer return all the possible combinations but rather only the combinations you specify
In order to specify account combinations in a Get Balance function you must tell GL Wand
which segments you are combining You do this by entering a special value into the segment
eg if you want to combine criteria for segment 2 and segment 3 you would enter the
following in the parameter for segment 2 ldquoUse_Seg3rdquo This tells GL Wand that that it must
find the criteria for segment 2 inside the segment 3 parameter In the segment 3 parameter
you now enter the criteria for both segment 2 and segment 3 separated by the special
delimiter character eg ldquo1001000rdquo This tells GL Wand that you are looking for accounts where segment 2 is 100 and segment 3 is 1000 An example could look like this
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg3100100020020000000000)
It is possible to combine multiple segments as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg5Use_Seg5Use_Seg510010000000000)
54
You simply point each applicable segment to the parameter where the account combination
using the special ldquoUse_SegXrdquo syntax Then inside the target parameter you combine the fully qualified account combination for the applicable segments delimited with a ldquordquo character
When you specify your account combination you have full flexibility to use ranges lists wild
cards parents and exclude criteria For example this criteria will fetch all the values where
segment 2 is between 100 and 200 and segment 3 is between 1000 and 2000 And in
addition to that it will include the values where segment 2 is 250 (a parent) and segment 3
starts with 33 but will exclude the specific value where segment 2 is 250 and segment 3 is
3320
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA01Use_Seg31001000-200200025033~25033200000000)
You also have the flexibility to group different parts of the account combination together For
example this criteria combines the values for segment 1 and 3 together and combines segment 2 and 4 together
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA
Use_Seg3Use_Seg401100002115010000002001050000)
These new Get Balance syntax options provide you with tremendous flexibility when building your GL Wand reports
Expand Account Combinations
The expand feature allows you to extract all the detailed child segment values that roll up to
the criteria that the user specifies The expand feature has been extended to support account combinations
In order to expand an account combination you would do the following
Ensure that the correct set of books is selected in the drop down list on the GL Wand
toolbar
Select the cell containing the account combination criteria eg ldquo1007000rdquo Click the expand button
GL Wand will now identify that the selected cell contains an account combination rather than
a single segment value You will now be presented with a window to identify which segments from your chart of accounts are represented in the account combination
55
Select the correct segments and click ldquoOKrdquo GL Wand will now extract all the child
combinations that roll up to the criteria that you entered and insert them into the Excel sheet
The other options are as follows
Fix ndash if you tick this option for a segment GL Wand will ldquopegrdquo that segment using the
selected value (this option only makes sense for a parent segment value) You might
for example want to expand all the account combinations used in a particular parent
cost centre Simply ldquoFixrdquo the cost centre segment and GL Wand will return all the
account combinations used within that parent cost centre
Exclude disabled account combination ndash tick this option to only return account combinations that are currently enabled and have not been end dated
The expand account combinations feature can be used as a normal GL Wand ldquoExpandrdquo in
order to extract the detail behind a total but it is also very useful to extract existing account combinations from your Oracle system
This feature can be used very effectively with the Split Text and Combine Text functions
Segment Descriptive Flexfields
In order to extract balances using the descriptive flexfields stored on the segment values
you need to use special syntax in the Get Balance function The syntax works as follows
1ABC
You wrap the descriptive flexfield using curly brackets
The first character after the open bracket identifies which descriptive flexfield
attribute is being referred to
You then separate the descriptive flexfield attribute from the actual value using a ldquordquo You then specify the criteria for this attribute
An example Get Balance function would look as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC10000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield on segment 2 is equal to the value ldquoABCrdquo
It is possible to specify criteria for multiple descriptive flexfields as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC2XX10000000000)
Simply wrap each descriptive flexfield value in its own and identify the attribute number
At this stage the descriptive flexfield criteria is restricted to a single value or a single range
of values Lists of values and multiple ranges are not supported A range can be specified
using the special range delimiter ldquo|rdquo (pipe character) This character is different to the range
character that is used for normal Get Balance segment parameters The reason is that the
normal range delimiter ldquo-ldquo may easily be used in a segment descriptive flexfields and
therefore is not suitable In future you will be able to configure your own range delimiter
56
character which will provide the best flexibility The range criteria can be specified as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011100|20010000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield
on segment 2 is between 100 and 200 Date values are also supported in this criteria and GL Wand will correctly derive the ldquobetweenrdquo criteria for a date
Calculating
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what cells are refreshed from
Oracle They are used in conjunction with the GL Wand calculation option (onoff) You can stop a calculation at any time by clicking cancel
- Calculate Range (Alt+Ctl+R)
- Calculate Sheet (Alt+Ctl+S)
- Calculate All (Alt+Ctl+A)
- GL Wand calculation on
- GL Wand calculation off
Calculate Range Sheet or All
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what is recalculated
To calculate a range of cells simply
1 Highlight the range
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Rangerdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+R shortcut key
3 Select multiple ranges using the ctrl button (as normal in Excel)
4 Select a range and then select multiple Excel worksheets to calculate the same range on
each sheet
Please note do not use the calculate range option to recalculate the entire sheet ie by
selecting all the cells on the sheet This will take unnecessarily longer Rather use the
calculate sheet option
To calculate a sheet simply
1 Select the applicable sheet
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Sheetrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+S shortcut key
3 Selecting multiple sheets will calculate each of the selected sheets
To calculate all open workbooks simply
1 Click the ldquoCalculate Allrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+A shortcut key
57
GL Wand calculation on or off
You can use the GL Wand calculation toggle button to control when requests for calculations
are sent to the Oracle server
If you toggle GL Wand calculation ldquoOffrdquo calculation requests are not sent to the Oracle server which means you
you can manipulate a worksheet
change cell values
enter new formulae and
perform any other task that would normally cause Excel to recalculate
and the applicable functions will only return the ldquoglwPendingrdquo status and will not
actually calculate a result
This is useful during report development
To calculate the results simply click one of the three calculation buttons ldquoCalculate Range
Sheet or Allrdquo
If you leave the GL Wand calculation option ldquoOnrdquo the applicable functions will be recalculated whenever Excel initiates a calculation process eg
when changing the contents of the cell
changing one of the functions input values deleting a column or row in the worksheet etc
Please note that the GL Wand calculation option has nothing to do with Excel‟s automatic
and manual calculation The GL Wand calculation option controls only the calculation of the
applicable GL Wand functions All other calculations are controlled as normal by the Excel
automatic and manual calculation option
Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
When you perform a recalculation a window will appear to show the progress of the
calculation
58
If you would like to cancel the calculation process simply click the ldquoCancelrdquo button
Please note that GL Wand will need to wait for the next reply from Oracle before the
connection can be closed Therefore it may take some time before the calculation stops and
the window closes
Snapshot
- Snapshot
The snapshot tool can be used to take a snapshot of your GL Wand report This tool will
remove all the GL Wand functions from the workbook and will replace them with the values that the function returned
The results are similar to using the Excel ldquopaste valuesrdquo functionality However this process will only replace GL Wand formulas All other Excel formulas will be left as they were
Please note that you cannot take a snapshot of a protected worksheet rather output the
sheet to PDF format for archive and distribution purposes
When producing a snapshot GL Wand will request a name for the new workbook You can
select an existing workbook and GL Wand will give you the option to append the snapshot
results to the existing workbook or overwrite the existing workbook You therefore have the
option of producing various snapshot reports and combining them into one new workbook in a single operation rather than producing a separate workbook for each snapshot
Hide zeros
- Hide zeros in selected range
Select a report range that contains rows where all the numbers are zero Click the hide zeros
button and GL Wand will hide all the rows in the selected range where all the cells containing
numbers are zero This is very useful for formatting a report which includes many rows
where for example a number of accounts are not used in a particular cost centre or have no
59
balances in a certain period At the click of a button you can hide all the rows that contain only zeros
Select the entire report range when using the hide zeros function GL Wand checks the
selected range for zeros when determining which rows to hide
Excel automatically forces a recalculation of Get Balance formulas when you hide rows on a
report This is normal Excel functionality
This feature can be used on any Excel worksheet and is not limited to GL Wand reports
Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Undo the last hide zeros operation
Click this button to automatically undo the last hide zeros operation
Drill downs
- Drill to default Balance layout
- Drill to default Journal layout
- Drill to default Sub Ledger layout
The drill down options allow you to extract additional detail about a specific ldquoGet Balancerdquo function
1 Select a cell that contains a valid Get Balance function
2 Click on the drill to balance button
3 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
4 The criteria sheet will be populated with the criteria from the Get Balance function
5 The drill down to balance detail will be executed showing all the detailed accounts that make up the total in the Get Balance function
60
See the Create Drill Criteria Sheet section for more details and options on the drill down criteria sheet
Budget variance analysis If you select two cells on the GL Wand report eg one cell with
actual values and one with budget numbers GL Wand will perform a drill down on the Get
Balance function and display the actual and budget values next to each other and a
calculated variance
You now have a variety of options which can be performed from the drill down workbook
1 Modify the parameters on the criteria sheet and perform a new drill to balance Drop
down lists are provided for most of the parameters see the Create Drill Criteria Sheet for
more details
2 Create a summary drill down report
3 If you have performed a balance drill down you can select the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet and then
click drill down to journal details after selecting one or more rows with accounts
4 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo sheet and then click the button to drill down to the full journal
after selecting one or more rows with journal lines The full journal with all the contra
entries for the selected journal lines will be displayed
5 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo or ldquoJournal-Fullrdquo sheet and then click sub-ledger drill down after
selecting one or more rows with journal lines 6 Drill down to Global Consolidation System transactions
When drilling down you have the following options
Double click any cell on the row that you wish to drill down on
61
Select any cell in the row that you want to drill down on and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar
Highlight a range of rows and click the applicable drill down button on the GL Wand
toolbar to drill down on multiple lines at once
Highlight non contiguous rows using the ldquoCtrlrdquo button and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar to drill down on multiple lines which are not adjacent to each other
It is possible to drill from a Get Balance formula directly to the journal or sub ledger
information Similarly you can drill from a detailed balance (on the Balance worksheet)
directly to the sub ledger information If you select these options GL Wand will execute the
interim drill steps automatically Be careful when performing a drill down directly to the
journal or sub ledger detail level as these drill down operations may return many records
GL Wand will automatically group the drill down to journals and sub ledger information using
Excel‟s group and outline functionality This will allow you expand and collapse the data to
show just a portion of the report Headings are also inserted on the journal and sub-ledger drill down to make the report easier to read
On the sub-ledger drill down the heading includes a number in brackets eg ldquo(23) Journal
Name 123rdquo The number indicates which Excel row these sub-ledger lines originated from on
the ldquoJournalsrdquo sheet
You can use the remove drill down report headings button to strip out the headings on
the journal and sub-ledger drill down sheets
A couple of important things to note about drill downs
GL Wand will first count the number of rows that will be retrieved by the drill down
operation
If the row count is more than 1000 you will receive a warning message asking you if
you want to continue
If the row count is more than the defined limit (see Query Limit) you will receive a
warning and the drill down will be cancelled
If the row count is more than the number of rows available in your version of Excel
you will receive an error and the drill down will be cancelled
When you drill down to journal details the ldquoBalance Typerdquo parameter controls how
much detail is returned If this parameter is ldquoPTDrdquo only the current period‟s journals
are returned If this parameter is ldquoYTDrdquo then all the journals for the year are returned and likewise ldquoQTDrdquo will show the journal for the quarter
Ensure that the worksheet is calculated before performing any drill down functions Also
ensure that the cell contains a ldquoGet Balancerdquo function with valid parameter information
A new drill down workbook will be created each time you perform a drill down operation from
a Get Balance function Once you are finished with a drill down workbook simply close it
without saving
You cannot drill down to journal detail on translated balances
Oracle Global Consolidation System
Drill down to Oracle Global Consolidation System (GCS) transactions is also supported
These items will appear on the journal drill down report with a source and category of
62
ldquoConsolidationrdquo If you execute a normal drill down to Sub Ledger on these transactions a
new GL Wand drill workbook will be created and the drill down to the subsidiary set of books will be executed
In order to drill down on a GCS transaction you must be logged on the parent as well as the
subsidiary set of books This can be done using the Multiple Sets of Books logon option
Summary Balance Drill Down
On the drill down Criteria sheet toggle the summarization option to ldquoYrdquo for any segment that
you which to summaries by GL Wand creates a summary trial balance report and
summarizes by the selected segments The report can still be expanded to show the detailed
lines and you can still drill down to journals from these lines
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
34
Toggle Discover Level
- Toggle discover level
The ldquoDiscover levelrdquo button is used to restrict the segment values that are returned by the discover tools to parent values only child values only or both parent and child values
When you click on this button it toggles from discovering parents and children to discovering parents only to discovering child values only
For example
1 Select a cell and enter a starting segment value
2 Choose the segment from the segment list
3 Click the discover level until the option is set to ldquoDiscovering Parentsrdquo 4 Now highlight a range of cells and click the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button
GL Wand fills the selected range with the next segment values but skips all child values and
returns only parent values Similarly child values can be discovered by toggling the discover level to ldquoDiscovering childrenrdquo
If you want to discover both parent and children toggle the discover level back to
ldquoDiscovering parents and childrenrdquo
All segment values must be entered using the Excel text format Either format the cell using
the text number format or enter the cell value using the apostrophe bdquo character which marks
the contents of the cell as text eg if you want to enter the segment value 001 enter it as
follows bdquo001
Expand
- Expand
You can perform an expand down to the lowest level children (explained below) or you can expand using the hierarchy going down one level or expanding the full hierarchy
The Expand feature allows you to extract a list of all the lowest level child values that roll up
to a particular segment selection This might be a parent value range wild card or a
combination of these options
1 Select a cell that has a segment selection eg a parent value
2 Identify its segment number to the GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
3 Click the expand button 4 The child values are retrieved from Oracle and are inserted below the selected cell
35
You can also highlight a number of columns and GL Wand will insert the child values and copy the contents of the highlighted cells against each child value that is inserted
1 Select a cell that has a segment selection and highlight the number of columns that you
would like to have copied into the new rows
2 Identify its segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
3 Click the expand button
4 The child values are retrieved from Oracle and are inserted below the selected cell
5 The contents of the additional columns that were selected are copied against each new
row inserted In the example below this contains a generic Get Balance formula which is then resolved for each child value
You also have the option of selecting multiple rows when performing an Expand GL Wand will perform an expand on each selected row
The expand feature can also be used with account combinations Please see the Special Get
Balance Criteria section for details on how this works
Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Expand feature except that it will
expand using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the values one level down the hierarchy and list them below the starting cell
Expand Hierarchy (Full)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Expand feature except that it will
expand using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy and list all the values below the starting cell indenting the various levels in the hierarchy
36
Undo Expand
- Undo Expand
The expand operation inserts rows into the worksheet to allow the child data to be
populated If you would like to quickly remove the expand data click the undo expand button GL Wand will remove the inserted data from the most recent expand operation
Please note that the expand operation formats the inserted rows in a particular way eg the
segment values are indented The undo expand operation relies on this formatting in order
to process correctly If you modify the formatting of the expanded rows the undo expand
may not function correctly
Refresh Expand
- Refresh Expand
The expand operation fetches the child data that meets the criteria that you enter and
inserts it into new rows in the workbook This data may change over time eg you may
expand a parent value and over time the definition of that parent is modified Use the refresh expand button to retrieve the most recent data from Oracle as follows
Highlight the entire range of expanded data
This must include the criteria row that drives the expand operation eg the row
containing the parent value
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
Click the refresh expand button
GL Wand will remove the old expand data and will refresh the expand with the latest information
Please note that the expand operation formats the inserted rows in a particular way eg the
segment values are indented The refresh expand operation relies on this formatting in order
to process correctly If you modify the formatting of the expanded rows the refresh expand
may not function correctly
Explode Report
- Explode report
You can perform an explode down to the lowest level children (explained below) or you can explode using the hierarchy going down one level or expanding the full hierarchy
Explode report works in a similar way to the expand feature The difference is that where
expand inserts a new row in the worksheet for each child value found explode creates a new worksheet in the current workbook for each child value found For example
Start with a complete GL Wand report
Select the cell in the report that drive the Get Balance formulas eg a department
parent value in the report header
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
37
Click the explode report button
GL Wand will duplicate the worksheet for each child value found for the selected parent
Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Explode feature except that it will
Explode using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the values one level down the hierarchy and create a new worksheet for each value
Explode Hierarchy (Full)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Explode feature except that it will
Explode using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy and create a new worksheet for
each value
Open List of Values
- Open list of values
The segment list of values form can be used to search through the segment values and
descriptions for a specific segment First pick the segment from the segment list
dropdown and then click the segment list of values button The list of values for the chosen
segment is displayed
You can enter a value to search for in the find box The list of values will be filtered to show
only items that match the text entered in the find box The text entered in the find box is
38
compared to the segment value and segment description An item will be included in the results if either field contains the text entered in the find box
In the list section you can start entering a segment value (eg Account number) and the list will scroll to the item matching the values that you have entered
Click the ldquoAddrdquo button double click an item in the list or press enter to add the current item
to the selection list on the right You can also click and drag an item to add it to the selection list
39
If you want to add a range like ldquo1000-2000rdquo do the following
Start by adding the ldquo1000rdquo value using one of the options explained above
Then find the ldquo2000rdquo value in the master list
Ensure that the ldquo2000rdquo value is highlighted in the master list and the ldquo1000rdquo value is
highlighted in the selection list and click the ldquoAdd Rangerdquo button
You can also drag a value from the master list onto an existing value in the selection list to create a range
To remove an item from the selection list ensure that it is highlighted and then click the ldquoRemoverdquo button or press the ldquoDeleterdquo key
Every segment will have the additional value called ldquoAllrdquo Selecting this value will add a ldquordquo
to the parameter list which means ldquoAll valuesrdquo If ldquoAllrdquo is selected then all other selections will be removed and replaced with a
If you want to include certain values and exclude others you can use the ldquoAdd Excluderdquo
option This will add the highlighted value to the selection list prefixed by the reserved exclude character ldquo~rdquo
40
You can add any combination of the options mentioned above to produce your own
calculation
Once you have added all the required segment values to the selection list click ldquoOKrdquo to copy
the list to the clipboard You can then paste these values into a Get Balance function or
anywhere else on the Excel sheet
41
Create List of Values
- Create list of values
This feature can be used to quickly format a cell to be a special list of values cell There are
two types The first type inserts a drop down list of values in the cell and is used for balance
types translated flags and actual flags
The second type creates a link to the standard list of values form It is used for segment values periods and balance and encumbrance names
The cell is identified by a note containing the word ldquoLOVrdquo In order to open the list of values
simply double click the cell or select the cell and click the List of Values button on the
toolbar This will open the list of values form for the specific data type that the list of values cell was created for In the example this was the department segment
The checkbox allows you to link the list of values to a specific set of books This option is only applicable if you have the Multiple Sets of Books feature enabled
42
Functions
The GL Wand functions work in a similar way to any other Excel worksheet function You
provide the required parameters and the results of the function are returned to the Excel
cell The difference being that GL Wand functions retrieve information from your Oracle Applications system
GL Wand currently has the following functions
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value
- Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
43
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
Split Text
Combine Text
Functional Currency
Get Daily Rate
You can enter a function into an Excel cell in a number of ways
Click the applicable button on the GL Wand toolbar (or on the GL Wand menu)
Type the function name into the cell manually prefixed by an = sign
You can select the function from the list that Excel provides when you choose the
Insert Function menu item The GL Wand functions are listed under the special GL
Wand category (Prior to Excel 2007 they are listed in the User Defined category)
If you click the applicable function button on the toolbar and the cell you are in contains that
function the Excel formula wizard window will open If you click a function button in a cell
that contains other data GL Wand will warn you that it is going to replace the contents of the cell with the chosen formula and will give you the option of cancelling the action
All parameters must be entered as text values ie enclosed in double quotes eg enter
ldquoUSDrdquo when entering the currency code or enter ldquo001rdquo when entering a segment value
See ldquoDiscovering versus Functionsrdquo for a comparison extracting information using the
discover tools or the functions
44
Get Balance
The Get Balance function is probably the most important function in GL Wand It returns a
General Ledger balance individually or summed based on the parameters that you enter
Example =Get_Balance(Jan-02YTDUSDEABIS CORPORATE01T4000-41600000000)
Clicking the Get Balance function on the GL Wand toolbar will open the Get Balance Wizard
This form has lists of values for items like period name balance type actual flag etc Select
the applicable values and enter a valid currency code and budget or encumbrance name if required
Double clicking a segment value or clicking the list of values button next to the segment will
open the segment list of values form for that segment See the Segment List of Values
section for details on how to use this form When you click the ldquoOKrdquo button on the Segment
List of Values form the selected segment parameters are entered against that segment in the Get Balance Wizard form
If your Oracle configuration includes dependant segments as part of the accounting
flexfield this form will support selecting values based on the independent and dependant
segment values Simply select a value from the available list of values for the independent
segment Then open the list of values for the dependant segment The list of available values
will be limited to only those values that are related to the selected independent segment
value
When you have entered all the parameters click the ldquoOKrdquo button to insert the Get Balance
function into the selected cell with the entered parameters Clicking the ldquoEditrdquo button will
open the Get Balance function in the Excel formula wizard form which will allow you to link
parameters to cells in the Excel sheet
45
You can also open the Get Balance formula in the Excel formula wizard form using the fx
button on the formula bar or by selecting the ldquoInsert Functionrdquo menu item on the Excel menu bar
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Type ldquoCTDrdquo
(Custom to Date) you can specify a custom period selection For
example ldquoFeb-07-Aug-07rdquo will add all the movement for the entered
period range You may enter multiple lists or ranges of periods and can use wild cards as well eg ldquoJan-0rdquo or ldquo-07rdquo
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Types ldquoJEDrdquo
ldquoJEDUrdquo or ldquoJEDPrdquo (Journal Effective Date) the period parameter
becomes a date parameter eg ldquo01012007-0501200710012007rdquo
The format that your date is in is important The ldquo-ldquo character is
used in GL Wand to denote a range of values and therefore it cannot
be used as a date delimiter eg 01-01-2007 would not be valid So
take care if your Windows regional setting use the ldquo-ldquo as a date
delimiter For JED type calculations we recommend that you use the
ldquordquo as a date delimiter and that you always format the date as text
in Excel otherwise Excel will convert the date based on your regional
setting
Balance Type YTD QTD PTD PJTD CTD JED JEDP or JEDU all in upper case
YTD ndash Summarizes the full years balance
QTD ndash Summarizes the balance for the quarter
46
PTD ndash Includes just the current period‟s movement
PJTD ndash Project to date
CTD ndash Summarizes the custom period criteria entered
JED ndash Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for both posted and unposted journals
JEDP - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for posted journals only
JEDU - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered dates for unposted journals only
Currency Code The currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
Translated Flag Enter E T or C Use E to retrieve the entered amount and T for the
translated amount Use C to report on the converted amount ie
the functional currency equivalent of a foreign currency amount
Only E is valid if requesting a balance for the functional currency of the current Set of Books
You must ensure that you have run the currency translation process
in Oracle for the selected currency and period before reporting on
translated balances If you enter T to request the translated balance
and there is no current translated balance available in the system a zero is returned
Oracle Release 12 provides a new feature to allow reporting on the
values entered in the functional currency only ie excludes any
foreign currency transactions converted to the functional currency
Therefore in Release 12 if you use the E (entered) flag in
conjunction with the functional currency any converted amounts will
be excluded To report on the total balance (including values entered
in functional currency and values converted to the functional
currency) use the new ldquoTotalrdquo option This option is only available if
you log on to a release 12 Oracle instance
Actual Flag A ndash Actual B ndash Budget E ndash Encumbrance
Bud Encumb Name If you enter B or E above enter the exact budget name or
encumbrance type here Otherwise simply enter ldquordquo for actual
balances
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter the segment value here You must enter it as a text value
including any leading zeros eg enter segment value ldquo10rdquo as ldquo0010rdquo
if this segment is configured as four characters with leading zeros in Oracle
You may enter your segment values in a variety of flexible ways
including parents child values ranges wildcards excludes etc See
the explanation below on valid values for this parameter
To include all values simply enter ldquordquo Please note as from GL Wand
3850 you can no longer leave the segment blank a value is
required
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
47
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Options This parameter is used to modify the results returned by the Get
Balance function from the standard behavior Currently two options are supported
Source ndash Limit the results to a specific journal source
Category ndash Limit the results to a specific journal category
The criteria needs to be entered as follows - ldquoSource=Manualrdquo or
ldquoCategory=Adjustmentrdquo To specify both a source and category use
the ldquo|rdquo as a delimiter eg ldquoSource=Manual|Category=Adjustmentrdquo
You can specify multiple values by separating them with ldquordquo eg
ldquoSource=PayablesReceivablesrdquo
When creating Get Balance formulas always use ldquordquo to denote all values as this allows more
efficient SQL to be generated Do not use a range like ldquo000-ZZZrdquo as they will require
unnecessary processing
The segment value parameters can be entered as
a single value representing a child or parent account eg ldquo1500rdquo might represent a
parent account
a range of values eg entering ldquo1500-1600rdquo in one of the segment parameters will
sum all the segment values between 1500 and 1600 for that segment
a list of segment values eg entering ldquo150015101590rdquo in one of the segment
parameters will sum the specific segment values entered If any of the segment
values are parents GL Wand will sum the hierarchy for that parent
wild card entries eg 100 will sum 1100 1200 1300 1400 etc or entering the
value 1 will sum all values that start with 1
values to be included and then specific exclusions eg ldquo1000-2000~1500rdquo will sum
the values between 1000 and 2000 but will skip 1500
a combination of any of the above eg 1000-2000237123752560-
25803000~32004000~4161-4169 In this way you can build up your own calculation definition in the segment parameter
Please note ndash there are two additional methods for specifying segment criteria in the Get
Balance function The one allows you to specify account combinations and the other
allows the use of segment descriptive flexfields Please see the Special Get Balance
Criteria section in order to use these options
Segment Description
Returns the segment description for the chosen segment value
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
48
Example =Get_Segment_Description(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
Returns the next or previous segment value
Parameter Description
Last Value The starting segment value
Segment The segment number
Level Enter a P to return the next or previous parent value enter a C to
return the next or previous child value or leave the parameter blank
to return the next or previous segment value irrespective of whether
it is a parent or child
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example = Next_Segment_Value(ldquo1000rdquo3P)
Parent Flag
Returns the parent flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is a
parent
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Parent_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Enabled Flag
Returns the enabled flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is
enabled
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example = Enabled_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
49
Account Type
Returns the account type for the chosen segment value This function is only applicable for
the natural account segment and will return the value Asset Liability etc
Parameter Description
Account Value The account segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Account_Type(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Period Name
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number Optionally the returned value can be a certain number of periods into the future or past
Parameter Description
PeriodYear The year that you want the period name for
PeriodNumber The period number that you want the period name for
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Offset Optionally enter an offset to return the period name which is n
periods before or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3
periods into the future or -1 to return the previous period
Example =Period_Name(20063)
Set of Books Name
Returns the set of books name for the chosen set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Set_of_Books_Name()
Segment Descriptive Flexfield
Returns the segment values descriptive flexfield for the selected criteria
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
50
Segment The segment number
AttributeNo Identify which attribute you want to report on The segment values
descriptive flexfield has 50 possible attribute values The applicable
attributes will depend on your configuration and whether this
Descriptive Flexfield is used by your organization
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Segment_DFF(ldquo100rdquo25) retrieves the 5th attribute on the segment values
descriptive flexfield for segment value 100 on segment 2
Period Offset
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for
this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
Offset Enter an offset to return the period name which is n periods before
or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3 periods into the
future or -1 to return the previous period
RetRange Enter TRUE (or 1) to return the result as a range eg entering
period Mar-07 with an offset of -2 and the RetRange set to true will
return ldquoJan-07-Mar-07rdquo This can be used in conjunction with the
CTD (Custom to Date) balance type in the Get Balance function to
create rolling period reporting
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Period_Offset(Jan-07-2TRUE)
Split Text
Splits delimited text and returns a specific portion based on an offset Especially useful to
split account combinations but can be used to split any text
Parameter Description
Value Some text which has been concatenated using a delimiter eg an
account combination like ldquo011007000rdquo
Offset Identify which portion of the text to return
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Split_Text(0110070002) will return the ldquo100rdquo portion of the text
51
Combine Text
Combines selected text separated by a delimiter Especially useful to combine segment
values to create a delimited account combinations but can be used to combine any text
Parameter Description
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter segment values that you wish to combine into an account
combination
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Combine_Text(011007000) will return ldquo011007000rdquo
Functional Currency
Returns the functional currency for the set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Functional_Currency()
Get Daily Rate
Returns the daily exchange rate for the entered criteria
Parameter Description
FromCurrency The ldquoFromrdquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case
eg ldquoUSDrdquo
ToCurrency The ldquoTordquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
ConversionType The conversion type as configured in Oracle Spelling and case must
be identical to the Oracle configuration
ConversionDate The conversion date This must be in Excel date format Either refer
to a cell which contains a date or use one of the Excel date functions
to return a date in the parameter
Example =Get_Daily_Rate(USDGBPReportingDATE(200911))
Function return values
The GL Wand functions will return a variety of results depending on a number of factors If
all the information is entered correctly and there are no restrictions on access to the data or
the GL Wand itself the result should be the General Ledger balance segment value segment description etc However the following are also possible return values
glwDemo ndash this means that you are using GL Wand without a valid trial key entered
into the GL Wand License Key profile option When trying GL Wand without a valid
52
trial key you are only allowed to use the first 20 rows and 20 columns of the first
sheet in the workbook Any formula entered outside this range will not calculate a
value but will only return the word ldquoglwDemordquo This is called evaluation mode A
trial key needs to be requested from within GL Wand and entered into the profile
option to allow full access to all functionality
glwNoAccess ndash When you log on you will be prompted for your applications user name
and password and will then need to select a responsibility to log on to Any security
rules that have been linked to the selected responsibility will be enforced on the GL
Wand data If you attempt to access a balance on a general ledger account that you
do not have access to the function will return the word ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo Please see
the ldquoAudit Get Balancerdquo section for information on how to identify the security rule that is being contravened
Please note that Oracles Hierarchical Security is not supported
glwError ndash If you enter invalid information in a parameter for a GL Wand function the
GL Wand error value will be returned This may happen when you for example
enter an invalid budget name or period name in the Get Balance function or when you
enter an invalid segment number in the next segment value function This error value
will also be returned when you are not logged on The details of the return value will
indicate where the problem exists eg glwError (Logon) glwError (Balance Type)
glwError (Translated Flag) glwError (Actual Flag) glwError (Missing segment)
glwError (Data error) glwError (Range) glwError (Period)
glwPending ndash This value will be returned during the calculation process Whenever a
cell requires calculation and the process has not been completed yet the cell will
contain the value ldquoglwPendingrdquo
glwEditing ndash Displays in the Excel function arguments window when editing a Get Balance formula
Discovering versus Functions
You may have noticed that you can achieve similar results by using the discover tools and
using the functions For example you could use the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button to retrieve the
next segment value or you could use the ldquoNext Segment Valuerdquo function to return the same result The difference between these two approaches is as follows
Com
paris
on b
etw
een D
iscoverin
g a
nd
Functio
ns
Discovering Functions
Results returned as text string to Excel
cell
Value is calculated based on
parameters
Value is static Value is dynamic
Never changes Recalculated when sheet refreshed
Lower performance overhead Higher performance overhead
Discover Down Next Segment Value
Discover Up Previous Segment Value
Discover Left Next Segment Value
Discover Right Previous Segment Value
Discover Properties
Segment Description
Parent flag
53
Enabled Flag
Account Type
Discover Child Ranges No equivalent
Toggle Discover Level
Parameters of next segment value
determine whether parents children or
both are returned
Use the discover buttons with ldquoPeriodrdquo
selected in the segment drop down Period Name
Balance Extract is similar to Get
Balance though the static values it
produces are refreshable
Get Balance
Special Get Balance Criteria
GL Wand supports two special types of criteria in the Get Balance function namely ldquoAccount
Combinationsrdquo and ldquoSegment Descriptive Flexfieldrdquo criteria These two forms of the Get
Balance criteria have very specific syntax which must be carefully adhered to in order to
achieve the correct results You also have the ability to expand account combinations for a
selection that uses the ldquoAccount Combinationrdquo criteria
Account Combinations
In the past the Get Balance function only supported individual segment values eg segment
2 = 100 or 200 and segment 3 = 1000 or 2000 This would result in GL Wand returning all the possible combinations of those segment 2 and 3 values
Now you have the ability to specify account combinations using the new Get Balance syntax
This means that you can create new complex criteria for your Get Balance formula eg
(segment 2 = 100 and segment 3 = 1000) or (segment 2 = 200 and segment 3 = 2000)
With these criteria GL Wand will no longer return all the possible combinations but rather only the combinations you specify
In order to specify account combinations in a Get Balance function you must tell GL Wand
which segments you are combining You do this by entering a special value into the segment
eg if you want to combine criteria for segment 2 and segment 3 you would enter the
following in the parameter for segment 2 ldquoUse_Seg3rdquo This tells GL Wand that that it must
find the criteria for segment 2 inside the segment 3 parameter In the segment 3 parameter
you now enter the criteria for both segment 2 and segment 3 separated by the special
delimiter character eg ldquo1001000rdquo This tells GL Wand that you are looking for accounts where segment 2 is 100 and segment 3 is 1000 An example could look like this
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg3100100020020000000000)
It is possible to combine multiple segments as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg5Use_Seg5Use_Seg510010000000000)
54
You simply point each applicable segment to the parameter where the account combination
using the special ldquoUse_SegXrdquo syntax Then inside the target parameter you combine the fully qualified account combination for the applicable segments delimited with a ldquordquo character
When you specify your account combination you have full flexibility to use ranges lists wild
cards parents and exclude criteria For example this criteria will fetch all the values where
segment 2 is between 100 and 200 and segment 3 is between 1000 and 2000 And in
addition to that it will include the values where segment 2 is 250 (a parent) and segment 3
starts with 33 but will exclude the specific value where segment 2 is 250 and segment 3 is
3320
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA01Use_Seg31001000-200200025033~25033200000000)
You also have the flexibility to group different parts of the account combination together For
example this criteria combines the values for segment 1 and 3 together and combines segment 2 and 4 together
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA
Use_Seg3Use_Seg401100002115010000002001050000)
These new Get Balance syntax options provide you with tremendous flexibility when building your GL Wand reports
Expand Account Combinations
The expand feature allows you to extract all the detailed child segment values that roll up to
the criteria that the user specifies The expand feature has been extended to support account combinations
In order to expand an account combination you would do the following
Ensure that the correct set of books is selected in the drop down list on the GL Wand
toolbar
Select the cell containing the account combination criteria eg ldquo1007000rdquo Click the expand button
GL Wand will now identify that the selected cell contains an account combination rather than
a single segment value You will now be presented with a window to identify which segments from your chart of accounts are represented in the account combination
55
Select the correct segments and click ldquoOKrdquo GL Wand will now extract all the child
combinations that roll up to the criteria that you entered and insert them into the Excel sheet
The other options are as follows
Fix ndash if you tick this option for a segment GL Wand will ldquopegrdquo that segment using the
selected value (this option only makes sense for a parent segment value) You might
for example want to expand all the account combinations used in a particular parent
cost centre Simply ldquoFixrdquo the cost centre segment and GL Wand will return all the
account combinations used within that parent cost centre
Exclude disabled account combination ndash tick this option to only return account combinations that are currently enabled and have not been end dated
The expand account combinations feature can be used as a normal GL Wand ldquoExpandrdquo in
order to extract the detail behind a total but it is also very useful to extract existing account combinations from your Oracle system
This feature can be used very effectively with the Split Text and Combine Text functions
Segment Descriptive Flexfields
In order to extract balances using the descriptive flexfields stored on the segment values
you need to use special syntax in the Get Balance function The syntax works as follows
1ABC
You wrap the descriptive flexfield using curly brackets
The first character after the open bracket identifies which descriptive flexfield
attribute is being referred to
You then separate the descriptive flexfield attribute from the actual value using a ldquordquo You then specify the criteria for this attribute
An example Get Balance function would look as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC10000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield on segment 2 is equal to the value ldquoABCrdquo
It is possible to specify criteria for multiple descriptive flexfields as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC2XX10000000000)
Simply wrap each descriptive flexfield value in its own and identify the attribute number
At this stage the descriptive flexfield criteria is restricted to a single value or a single range
of values Lists of values and multiple ranges are not supported A range can be specified
using the special range delimiter ldquo|rdquo (pipe character) This character is different to the range
character that is used for normal Get Balance segment parameters The reason is that the
normal range delimiter ldquo-ldquo may easily be used in a segment descriptive flexfields and
therefore is not suitable In future you will be able to configure your own range delimiter
56
character which will provide the best flexibility The range criteria can be specified as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011100|20010000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield
on segment 2 is between 100 and 200 Date values are also supported in this criteria and GL Wand will correctly derive the ldquobetweenrdquo criteria for a date
Calculating
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what cells are refreshed from
Oracle They are used in conjunction with the GL Wand calculation option (onoff) You can stop a calculation at any time by clicking cancel
- Calculate Range (Alt+Ctl+R)
- Calculate Sheet (Alt+Ctl+S)
- Calculate All (Alt+Ctl+A)
- GL Wand calculation on
- GL Wand calculation off
Calculate Range Sheet or All
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what is recalculated
To calculate a range of cells simply
1 Highlight the range
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Rangerdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+R shortcut key
3 Select multiple ranges using the ctrl button (as normal in Excel)
4 Select a range and then select multiple Excel worksheets to calculate the same range on
each sheet
Please note do not use the calculate range option to recalculate the entire sheet ie by
selecting all the cells on the sheet This will take unnecessarily longer Rather use the
calculate sheet option
To calculate a sheet simply
1 Select the applicable sheet
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Sheetrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+S shortcut key
3 Selecting multiple sheets will calculate each of the selected sheets
To calculate all open workbooks simply
1 Click the ldquoCalculate Allrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+A shortcut key
57
GL Wand calculation on or off
You can use the GL Wand calculation toggle button to control when requests for calculations
are sent to the Oracle server
If you toggle GL Wand calculation ldquoOffrdquo calculation requests are not sent to the Oracle server which means you
you can manipulate a worksheet
change cell values
enter new formulae and
perform any other task that would normally cause Excel to recalculate
and the applicable functions will only return the ldquoglwPendingrdquo status and will not
actually calculate a result
This is useful during report development
To calculate the results simply click one of the three calculation buttons ldquoCalculate Range
Sheet or Allrdquo
If you leave the GL Wand calculation option ldquoOnrdquo the applicable functions will be recalculated whenever Excel initiates a calculation process eg
when changing the contents of the cell
changing one of the functions input values deleting a column or row in the worksheet etc
Please note that the GL Wand calculation option has nothing to do with Excel‟s automatic
and manual calculation The GL Wand calculation option controls only the calculation of the
applicable GL Wand functions All other calculations are controlled as normal by the Excel
automatic and manual calculation option
Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
When you perform a recalculation a window will appear to show the progress of the
calculation
58
If you would like to cancel the calculation process simply click the ldquoCancelrdquo button
Please note that GL Wand will need to wait for the next reply from Oracle before the
connection can be closed Therefore it may take some time before the calculation stops and
the window closes
Snapshot
- Snapshot
The snapshot tool can be used to take a snapshot of your GL Wand report This tool will
remove all the GL Wand functions from the workbook and will replace them with the values that the function returned
The results are similar to using the Excel ldquopaste valuesrdquo functionality However this process will only replace GL Wand formulas All other Excel formulas will be left as they were
Please note that you cannot take a snapshot of a protected worksheet rather output the
sheet to PDF format for archive and distribution purposes
When producing a snapshot GL Wand will request a name for the new workbook You can
select an existing workbook and GL Wand will give you the option to append the snapshot
results to the existing workbook or overwrite the existing workbook You therefore have the
option of producing various snapshot reports and combining them into one new workbook in a single operation rather than producing a separate workbook for each snapshot
Hide zeros
- Hide zeros in selected range
Select a report range that contains rows where all the numbers are zero Click the hide zeros
button and GL Wand will hide all the rows in the selected range where all the cells containing
numbers are zero This is very useful for formatting a report which includes many rows
where for example a number of accounts are not used in a particular cost centre or have no
59
balances in a certain period At the click of a button you can hide all the rows that contain only zeros
Select the entire report range when using the hide zeros function GL Wand checks the
selected range for zeros when determining which rows to hide
Excel automatically forces a recalculation of Get Balance formulas when you hide rows on a
report This is normal Excel functionality
This feature can be used on any Excel worksheet and is not limited to GL Wand reports
Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Undo the last hide zeros operation
Click this button to automatically undo the last hide zeros operation
Drill downs
- Drill to default Balance layout
- Drill to default Journal layout
- Drill to default Sub Ledger layout
The drill down options allow you to extract additional detail about a specific ldquoGet Balancerdquo function
1 Select a cell that contains a valid Get Balance function
2 Click on the drill to balance button
3 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
4 The criteria sheet will be populated with the criteria from the Get Balance function
5 The drill down to balance detail will be executed showing all the detailed accounts that make up the total in the Get Balance function
60
See the Create Drill Criteria Sheet section for more details and options on the drill down criteria sheet
Budget variance analysis If you select two cells on the GL Wand report eg one cell with
actual values and one with budget numbers GL Wand will perform a drill down on the Get
Balance function and display the actual and budget values next to each other and a
calculated variance
You now have a variety of options which can be performed from the drill down workbook
1 Modify the parameters on the criteria sheet and perform a new drill to balance Drop
down lists are provided for most of the parameters see the Create Drill Criteria Sheet for
more details
2 Create a summary drill down report
3 If you have performed a balance drill down you can select the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet and then
click drill down to journal details after selecting one or more rows with accounts
4 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo sheet and then click the button to drill down to the full journal
after selecting one or more rows with journal lines The full journal with all the contra
entries for the selected journal lines will be displayed
5 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo or ldquoJournal-Fullrdquo sheet and then click sub-ledger drill down after
selecting one or more rows with journal lines 6 Drill down to Global Consolidation System transactions
When drilling down you have the following options
Double click any cell on the row that you wish to drill down on
61
Select any cell in the row that you want to drill down on and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar
Highlight a range of rows and click the applicable drill down button on the GL Wand
toolbar to drill down on multiple lines at once
Highlight non contiguous rows using the ldquoCtrlrdquo button and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar to drill down on multiple lines which are not adjacent to each other
It is possible to drill from a Get Balance formula directly to the journal or sub ledger
information Similarly you can drill from a detailed balance (on the Balance worksheet)
directly to the sub ledger information If you select these options GL Wand will execute the
interim drill steps automatically Be careful when performing a drill down directly to the
journal or sub ledger detail level as these drill down operations may return many records
GL Wand will automatically group the drill down to journals and sub ledger information using
Excel‟s group and outline functionality This will allow you expand and collapse the data to
show just a portion of the report Headings are also inserted on the journal and sub-ledger drill down to make the report easier to read
On the sub-ledger drill down the heading includes a number in brackets eg ldquo(23) Journal
Name 123rdquo The number indicates which Excel row these sub-ledger lines originated from on
the ldquoJournalsrdquo sheet
You can use the remove drill down report headings button to strip out the headings on
the journal and sub-ledger drill down sheets
A couple of important things to note about drill downs
GL Wand will first count the number of rows that will be retrieved by the drill down
operation
If the row count is more than 1000 you will receive a warning message asking you if
you want to continue
If the row count is more than the defined limit (see Query Limit) you will receive a
warning and the drill down will be cancelled
If the row count is more than the number of rows available in your version of Excel
you will receive an error and the drill down will be cancelled
When you drill down to journal details the ldquoBalance Typerdquo parameter controls how
much detail is returned If this parameter is ldquoPTDrdquo only the current period‟s journals
are returned If this parameter is ldquoYTDrdquo then all the journals for the year are returned and likewise ldquoQTDrdquo will show the journal for the quarter
Ensure that the worksheet is calculated before performing any drill down functions Also
ensure that the cell contains a ldquoGet Balancerdquo function with valid parameter information
A new drill down workbook will be created each time you perform a drill down operation from
a Get Balance function Once you are finished with a drill down workbook simply close it
without saving
You cannot drill down to journal detail on translated balances
Oracle Global Consolidation System
Drill down to Oracle Global Consolidation System (GCS) transactions is also supported
These items will appear on the journal drill down report with a source and category of
62
ldquoConsolidationrdquo If you execute a normal drill down to Sub Ledger on these transactions a
new GL Wand drill workbook will be created and the drill down to the subsidiary set of books will be executed
In order to drill down on a GCS transaction you must be logged on the parent as well as the
subsidiary set of books This can be done using the Multiple Sets of Books logon option
Summary Balance Drill Down
On the drill down Criteria sheet toggle the summarization option to ldquoYrdquo for any segment that
you which to summaries by GL Wand creates a summary trial balance report and
summarizes by the selected segments The report can still be expanded to show the detailed
lines and you can still drill down to journals from these lines
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
35
You can also highlight a number of columns and GL Wand will insert the child values and copy the contents of the highlighted cells against each child value that is inserted
1 Select a cell that has a segment selection and highlight the number of columns that you
would like to have copied into the new rows
2 Identify its segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
3 Click the expand button
4 The child values are retrieved from Oracle and are inserted below the selected cell
5 The contents of the additional columns that were selected are copied against each new
row inserted In the example below this contains a generic Get Balance formula which is then resolved for each child value
You also have the option of selecting multiple rows when performing an Expand GL Wand will perform an expand on each selected row
The expand feature can also be used with account combinations Please see the Special Get
Balance Criteria section for details on how this works
Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Expand feature except that it will
expand using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the values one level down the hierarchy and list them below the starting cell
Expand Hierarchy (Full)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Expand feature except that it will
expand using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy and list all the values below the starting cell indenting the various levels in the hierarchy
36
Undo Expand
- Undo Expand
The expand operation inserts rows into the worksheet to allow the child data to be
populated If you would like to quickly remove the expand data click the undo expand button GL Wand will remove the inserted data from the most recent expand operation
Please note that the expand operation formats the inserted rows in a particular way eg the
segment values are indented The undo expand operation relies on this formatting in order
to process correctly If you modify the formatting of the expanded rows the undo expand
may not function correctly
Refresh Expand
- Refresh Expand
The expand operation fetches the child data that meets the criteria that you enter and
inserts it into new rows in the workbook This data may change over time eg you may
expand a parent value and over time the definition of that parent is modified Use the refresh expand button to retrieve the most recent data from Oracle as follows
Highlight the entire range of expanded data
This must include the criteria row that drives the expand operation eg the row
containing the parent value
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
Click the refresh expand button
GL Wand will remove the old expand data and will refresh the expand with the latest information
Please note that the expand operation formats the inserted rows in a particular way eg the
segment values are indented The refresh expand operation relies on this formatting in order
to process correctly If you modify the formatting of the expanded rows the refresh expand
may not function correctly
Explode Report
- Explode report
You can perform an explode down to the lowest level children (explained below) or you can explode using the hierarchy going down one level or expanding the full hierarchy
Explode report works in a similar way to the expand feature The difference is that where
expand inserts a new row in the worksheet for each child value found explode creates a new worksheet in the current workbook for each child value found For example
Start with a complete GL Wand report
Select the cell in the report that drive the Get Balance formulas eg a department
parent value in the report header
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
37
Click the explode report button
GL Wand will duplicate the worksheet for each child value found for the selected parent
Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Explode feature except that it will
Explode using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the values one level down the hierarchy and create a new worksheet for each value
Explode Hierarchy (Full)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Explode feature except that it will
Explode using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy and create a new worksheet for
each value
Open List of Values
- Open list of values
The segment list of values form can be used to search through the segment values and
descriptions for a specific segment First pick the segment from the segment list
dropdown and then click the segment list of values button The list of values for the chosen
segment is displayed
You can enter a value to search for in the find box The list of values will be filtered to show
only items that match the text entered in the find box The text entered in the find box is
38
compared to the segment value and segment description An item will be included in the results if either field contains the text entered in the find box
In the list section you can start entering a segment value (eg Account number) and the list will scroll to the item matching the values that you have entered
Click the ldquoAddrdquo button double click an item in the list or press enter to add the current item
to the selection list on the right You can also click and drag an item to add it to the selection list
39
If you want to add a range like ldquo1000-2000rdquo do the following
Start by adding the ldquo1000rdquo value using one of the options explained above
Then find the ldquo2000rdquo value in the master list
Ensure that the ldquo2000rdquo value is highlighted in the master list and the ldquo1000rdquo value is
highlighted in the selection list and click the ldquoAdd Rangerdquo button
You can also drag a value from the master list onto an existing value in the selection list to create a range
To remove an item from the selection list ensure that it is highlighted and then click the ldquoRemoverdquo button or press the ldquoDeleterdquo key
Every segment will have the additional value called ldquoAllrdquo Selecting this value will add a ldquordquo
to the parameter list which means ldquoAll valuesrdquo If ldquoAllrdquo is selected then all other selections will be removed and replaced with a
If you want to include certain values and exclude others you can use the ldquoAdd Excluderdquo
option This will add the highlighted value to the selection list prefixed by the reserved exclude character ldquo~rdquo
40
You can add any combination of the options mentioned above to produce your own
calculation
Once you have added all the required segment values to the selection list click ldquoOKrdquo to copy
the list to the clipboard You can then paste these values into a Get Balance function or
anywhere else on the Excel sheet
41
Create List of Values
- Create list of values
This feature can be used to quickly format a cell to be a special list of values cell There are
two types The first type inserts a drop down list of values in the cell and is used for balance
types translated flags and actual flags
The second type creates a link to the standard list of values form It is used for segment values periods and balance and encumbrance names
The cell is identified by a note containing the word ldquoLOVrdquo In order to open the list of values
simply double click the cell or select the cell and click the List of Values button on the
toolbar This will open the list of values form for the specific data type that the list of values cell was created for In the example this was the department segment
The checkbox allows you to link the list of values to a specific set of books This option is only applicable if you have the Multiple Sets of Books feature enabled
42
Functions
The GL Wand functions work in a similar way to any other Excel worksheet function You
provide the required parameters and the results of the function are returned to the Excel
cell The difference being that GL Wand functions retrieve information from your Oracle Applications system
GL Wand currently has the following functions
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value
- Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
43
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
Split Text
Combine Text
Functional Currency
Get Daily Rate
You can enter a function into an Excel cell in a number of ways
Click the applicable button on the GL Wand toolbar (or on the GL Wand menu)
Type the function name into the cell manually prefixed by an = sign
You can select the function from the list that Excel provides when you choose the
Insert Function menu item The GL Wand functions are listed under the special GL
Wand category (Prior to Excel 2007 they are listed in the User Defined category)
If you click the applicable function button on the toolbar and the cell you are in contains that
function the Excel formula wizard window will open If you click a function button in a cell
that contains other data GL Wand will warn you that it is going to replace the contents of the cell with the chosen formula and will give you the option of cancelling the action
All parameters must be entered as text values ie enclosed in double quotes eg enter
ldquoUSDrdquo when entering the currency code or enter ldquo001rdquo when entering a segment value
See ldquoDiscovering versus Functionsrdquo for a comparison extracting information using the
discover tools or the functions
44
Get Balance
The Get Balance function is probably the most important function in GL Wand It returns a
General Ledger balance individually or summed based on the parameters that you enter
Example =Get_Balance(Jan-02YTDUSDEABIS CORPORATE01T4000-41600000000)
Clicking the Get Balance function on the GL Wand toolbar will open the Get Balance Wizard
This form has lists of values for items like period name balance type actual flag etc Select
the applicable values and enter a valid currency code and budget or encumbrance name if required
Double clicking a segment value or clicking the list of values button next to the segment will
open the segment list of values form for that segment See the Segment List of Values
section for details on how to use this form When you click the ldquoOKrdquo button on the Segment
List of Values form the selected segment parameters are entered against that segment in the Get Balance Wizard form
If your Oracle configuration includes dependant segments as part of the accounting
flexfield this form will support selecting values based on the independent and dependant
segment values Simply select a value from the available list of values for the independent
segment Then open the list of values for the dependant segment The list of available values
will be limited to only those values that are related to the selected independent segment
value
When you have entered all the parameters click the ldquoOKrdquo button to insert the Get Balance
function into the selected cell with the entered parameters Clicking the ldquoEditrdquo button will
open the Get Balance function in the Excel formula wizard form which will allow you to link
parameters to cells in the Excel sheet
45
You can also open the Get Balance formula in the Excel formula wizard form using the fx
button on the formula bar or by selecting the ldquoInsert Functionrdquo menu item on the Excel menu bar
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Type ldquoCTDrdquo
(Custom to Date) you can specify a custom period selection For
example ldquoFeb-07-Aug-07rdquo will add all the movement for the entered
period range You may enter multiple lists or ranges of periods and can use wild cards as well eg ldquoJan-0rdquo or ldquo-07rdquo
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Types ldquoJEDrdquo
ldquoJEDUrdquo or ldquoJEDPrdquo (Journal Effective Date) the period parameter
becomes a date parameter eg ldquo01012007-0501200710012007rdquo
The format that your date is in is important The ldquo-ldquo character is
used in GL Wand to denote a range of values and therefore it cannot
be used as a date delimiter eg 01-01-2007 would not be valid So
take care if your Windows regional setting use the ldquo-ldquo as a date
delimiter For JED type calculations we recommend that you use the
ldquordquo as a date delimiter and that you always format the date as text
in Excel otherwise Excel will convert the date based on your regional
setting
Balance Type YTD QTD PTD PJTD CTD JED JEDP or JEDU all in upper case
YTD ndash Summarizes the full years balance
QTD ndash Summarizes the balance for the quarter
46
PTD ndash Includes just the current period‟s movement
PJTD ndash Project to date
CTD ndash Summarizes the custom period criteria entered
JED ndash Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for both posted and unposted journals
JEDP - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for posted journals only
JEDU - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered dates for unposted journals only
Currency Code The currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
Translated Flag Enter E T or C Use E to retrieve the entered amount and T for the
translated amount Use C to report on the converted amount ie
the functional currency equivalent of a foreign currency amount
Only E is valid if requesting a balance for the functional currency of the current Set of Books
You must ensure that you have run the currency translation process
in Oracle for the selected currency and period before reporting on
translated balances If you enter T to request the translated balance
and there is no current translated balance available in the system a zero is returned
Oracle Release 12 provides a new feature to allow reporting on the
values entered in the functional currency only ie excludes any
foreign currency transactions converted to the functional currency
Therefore in Release 12 if you use the E (entered) flag in
conjunction with the functional currency any converted amounts will
be excluded To report on the total balance (including values entered
in functional currency and values converted to the functional
currency) use the new ldquoTotalrdquo option This option is only available if
you log on to a release 12 Oracle instance
Actual Flag A ndash Actual B ndash Budget E ndash Encumbrance
Bud Encumb Name If you enter B or E above enter the exact budget name or
encumbrance type here Otherwise simply enter ldquordquo for actual
balances
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter the segment value here You must enter it as a text value
including any leading zeros eg enter segment value ldquo10rdquo as ldquo0010rdquo
if this segment is configured as four characters with leading zeros in Oracle
You may enter your segment values in a variety of flexible ways
including parents child values ranges wildcards excludes etc See
the explanation below on valid values for this parameter
To include all values simply enter ldquordquo Please note as from GL Wand
3850 you can no longer leave the segment blank a value is
required
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
47
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Options This parameter is used to modify the results returned by the Get
Balance function from the standard behavior Currently two options are supported
Source ndash Limit the results to a specific journal source
Category ndash Limit the results to a specific journal category
The criteria needs to be entered as follows - ldquoSource=Manualrdquo or
ldquoCategory=Adjustmentrdquo To specify both a source and category use
the ldquo|rdquo as a delimiter eg ldquoSource=Manual|Category=Adjustmentrdquo
You can specify multiple values by separating them with ldquordquo eg
ldquoSource=PayablesReceivablesrdquo
When creating Get Balance formulas always use ldquordquo to denote all values as this allows more
efficient SQL to be generated Do not use a range like ldquo000-ZZZrdquo as they will require
unnecessary processing
The segment value parameters can be entered as
a single value representing a child or parent account eg ldquo1500rdquo might represent a
parent account
a range of values eg entering ldquo1500-1600rdquo in one of the segment parameters will
sum all the segment values between 1500 and 1600 for that segment
a list of segment values eg entering ldquo150015101590rdquo in one of the segment
parameters will sum the specific segment values entered If any of the segment
values are parents GL Wand will sum the hierarchy for that parent
wild card entries eg 100 will sum 1100 1200 1300 1400 etc or entering the
value 1 will sum all values that start with 1
values to be included and then specific exclusions eg ldquo1000-2000~1500rdquo will sum
the values between 1000 and 2000 but will skip 1500
a combination of any of the above eg 1000-2000237123752560-
25803000~32004000~4161-4169 In this way you can build up your own calculation definition in the segment parameter
Please note ndash there are two additional methods for specifying segment criteria in the Get
Balance function The one allows you to specify account combinations and the other
allows the use of segment descriptive flexfields Please see the Special Get Balance
Criteria section in order to use these options
Segment Description
Returns the segment description for the chosen segment value
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
48
Example =Get_Segment_Description(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
Returns the next or previous segment value
Parameter Description
Last Value The starting segment value
Segment The segment number
Level Enter a P to return the next or previous parent value enter a C to
return the next or previous child value or leave the parameter blank
to return the next or previous segment value irrespective of whether
it is a parent or child
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example = Next_Segment_Value(ldquo1000rdquo3P)
Parent Flag
Returns the parent flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is a
parent
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Parent_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Enabled Flag
Returns the enabled flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is
enabled
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example = Enabled_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
49
Account Type
Returns the account type for the chosen segment value This function is only applicable for
the natural account segment and will return the value Asset Liability etc
Parameter Description
Account Value The account segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Account_Type(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Period Name
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number Optionally the returned value can be a certain number of periods into the future or past
Parameter Description
PeriodYear The year that you want the period name for
PeriodNumber The period number that you want the period name for
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Offset Optionally enter an offset to return the period name which is n
periods before or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3
periods into the future or -1 to return the previous period
Example =Period_Name(20063)
Set of Books Name
Returns the set of books name for the chosen set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Set_of_Books_Name()
Segment Descriptive Flexfield
Returns the segment values descriptive flexfield for the selected criteria
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
50
Segment The segment number
AttributeNo Identify which attribute you want to report on The segment values
descriptive flexfield has 50 possible attribute values The applicable
attributes will depend on your configuration and whether this
Descriptive Flexfield is used by your organization
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Segment_DFF(ldquo100rdquo25) retrieves the 5th attribute on the segment values
descriptive flexfield for segment value 100 on segment 2
Period Offset
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for
this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
Offset Enter an offset to return the period name which is n periods before
or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3 periods into the
future or -1 to return the previous period
RetRange Enter TRUE (or 1) to return the result as a range eg entering
period Mar-07 with an offset of -2 and the RetRange set to true will
return ldquoJan-07-Mar-07rdquo This can be used in conjunction with the
CTD (Custom to Date) balance type in the Get Balance function to
create rolling period reporting
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Period_Offset(Jan-07-2TRUE)
Split Text
Splits delimited text and returns a specific portion based on an offset Especially useful to
split account combinations but can be used to split any text
Parameter Description
Value Some text which has been concatenated using a delimiter eg an
account combination like ldquo011007000rdquo
Offset Identify which portion of the text to return
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Split_Text(0110070002) will return the ldquo100rdquo portion of the text
51
Combine Text
Combines selected text separated by a delimiter Especially useful to combine segment
values to create a delimited account combinations but can be used to combine any text
Parameter Description
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter segment values that you wish to combine into an account
combination
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Combine_Text(011007000) will return ldquo011007000rdquo
Functional Currency
Returns the functional currency for the set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Functional_Currency()
Get Daily Rate
Returns the daily exchange rate for the entered criteria
Parameter Description
FromCurrency The ldquoFromrdquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case
eg ldquoUSDrdquo
ToCurrency The ldquoTordquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
ConversionType The conversion type as configured in Oracle Spelling and case must
be identical to the Oracle configuration
ConversionDate The conversion date This must be in Excel date format Either refer
to a cell which contains a date or use one of the Excel date functions
to return a date in the parameter
Example =Get_Daily_Rate(USDGBPReportingDATE(200911))
Function return values
The GL Wand functions will return a variety of results depending on a number of factors If
all the information is entered correctly and there are no restrictions on access to the data or
the GL Wand itself the result should be the General Ledger balance segment value segment description etc However the following are also possible return values
glwDemo ndash this means that you are using GL Wand without a valid trial key entered
into the GL Wand License Key profile option When trying GL Wand without a valid
52
trial key you are only allowed to use the first 20 rows and 20 columns of the first
sheet in the workbook Any formula entered outside this range will not calculate a
value but will only return the word ldquoglwDemordquo This is called evaluation mode A
trial key needs to be requested from within GL Wand and entered into the profile
option to allow full access to all functionality
glwNoAccess ndash When you log on you will be prompted for your applications user name
and password and will then need to select a responsibility to log on to Any security
rules that have been linked to the selected responsibility will be enforced on the GL
Wand data If you attempt to access a balance on a general ledger account that you
do not have access to the function will return the word ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo Please see
the ldquoAudit Get Balancerdquo section for information on how to identify the security rule that is being contravened
Please note that Oracles Hierarchical Security is not supported
glwError ndash If you enter invalid information in a parameter for a GL Wand function the
GL Wand error value will be returned This may happen when you for example
enter an invalid budget name or period name in the Get Balance function or when you
enter an invalid segment number in the next segment value function This error value
will also be returned when you are not logged on The details of the return value will
indicate where the problem exists eg glwError (Logon) glwError (Balance Type)
glwError (Translated Flag) glwError (Actual Flag) glwError (Missing segment)
glwError (Data error) glwError (Range) glwError (Period)
glwPending ndash This value will be returned during the calculation process Whenever a
cell requires calculation and the process has not been completed yet the cell will
contain the value ldquoglwPendingrdquo
glwEditing ndash Displays in the Excel function arguments window when editing a Get Balance formula
Discovering versus Functions
You may have noticed that you can achieve similar results by using the discover tools and
using the functions For example you could use the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button to retrieve the
next segment value or you could use the ldquoNext Segment Valuerdquo function to return the same result The difference between these two approaches is as follows
Com
paris
on b
etw
een D
iscoverin
g a
nd
Functio
ns
Discovering Functions
Results returned as text string to Excel
cell
Value is calculated based on
parameters
Value is static Value is dynamic
Never changes Recalculated when sheet refreshed
Lower performance overhead Higher performance overhead
Discover Down Next Segment Value
Discover Up Previous Segment Value
Discover Left Next Segment Value
Discover Right Previous Segment Value
Discover Properties
Segment Description
Parent flag
53
Enabled Flag
Account Type
Discover Child Ranges No equivalent
Toggle Discover Level
Parameters of next segment value
determine whether parents children or
both are returned
Use the discover buttons with ldquoPeriodrdquo
selected in the segment drop down Period Name
Balance Extract is similar to Get
Balance though the static values it
produces are refreshable
Get Balance
Special Get Balance Criteria
GL Wand supports two special types of criteria in the Get Balance function namely ldquoAccount
Combinationsrdquo and ldquoSegment Descriptive Flexfieldrdquo criteria These two forms of the Get
Balance criteria have very specific syntax which must be carefully adhered to in order to
achieve the correct results You also have the ability to expand account combinations for a
selection that uses the ldquoAccount Combinationrdquo criteria
Account Combinations
In the past the Get Balance function only supported individual segment values eg segment
2 = 100 or 200 and segment 3 = 1000 or 2000 This would result in GL Wand returning all the possible combinations of those segment 2 and 3 values
Now you have the ability to specify account combinations using the new Get Balance syntax
This means that you can create new complex criteria for your Get Balance formula eg
(segment 2 = 100 and segment 3 = 1000) or (segment 2 = 200 and segment 3 = 2000)
With these criteria GL Wand will no longer return all the possible combinations but rather only the combinations you specify
In order to specify account combinations in a Get Balance function you must tell GL Wand
which segments you are combining You do this by entering a special value into the segment
eg if you want to combine criteria for segment 2 and segment 3 you would enter the
following in the parameter for segment 2 ldquoUse_Seg3rdquo This tells GL Wand that that it must
find the criteria for segment 2 inside the segment 3 parameter In the segment 3 parameter
you now enter the criteria for both segment 2 and segment 3 separated by the special
delimiter character eg ldquo1001000rdquo This tells GL Wand that you are looking for accounts where segment 2 is 100 and segment 3 is 1000 An example could look like this
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg3100100020020000000000)
It is possible to combine multiple segments as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg5Use_Seg5Use_Seg510010000000000)
54
You simply point each applicable segment to the parameter where the account combination
using the special ldquoUse_SegXrdquo syntax Then inside the target parameter you combine the fully qualified account combination for the applicable segments delimited with a ldquordquo character
When you specify your account combination you have full flexibility to use ranges lists wild
cards parents and exclude criteria For example this criteria will fetch all the values where
segment 2 is between 100 and 200 and segment 3 is between 1000 and 2000 And in
addition to that it will include the values where segment 2 is 250 (a parent) and segment 3
starts with 33 but will exclude the specific value where segment 2 is 250 and segment 3 is
3320
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA01Use_Seg31001000-200200025033~25033200000000)
You also have the flexibility to group different parts of the account combination together For
example this criteria combines the values for segment 1 and 3 together and combines segment 2 and 4 together
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA
Use_Seg3Use_Seg401100002115010000002001050000)
These new Get Balance syntax options provide you with tremendous flexibility when building your GL Wand reports
Expand Account Combinations
The expand feature allows you to extract all the detailed child segment values that roll up to
the criteria that the user specifies The expand feature has been extended to support account combinations
In order to expand an account combination you would do the following
Ensure that the correct set of books is selected in the drop down list on the GL Wand
toolbar
Select the cell containing the account combination criteria eg ldquo1007000rdquo Click the expand button
GL Wand will now identify that the selected cell contains an account combination rather than
a single segment value You will now be presented with a window to identify which segments from your chart of accounts are represented in the account combination
55
Select the correct segments and click ldquoOKrdquo GL Wand will now extract all the child
combinations that roll up to the criteria that you entered and insert them into the Excel sheet
The other options are as follows
Fix ndash if you tick this option for a segment GL Wand will ldquopegrdquo that segment using the
selected value (this option only makes sense for a parent segment value) You might
for example want to expand all the account combinations used in a particular parent
cost centre Simply ldquoFixrdquo the cost centre segment and GL Wand will return all the
account combinations used within that parent cost centre
Exclude disabled account combination ndash tick this option to only return account combinations that are currently enabled and have not been end dated
The expand account combinations feature can be used as a normal GL Wand ldquoExpandrdquo in
order to extract the detail behind a total but it is also very useful to extract existing account combinations from your Oracle system
This feature can be used very effectively with the Split Text and Combine Text functions
Segment Descriptive Flexfields
In order to extract balances using the descriptive flexfields stored on the segment values
you need to use special syntax in the Get Balance function The syntax works as follows
1ABC
You wrap the descriptive flexfield using curly brackets
The first character after the open bracket identifies which descriptive flexfield
attribute is being referred to
You then separate the descriptive flexfield attribute from the actual value using a ldquordquo You then specify the criteria for this attribute
An example Get Balance function would look as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC10000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield on segment 2 is equal to the value ldquoABCrdquo
It is possible to specify criteria for multiple descriptive flexfields as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC2XX10000000000)
Simply wrap each descriptive flexfield value in its own and identify the attribute number
At this stage the descriptive flexfield criteria is restricted to a single value or a single range
of values Lists of values and multiple ranges are not supported A range can be specified
using the special range delimiter ldquo|rdquo (pipe character) This character is different to the range
character that is used for normal Get Balance segment parameters The reason is that the
normal range delimiter ldquo-ldquo may easily be used in a segment descriptive flexfields and
therefore is not suitable In future you will be able to configure your own range delimiter
56
character which will provide the best flexibility The range criteria can be specified as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011100|20010000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield
on segment 2 is between 100 and 200 Date values are also supported in this criteria and GL Wand will correctly derive the ldquobetweenrdquo criteria for a date
Calculating
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what cells are refreshed from
Oracle They are used in conjunction with the GL Wand calculation option (onoff) You can stop a calculation at any time by clicking cancel
- Calculate Range (Alt+Ctl+R)
- Calculate Sheet (Alt+Ctl+S)
- Calculate All (Alt+Ctl+A)
- GL Wand calculation on
- GL Wand calculation off
Calculate Range Sheet or All
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what is recalculated
To calculate a range of cells simply
1 Highlight the range
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Rangerdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+R shortcut key
3 Select multiple ranges using the ctrl button (as normal in Excel)
4 Select a range and then select multiple Excel worksheets to calculate the same range on
each sheet
Please note do not use the calculate range option to recalculate the entire sheet ie by
selecting all the cells on the sheet This will take unnecessarily longer Rather use the
calculate sheet option
To calculate a sheet simply
1 Select the applicable sheet
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Sheetrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+S shortcut key
3 Selecting multiple sheets will calculate each of the selected sheets
To calculate all open workbooks simply
1 Click the ldquoCalculate Allrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+A shortcut key
57
GL Wand calculation on or off
You can use the GL Wand calculation toggle button to control when requests for calculations
are sent to the Oracle server
If you toggle GL Wand calculation ldquoOffrdquo calculation requests are not sent to the Oracle server which means you
you can manipulate a worksheet
change cell values
enter new formulae and
perform any other task that would normally cause Excel to recalculate
and the applicable functions will only return the ldquoglwPendingrdquo status and will not
actually calculate a result
This is useful during report development
To calculate the results simply click one of the three calculation buttons ldquoCalculate Range
Sheet or Allrdquo
If you leave the GL Wand calculation option ldquoOnrdquo the applicable functions will be recalculated whenever Excel initiates a calculation process eg
when changing the contents of the cell
changing one of the functions input values deleting a column or row in the worksheet etc
Please note that the GL Wand calculation option has nothing to do with Excel‟s automatic
and manual calculation The GL Wand calculation option controls only the calculation of the
applicable GL Wand functions All other calculations are controlled as normal by the Excel
automatic and manual calculation option
Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
When you perform a recalculation a window will appear to show the progress of the
calculation
58
If you would like to cancel the calculation process simply click the ldquoCancelrdquo button
Please note that GL Wand will need to wait for the next reply from Oracle before the
connection can be closed Therefore it may take some time before the calculation stops and
the window closes
Snapshot
- Snapshot
The snapshot tool can be used to take a snapshot of your GL Wand report This tool will
remove all the GL Wand functions from the workbook and will replace them with the values that the function returned
The results are similar to using the Excel ldquopaste valuesrdquo functionality However this process will only replace GL Wand formulas All other Excel formulas will be left as they were
Please note that you cannot take a snapshot of a protected worksheet rather output the
sheet to PDF format for archive and distribution purposes
When producing a snapshot GL Wand will request a name for the new workbook You can
select an existing workbook and GL Wand will give you the option to append the snapshot
results to the existing workbook or overwrite the existing workbook You therefore have the
option of producing various snapshot reports and combining them into one new workbook in a single operation rather than producing a separate workbook for each snapshot
Hide zeros
- Hide zeros in selected range
Select a report range that contains rows where all the numbers are zero Click the hide zeros
button and GL Wand will hide all the rows in the selected range where all the cells containing
numbers are zero This is very useful for formatting a report which includes many rows
where for example a number of accounts are not used in a particular cost centre or have no
59
balances in a certain period At the click of a button you can hide all the rows that contain only zeros
Select the entire report range when using the hide zeros function GL Wand checks the
selected range for zeros when determining which rows to hide
Excel automatically forces a recalculation of Get Balance formulas when you hide rows on a
report This is normal Excel functionality
This feature can be used on any Excel worksheet and is not limited to GL Wand reports
Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Undo the last hide zeros operation
Click this button to automatically undo the last hide zeros operation
Drill downs
- Drill to default Balance layout
- Drill to default Journal layout
- Drill to default Sub Ledger layout
The drill down options allow you to extract additional detail about a specific ldquoGet Balancerdquo function
1 Select a cell that contains a valid Get Balance function
2 Click on the drill to balance button
3 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
4 The criteria sheet will be populated with the criteria from the Get Balance function
5 The drill down to balance detail will be executed showing all the detailed accounts that make up the total in the Get Balance function
60
See the Create Drill Criteria Sheet section for more details and options on the drill down criteria sheet
Budget variance analysis If you select two cells on the GL Wand report eg one cell with
actual values and one with budget numbers GL Wand will perform a drill down on the Get
Balance function and display the actual and budget values next to each other and a
calculated variance
You now have a variety of options which can be performed from the drill down workbook
1 Modify the parameters on the criteria sheet and perform a new drill to balance Drop
down lists are provided for most of the parameters see the Create Drill Criteria Sheet for
more details
2 Create a summary drill down report
3 If you have performed a balance drill down you can select the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet and then
click drill down to journal details after selecting one or more rows with accounts
4 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo sheet and then click the button to drill down to the full journal
after selecting one or more rows with journal lines The full journal with all the contra
entries for the selected journal lines will be displayed
5 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo or ldquoJournal-Fullrdquo sheet and then click sub-ledger drill down after
selecting one or more rows with journal lines 6 Drill down to Global Consolidation System transactions
When drilling down you have the following options
Double click any cell on the row that you wish to drill down on
61
Select any cell in the row that you want to drill down on and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar
Highlight a range of rows and click the applicable drill down button on the GL Wand
toolbar to drill down on multiple lines at once
Highlight non contiguous rows using the ldquoCtrlrdquo button and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar to drill down on multiple lines which are not adjacent to each other
It is possible to drill from a Get Balance formula directly to the journal or sub ledger
information Similarly you can drill from a detailed balance (on the Balance worksheet)
directly to the sub ledger information If you select these options GL Wand will execute the
interim drill steps automatically Be careful when performing a drill down directly to the
journal or sub ledger detail level as these drill down operations may return many records
GL Wand will automatically group the drill down to journals and sub ledger information using
Excel‟s group and outline functionality This will allow you expand and collapse the data to
show just a portion of the report Headings are also inserted on the journal and sub-ledger drill down to make the report easier to read
On the sub-ledger drill down the heading includes a number in brackets eg ldquo(23) Journal
Name 123rdquo The number indicates which Excel row these sub-ledger lines originated from on
the ldquoJournalsrdquo sheet
You can use the remove drill down report headings button to strip out the headings on
the journal and sub-ledger drill down sheets
A couple of important things to note about drill downs
GL Wand will first count the number of rows that will be retrieved by the drill down
operation
If the row count is more than 1000 you will receive a warning message asking you if
you want to continue
If the row count is more than the defined limit (see Query Limit) you will receive a
warning and the drill down will be cancelled
If the row count is more than the number of rows available in your version of Excel
you will receive an error and the drill down will be cancelled
When you drill down to journal details the ldquoBalance Typerdquo parameter controls how
much detail is returned If this parameter is ldquoPTDrdquo only the current period‟s journals
are returned If this parameter is ldquoYTDrdquo then all the journals for the year are returned and likewise ldquoQTDrdquo will show the journal for the quarter
Ensure that the worksheet is calculated before performing any drill down functions Also
ensure that the cell contains a ldquoGet Balancerdquo function with valid parameter information
A new drill down workbook will be created each time you perform a drill down operation from
a Get Balance function Once you are finished with a drill down workbook simply close it
without saving
You cannot drill down to journal detail on translated balances
Oracle Global Consolidation System
Drill down to Oracle Global Consolidation System (GCS) transactions is also supported
These items will appear on the journal drill down report with a source and category of
62
ldquoConsolidationrdquo If you execute a normal drill down to Sub Ledger on these transactions a
new GL Wand drill workbook will be created and the drill down to the subsidiary set of books will be executed
In order to drill down on a GCS transaction you must be logged on the parent as well as the
subsidiary set of books This can be done using the Multiple Sets of Books logon option
Summary Balance Drill Down
On the drill down Criteria sheet toggle the summarization option to ldquoYrdquo for any segment that
you which to summaries by GL Wand creates a summary trial balance report and
summarizes by the selected segments The report can still be expanded to show the detailed
lines and you can still drill down to journals from these lines
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
36
Undo Expand
- Undo Expand
The expand operation inserts rows into the worksheet to allow the child data to be
populated If you would like to quickly remove the expand data click the undo expand button GL Wand will remove the inserted data from the most recent expand operation
Please note that the expand operation formats the inserted rows in a particular way eg the
segment values are indented The undo expand operation relies on this formatting in order
to process correctly If you modify the formatting of the expanded rows the undo expand
may not function correctly
Refresh Expand
- Refresh Expand
The expand operation fetches the child data that meets the criteria that you enter and
inserts it into new rows in the workbook This data may change over time eg you may
expand a parent value and over time the definition of that parent is modified Use the refresh expand button to retrieve the most recent data from Oracle as follows
Highlight the entire range of expanded data
This must include the criteria row that drives the expand operation eg the row
containing the parent value
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
Click the refresh expand button
GL Wand will remove the old expand data and will refresh the expand with the latest information
Please note that the expand operation formats the inserted rows in a particular way eg the
segment values are indented The refresh expand operation relies on this formatting in order
to process correctly If you modify the formatting of the expanded rows the refresh expand
may not function correctly
Explode Report
- Explode report
You can perform an explode down to the lowest level children (explained below) or you can explode using the hierarchy going down one level or expanding the full hierarchy
Explode report works in a similar way to the expand feature The difference is that where
expand inserts a new row in the worksheet for each child value found explode creates a new worksheet in the current workbook for each child value found For example
Start with a complete GL Wand report
Select the cell in the report that drive the Get Balance formulas eg a department
parent value in the report header
Identify the segment number to GL Wand by selecting the relevant segment from the
segment list dropdown
37
Click the explode report button
GL Wand will duplicate the worksheet for each child value found for the selected parent
Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Explode feature except that it will
Explode using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the values one level down the hierarchy and create a new worksheet for each value
Explode Hierarchy (Full)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Explode feature except that it will
Explode using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy and create a new worksheet for
each value
Open List of Values
- Open list of values
The segment list of values form can be used to search through the segment values and
descriptions for a specific segment First pick the segment from the segment list
dropdown and then click the segment list of values button The list of values for the chosen
segment is displayed
You can enter a value to search for in the find box The list of values will be filtered to show
only items that match the text entered in the find box The text entered in the find box is
38
compared to the segment value and segment description An item will be included in the results if either field contains the text entered in the find box
In the list section you can start entering a segment value (eg Account number) and the list will scroll to the item matching the values that you have entered
Click the ldquoAddrdquo button double click an item in the list or press enter to add the current item
to the selection list on the right You can also click and drag an item to add it to the selection list
39
If you want to add a range like ldquo1000-2000rdquo do the following
Start by adding the ldquo1000rdquo value using one of the options explained above
Then find the ldquo2000rdquo value in the master list
Ensure that the ldquo2000rdquo value is highlighted in the master list and the ldquo1000rdquo value is
highlighted in the selection list and click the ldquoAdd Rangerdquo button
You can also drag a value from the master list onto an existing value in the selection list to create a range
To remove an item from the selection list ensure that it is highlighted and then click the ldquoRemoverdquo button or press the ldquoDeleterdquo key
Every segment will have the additional value called ldquoAllrdquo Selecting this value will add a ldquordquo
to the parameter list which means ldquoAll valuesrdquo If ldquoAllrdquo is selected then all other selections will be removed and replaced with a
If you want to include certain values and exclude others you can use the ldquoAdd Excluderdquo
option This will add the highlighted value to the selection list prefixed by the reserved exclude character ldquo~rdquo
40
You can add any combination of the options mentioned above to produce your own
calculation
Once you have added all the required segment values to the selection list click ldquoOKrdquo to copy
the list to the clipboard You can then paste these values into a Get Balance function or
anywhere else on the Excel sheet
41
Create List of Values
- Create list of values
This feature can be used to quickly format a cell to be a special list of values cell There are
two types The first type inserts a drop down list of values in the cell and is used for balance
types translated flags and actual flags
The second type creates a link to the standard list of values form It is used for segment values periods and balance and encumbrance names
The cell is identified by a note containing the word ldquoLOVrdquo In order to open the list of values
simply double click the cell or select the cell and click the List of Values button on the
toolbar This will open the list of values form for the specific data type that the list of values cell was created for In the example this was the department segment
The checkbox allows you to link the list of values to a specific set of books This option is only applicable if you have the Multiple Sets of Books feature enabled
42
Functions
The GL Wand functions work in a similar way to any other Excel worksheet function You
provide the required parameters and the results of the function are returned to the Excel
cell The difference being that GL Wand functions retrieve information from your Oracle Applications system
GL Wand currently has the following functions
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value
- Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
43
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
Split Text
Combine Text
Functional Currency
Get Daily Rate
You can enter a function into an Excel cell in a number of ways
Click the applicable button on the GL Wand toolbar (or on the GL Wand menu)
Type the function name into the cell manually prefixed by an = sign
You can select the function from the list that Excel provides when you choose the
Insert Function menu item The GL Wand functions are listed under the special GL
Wand category (Prior to Excel 2007 they are listed in the User Defined category)
If you click the applicable function button on the toolbar and the cell you are in contains that
function the Excel formula wizard window will open If you click a function button in a cell
that contains other data GL Wand will warn you that it is going to replace the contents of the cell with the chosen formula and will give you the option of cancelling the action
All parameters must be entered as text values ie enclosed in double quotes eg enter
ldquoUSDrdquo when entering the currency code or enter ldquo001rdquo when entering a segment value
See ldquoDiscovering versus Functionsrdquo for a comparison extracting information using the
discover tools or the functions
44
Get Balance
The Get Balance function is probably the most important function in GL Wand It returns a
General Ledger balance individually or summed based on the parameters that you enter
Example =Get_Balance(Jan-02YTDUSDEABIS CORPORATE01T4000-41600000000)
Clicking the Get Balance function on the GL Wand toolbar will open the Get Balance Wizard
This form has lists of values for items like period name balance type actual flag etc Select
the applicable values and enter a valid currency code and budget or encumbrance name if required
Double clicking a segment value or clicking the list of values button next to the segment will
open the segment list of values form for that segment See the Segment List of Values
section for details on how to use this form When you click the ldquoOKrdquo button on the Segment
List of Values form the selected segment parameters are entered against that segment in the Get Balance Wizard form
If your Oracle configuration includes dependant segments as part of the accounting
flexfield this form will support selecting values based on the independent and dependant
segment values Simply select a value from the available list of values for the independent
segment Then open the list of values for the dependant segment The list of available values
will be limited to only those values that are related to the selected independent segment
value
When you have entered all the parameters click the ldquoOKrdquo button to insert the Get Balance
function into the selected cell with the entered parameters Clicking the ldquoEditrdquo button will
open the Get Balance function in the Excel formula wizard form which will allow you to link
parameters to cells in the Excel sheet
45
You can also open the Get Balance formula in the Excel formula wizard form using the fx
button on the formula bar or by selecting the ldquoInsert Functionrdquo menu item on the Excel menu bar
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Type ldquoCTDrdquo
(Custom to Date) you can specify a custom period selection For
example ldquoFeb-07-Aug-07rdquo will add all the movement for the entered
period range You may enter multiple lists or ranges of periods and can use wild cards as well eg ldquoJan-0rdquo or ldquo-07rdquo
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Types ldquoJEDrdquo
ldquoJEDUrdquo or ldquoJEDPrdquo (Journal Effective Date) the period parameter
becomes a date parameter eg ldquo01012007-0501200710012007rdquo
The format that your date is in is important The ldquo-ldquo character is
used in GL Wand to denote a range of values and therefore it cannot
be used as a date delimiter eg 01-01-2007 would not be valid So
take care if your Windows regional setting use the ldquo-ldquo as a date
delimiter For JED type calculations we recommend that you use the
ldquordquo as a date delimiter and that you always format the date as text
in Excel otherwise Excel will convert the date based on your regional
setting
Balance Type YTD QTD PTD PJTD CTD JED JEDP or JEDU all in upper case
YTD ndash Summarizes the full years balance
QTD ndash Summarizes the balance for the quarter
46
PTD ndash Includes just the current period‟s movement
PJTD ndash Project to date
CTD ndash Summarizes the custom period criteria entered
JED ndash Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for both posted and unposted journals
JEDP - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for posted journals only
JEDU - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered dates for unposted journals only
Currency Code The currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
Translated Flag Enter E T or C Use E to retrieve the entered amount and T for the
translated amount Use C to report on the converted amount ie
the functional currency equivalent of a foreign currency amount
Only E is valid if requesting a balance for the functional currency of the current Set of Books
You must ensure that you have run the currency translation process
in Oracle for the selected currency and period before reporting on
translated balances If you enter T to request the translated balance
and there is no current translated balance available in the system a zero is returned
Oracle Release 12 provides a new feature to allow reporting on the
values entered in the functional currency only ie excludes any
foreign currency transactions converted to the functional currency
Therefore in Release 12 if you use the E (entered) flag in
conjunction with the functional currency any converted amounts will
be excluded To report on the total balance (including values entered
in functional currency and values converted to the functional
currency) use the new ldquoTotalrdquo option This option is only available if
you log on to a release 12 Oracle instance
Actual Flag A ndash Actual B ndash Budget E ndash Encumbrance
Bud Encumb Name If you enter B or E above enter the exact budget name or
encumbrance type here Otherwise simply enter ldquordquo for actual
balances
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter the segment value here You must enter it as a text value
including any leading zeros eg enter segment value ldquo10rdquo as ldquo0010rdquo
if this segment is configured as four characters with leading zeros in Oracle
You may enter your segment values in a variety of flexible ways
including parents child values ranges wildcards excludes etc See
the explanation below on valid values for this parameter
To include all values simply enter ldquordquo Please note as from GL Wand
3850 you can no longer leave the segment blank a value is
required
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
47
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Options This parameter is used to modify the results returned by the Get
Balance function from the standard behavior Currently two options are supported
Source ndash Limit the results to a specific journal source
Category ndash Limit the results to a specific journal category
The criteria needs to be entered as follows - ldquoSource=Manualrdquo or
ldquoCategory=Adjustmentrdquo To specify both a source and category use
the ldquo|rdquo as a delimiter eg ldquoSource=Manual|Category=Adjustmentrdquo
You can specify multiple values by separating them with ldquordquo eg
ldquoSource=PayablesReceivablesrdquo
When creating Get Balance formulas always use ldquordquo to denote all values as this allows more
efficient SQL to be generated Do not use a range like ldquo000-ZZZrdquo as they will require
unnecessary processing
The segment value parameters can be entered as
a single value representing a child or parent account eg ldquo1500rdquo might represent a
parent account
a range of values eg entering ldquo1500-1600rdquo in one of the segment parameters will
sum all the segment values between 1500 and 1600 for that segment
a list of segment values eg entering ldquo150015101590rdquo in one of the segment
parameters will sum the specific segment values entered If any of the segment
values are parents GL Wand will sum the hierarchy for that parent
wild card entries eg 100 will sum 1100 1200 1300 1400 etc or entering the
value 1 will sum all values that start with 1
values to be included and then specific exclusions eg ldquo1000-2000~1500rdquo will sum
the values between 1000 and 2000 but will skip 1500
a combination of any of the above eg 1000-2000237123752560-
25803000~32004000~4161-4169 In this way you can build up your own calculation definition in the segment parameter
Please note ndash there are two additional methods for specifying segment criteria in the Get
Balance function The one allows you to specify account combinations and the other
allows the use of segment descriptive flexfields Please see the Special Get Balance
Criteria section in order to use these options
Segment Description
Returns the segment description for the chosen segment value
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
48
Example =Get_Segment_Description(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
Returns the next or previous segment value
Parameter Description
Last Value The starting segment value
Segment The segment number
Level Enter a P to return the next or previous parent value enter a C to
return the next or previous child value or leave the parameter blank
to return the next or previous segment value irrespective of whether
it is a parent or child
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example = Next_Segment_Value(ldquo1000rdquo3P)
Parent Flag
Returns the parent flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is a
parent
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Parent_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Enabled Flag
Returns the enabled flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is
enabled
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example = Enabled_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
49
Account Type
Returns the account type for the chosen segment value This function is only applicable for
the natural account segment and will return the value Asset Liability etc
Parameter Description
Account Value The account segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Account_Type(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Period Name
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number Optionally the returned value can be a certain number of periods into the future or past
Parameter Description
PeriodYear The year that you want the period name for
PeriodNumber The period number that you want the period name for
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Offset Optionally enter an offset to return the period name which is n
periods before or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3
periods into the future or -1 to return the previous period
Example =Period_Name(20063)
Set of Books Name
Returns the set of books name for the chosen set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Set_of_Books_Name()
Segment Descriptive Flexfield
Returns the segment values descriptive flexfield for the selected criteria
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
50
Segment The segment number
AttributeNo Identify which attribute you want to report on The segment values
descriptive flexfield has 50 possible attribute values The applicable
attributes will depend on your configuration and whether this
Descriptive Flexfield is used by your organization
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Segment_DFF(ldquo100rdquo25) retrieves the 5th attribute on the segment values
descriptive flexfield for segment value 100 on segment 2
Period Offset
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for
this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
Offset Enter an offset to return the period name which is n periods before
or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3 periods into the
future or -1 to return the previous period
RetRange Enter TRUE (or 1) to return the result as a range eg entering
period Mar-07 with an offset of -2 and the RetRange set to true will
return ldquoJan-07-Mar-07rdquo This can be used in conjunction with the
CTD (Custom to Date) balance type in the Get Balance function to
create rolling period reporting
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Period_Offset(Jan-07-2TRUE)
Split Text
Splits delimited text and returns a specific portion based on an offset Especially useful to
split account combinations but can be used to split any text
Parameter Description
Value Some text which has been concatenated using a delimiter eg an
account combination like ldquo011007000rdquo
Offset Identify which portion of the text to return
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Split_Text(0110070002) will return the ldquo100rdquo portion of the text
51
Combine Text
Combines selected text separated by a delimiter Especially useful to combine segment
values to create a delimited account combinations but can be used to combine any text
Parameter Description
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter segment values that you wish to combine into an account
combination
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Combine_Text(011007000) will return ldquo011007000rdquo
Functional Currency
Returns the functional currency for the set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Functional_Currency()
Get Daily Rate
Returns the daily exchange rate for the entered criteria
Parameter Description
FromCurrency The ldquoFromrdquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case
eg ldquoUSDrdquo
ToCurrency The ldquoTordquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
ConversionType The conversion type as configured in Oracle Spelling and case must
be identical to the Oracle configuration
ConversionDate The conversion date This must be in Excel date format Either refer
to a cell which contains a date or use one of the Excel date functions
to return a date in the parameter
Example =Get_Daily_Rate(USDGBPReportingDATE(200911))
Function return values
The GL Wand functions will return a variety of results depending on a number of factors If
all the information is entered correctly and there are no restrictions on access to the data or
the GL Wand itself the result should be the General Ledger balance segment value segment description etc However the following are also possible return values
glwDemo ndash this means that you are using GL Wand without a valid trial key entered
into the GL Wand License Key profile option When trying GL Wand without a valid
52
trial key you are only allowed to use the first 20 rows and 20 columns of the first
sheet in the workbook Any formula entered outside this range will not calculate a
value but will only return the word ldquoglwDemordquo This is called evaluation mode A
trial key needs to be requested from within GL Wand and entered into the profile
option to allow full access to all functionality
glwNoAccess ndash When you log on you will be prompted for your applications user name
and password and will then need to select a responsibility to log on to Any security
rules that have been linked to the selected responsibility will be enforced on the GL
Wand data If you attempt to access a balance on a general ledger account that you
do not have access to the function will return the word ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo Please see
the ldquoAudit Get Balancerdquo section for information on how to identify the security rule that is being contravened
Please note that Oracles Hierarchical Security is not supported
glwError ndash If you enter invalid information in a parameter for a GL Wand function the
GL Wand error value will be returned This may happen when you for example
enter an invalid budget name or period name in the Get Balance function or when you
enter an invalid segment number in the next segment value function This error value
will also be returned when you are not logged on The details of the return value will
indicate where the problem exists eg glwError (Logon) glwError (Balance Type)
glwError (Translated Flag) glwError (Actual Flag) glwError (Missing segment)
glwError (Data error) glwError (Range) glwError (Period)
glwPending ndash This value will be returned during the calculation process Whenever a
cell requires calculation and the process has not been completed yet the cell will
contain the value ldquoglwPendingrdquo
glwEditing ndash Displays in the Excel function arguments window when editing a Get Balance formula
Discovering versus Functions
You may have noticed that you can achieve similar results by using the discover tools and
using the functions For example you could use the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button to retrieve the
next segment value or you could use the ldquoNext Segment Valuerdquo function to return the same result The difference between these two approaches is as follows
Com
paris
on b
etw
een D
iscoverin
g a
nd
Functio
ns
Discovering Functions
Results returned as text string to Excel
cell
Value is calculated based on
parameters
Value is static Value is dynamic
Never changes Recalculated when sheet refreshed
Lower performance overhead Higher performance overhead
Discover Down Next Segment Value
Discover Up Previous Segment Value
Discover Left Next Segment Value
Discover Right Previous Segment Value
Discover Properties
Segment Description
Parent flag
53
Enabled Flag
Account Type
Discover Child Ranges No equivalent
Toggle Discover Level
Parameters of next segment value
determine whether parents children or
both are returned
Use the discover buttons with ldquoPeriodrdquo
selected in the segment drop down Period Name
Balance Extract is similar to Get
Balance though the static values it
produces are refreshable
Get Balance
Special Get Balance Criteria
GL Wand supports two special types of criteria in the Get Balance function namely ldquoAccount
Combinationsrdquo and ldquoSegment Descriptive Flexfieldrdquo criteria These two forms of the Get
Balance criteria have very specific syntax which must be carefully adhered to in order to
achieve the correct results You also have the ability to expand account combinations for a
selection that uses the ldquoAccount Combinationrdquo criteria
Account Combinations
In the past the Get Balance function only supported individual segment values eg segment
2 = 100 or 200 and segment 3 = 1000 or 2000 This would result in GL Wand returning all the possible combinations of those segment 2 and 3 values
Now you have the ability to specify account combinations using the new Get Balance syntax
This means that you can create new complex criteria for your Get Balance formula eg
(segment 2 = 100 and segment 3 = 1000) or (segment 2 = 200 and segment 3 = 2000)
With these criteria GL Wand will no longer return all the possible combinations but rather only the combinations you specify
In order to specify account combinations in a Get Balance function you must tell GL Wand
which segments you are combining You do this by entering a special value into the segment
eg if you want to combine criteria for segment 2 and segment 3 you would enter the
following in the parameter for segment 2 ldquoUse_Seg3rdquo This tells GL Wand that that it must
find the criteria for segment 2 inside the segment 3 parameter In the segment 3 parameter
you now enter the criteria for both segment 2 and segment 3 separated by the special
delimiter character eg ldquo1001000rdquo This tells GL Wand that you are looking for accounts where segment 2 is 100 and segment 3 is 1000 An example could look like this
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg3100100020020000000000)
It is possible to combine multiple segments as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg5Use_Seg5Use_Seg510010000000000)
54
You simply point each applicable segment to the parameter where the account combination
using the special ldquoUse_SegXrdquo syntax Then inside the target parameter you combine the fully qualified account combination for the applicable segments delimited with a ldquordquo character
When you specify your account combination you have full flexibility to use ranges lists wild
cards parents and exclude criteria For example this criteria will fetch all the values where
segment 2 is between 100 and 200 and segment 3 is between 1000 and 2000 And in
addition to that it will include the values where segment 2 is 250 (a parent) and segment 3
starts with 33 but will exclude the specific value where segment 2 is 250 and segment 3 is
3320
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA01Use_Seg31001000-200200025033~25033200000000)
You also have the flexibility to group different parts of the account combination together For
example this criteria combines the values for segment 1 and 3 together and combines segment 2 and 4 together
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA
Use_Seg3Use_Seg401100002115010000002001050000)
These new Get Balance syntax options provide you with tremendous flexibility when building your GL Wand reports
Expand Account Combinations
The expand feature allows you to extract all the detailed child segment values that roll up to
the criteria that the user specifies The expand feature has been extended to support account combinations
In order to expand an account combination you would do the following
Ensure that the correct set of books is selected in the drop down list on the GL Wand
toolbar
Select the cell containing the account combination criteria eg ldquo1007000rdquo Click the expand button
GL Wand will now identify that the selected cell contains an account combination rather than
a single segment value You will now be presented with a window to identify which segments from your chart of accounts are represented in the account combination
55
Select the correct segments and click ldquoOKrdquo GL Wand will now extract all the child
combinations that roll up to the criteria that you entered and insert them into the Excel sheet
The other options are as follows
Fix ndash if you tick this option for a segment GL Wand will ldquopegrdquo that segment using the
selected value (this option only makes sense for a parent segment value) You might
for example want to expand all the account combinations used in a particular parent
cost centre Simply ldquoFixrdquo the cost centre segment and GL Wand will return all the
account combinations used within that parent cost centre
Exclude disabled account combination ndash tick this option to only return account combinations that are currently enabled and have not been end dated
The expand account combinations feature can be used as a normal GL Wand ldquoExpandrdquo in
order to extract the detail behind a total but it is also very useful to extract existing account combinations from your Oracle system
This feature can be used very effectively with the Split Text and Combine Text functions
Segment Descriptive Flexfields
In order to extract balances using the descriptive flexfields stored on the segment values
you need to use special syntax in the Get Balance function The syntax works as follows
1ABC
You wrap the descriptive flexfield using curly brackets
The first character after the open bracket identifies which descriptive flexfield
attribute is being referred to
You then separate the descriptive flexfield attribute from the actual value using a ldquordquo You then specify the criteria for this attribute
An example Get Balance function would look as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC10000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield on segment 2 is equal to the value ldquoABCrdquo
It is possible to specify criteria for multiple descriptive flexfields as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC2XX10000000000)
Simply wrap each descriptive flexfield value in its own and identify the attribute number
At this stage the descriptive flexfield criteria is restricted to a single value or a single range
of values Lists of values and multiple ranges are not supported A range can be specified
using the special range delimiter ldquo|rdquo (pipe character) This character is different to the range
character that is used for normal Get Balance segment parameters The reason is that the
normal range delimiter ldquo-ldquo may easily be used in a segment descriptive flexfields and
therefore is not suitable In future you will be able to configure your own range delimiter
56
character which will provide the best flexibility The range criteria can be specified as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011100|20010000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield
on segment 2 is between 100 and 200 Date values are also supported in this criteria and GL Wand will correctly derive the ldquobetweenrdquo criteria for a date
Calculating
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what cells are refreshed from
Oracle They are used in conjunction with the GL Wand calculation option (onoff) You can stop a calculation at any time by clicking cancel
- Calculate Range (Alt+Ctl+R)
- Calculate Sheet (Alt+Ctl+S)
- Calculate All (Alt+Ctl+A)
- GL Wand calculation on
- GL Wand calculation off
Calculate Range Sheet or All
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what is recalculated
To calculate a range of cells simply
1 Highlight the range
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Rangerdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+R shortcut key
3 Select multiple ranges using the ctrl button (as normal in Excel)
4 Select a range and then select multiple Excel worksheets to calculate the same range on
each sheet
Please note do not use the calculate range option to recalculate the entire sheet ie by
selecting all the cells on the sheet This will take unnecessarily longer Rather use the
calculate sheet option
To calculate a sheet simply
1 Select the applicable sheet
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Sheetrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+S shortcut key
3 Selecting multiple sheets will calculate each of the selected sheets
To calculate all open workbooks simply
1 Click the ldquoCalculate Allrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+A shortcut key
57
GL Wand calculation on or off
You can use the GL Wand calculation toggle button to control when requests for calculations
are sent to the Oracle server
If you toggle GL Wand calculation ldquoOffrdquo calculation requests are not sent to the Oracle server which means you
you can manipulate a worksheet
change cell values
enter new formulae and
perform any other task that would normally cause Excel to recalculate
and the applicable functions will only return the ldquoglwPendingrdquo status and will not
actually calculate a result
This is useful during report development
To calculate the results simply click one of the three calculation buttons ldquoCalculate Range
Sheet or Allrdquo
If you leave the GL Wand calculation option ldquoOnrdquo the applicable functions will be recalculated whenever Excel initiates a calculation process eg
when changing the contents of the cell
changing one of the functions input values deleting a column or row in the worksheet etc
Please note that the GL Wand calculation option has nothing to do with Excel‟s automatic
and manual calculation The GL Wand calculation option controls only the calculation of the
applicable GL Wand functions All other calculations are controlled as normal by the Excel
automatic and manual calculation option
Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
When you perform a recalculation a window will appear to show the progress of the
calculation
58
If you would like to cancel the calculation process simply click the ldquoCancelrdquo button
Please note that GL Wand will need to wait for the next reply from Oracle before the
connection can be closed Therefore it may take some time before the calculation stops and
the window closes
Snapshot
- Snapshot
The snapshot tool can be used to take a snapshot of your GL Wand report This tool will
remove all the GL Wand functions from the workbook and will replace them with the values that the function returned
The results are similar to using the Excel ldquopaste valuesrdquo functionality However this process will only replace GL Wand formulas All other Excel formulas will be left as they were
Please note that you cannot take a snapshot of a protected worksheet rather output the
sheet to PDF format for archive and distribution purposes
When producing a snapshot GL Wand will request a name for the new workbook You can
select an existing workbook and GL Wand will give you the option to append the snapshot
results to the existing workbook or overwrite the existing workbook You therefore have the
option of producing various snapshot reports and combining them into one new workbook in a single operation rather than producing a separate workbook for each snapshot
Hide zeros
- Hide zeros in selected range
Select a report range that contains rows where all the numbers are zero Click the hide zeros
button and GL Wand will hide all the rows in the selected range where all the cells containing
numbers are zero This is very useful for formatting a report which includes many rows
where for example a number of accounts are not used in a particular cost centre or have no
59
balances in a certain period At the click of a button you can hide all the rows that contain only zeros
Select the entire report range when using the hide zeros function GL Wand checks the
selected range for zeros when determining which rows to hide
Excel automatically forces a recalculation of Get Balance formulas when you hide rows on a
report This is normal Excel functionality
This feature can be used on any Excel worksheet and is not limited to GL Wand reports
Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Undo the last hide zeros operation
Click this button to automatically undo the last hide zeros operation
Drill downs
- Drill to default Balance layout
- Drill to default Journal layout
- Drill to default Sub Ledger layout
The drill down options allow you to extract additional detail about a specific ldquoGet Balancerdquo function
1 Select a cell that contains a valid Get Balance function
2 Click on the drill to balance button
3 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
4 The criteria sheet will be populated with the criteria from the Get Balance function
5 The drill down to balance detail will be executed showing all the detailed accounts that make up the total in the Get Balance function
60
See the Create Drill Criteria Sheet section for more details and options on the drill down criteria sheet
Budget variance analysis If you select two cells on the GL Wand report eg one cell with
actual values and one with budget numbers GL Wand will perform a drill down on the Get
Balance function and display the actual and budget values next to each other and a
calculated variance
You now have a variety of options which can be performed from the drill down workbook
1 Modify the parameters on the criteria sheet and perform a new drill to balance Drop
down lists are provided for most of the parameters see the Create Drill Criteria Sheet for
more details
2 Create a summary drill down report
3 If you have performed a balance drill down you can select the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet and then
click drill down to journal details after selecting one or more rows with accounts
4 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo sheet and then click the button to drill down to the full journal
after selecting one or more rows with journal lines The full journal with all the contra
entries for the selected journal lines will be displayed
5 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo or ldquoJournal-Fullrdquo sheet and then click sub-ledger drill down after
selecting one or more rows with journal lines 6 Drill down to Global Consolidation System transactions
When drilling down you have the following options
Double click any cell on the row that you wish to drill down on
61
Select any cell in the row that you want to drill down on and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar
Highlight a range of rows and click the applicable drill down button on the GL Wand
toolbar to drill down on multiple lines at once
Highlight non contiguous rows using the ldquoCtrlrdquo button and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar to drill down on multiple lines which are not adjacent to each other
It is possible to drill from a Get Balance formula directly to the journal or sub ledger
information Similarly you can drill from a detailed balance (on the Balance worksheet)
directly to the sub ledger information If you select these options GL Wand will execute the
interim drill steps automatically Be careful when performing a drill down directly to the
journal or sub ledger detail level as these drill down operations may return many records
GL Wand will automatically group the drill down to journals and sub ledger information using
Excel‟s group and outline functionality This will allow you expand and collapse the data to
show just a portion of the report Headings are also inserted on the journal and sub-ledger drill down to make the report easier to read
On the sub-ledger drill down the heading includes a number in brackets eg ldquo(23) Journal
Name 123rdquo The number indicates which Excel row these sub-ledger lines originated from on
the ldquoJournalsrdquo sheet
You can use the remove drill down report headings button to strip out the headings on
the journal and sub-ledger drill down sheets
A couple of important things to note about drill downs
GL Wand will first count the number of rows that will be retrieved by the drill down
operation
If the row count is more than 1000 you will receive a warning message asking you if
you want to continue
If the row count is more than the defined limit (see Query Limit) you will receive a
warning and the drill down will be cancelled
If the row count is more than the number of rows available in your version of Excel
you will receive an error and the drill down will be cancelled
When you drill down to journal details the ldquoBalance Typerdquo parameter controls how
much detail is returned If this parameter is ldquoPTDrdquo only the current period‟s journals
are returned If this parameter is ldquoYTDrdquo then all the journals for the year are returned and likewise ldquoQTDrdquo will show the journal for the quarter
Ensure that the worksheet is calculated before performing any drill down functions Also
ensure that the cell contains a ldquoGet Balancerdquo function with valid parameter information
A new drill down workbook will be created each time you perform a drill down operation from
a Get Balance function Once you are finished with a drill down workbook simply close it
without saving
You cannot drill down to journal detail on translated balances
Oracle Global Consolidation System
Drill down to Oracle Global Consolidation System (GCS) transactions is also supported
These items will appear on the journal drill down report with a source and category of
62
ldquoConsolidationrdquo If you execute a normal drill down to Sub Ledger on these transactions a
new GL Wand drill workbook will be created and the drill down to the subsidiary set of books will be executed
In order to drill down on a GCS transaction you must be logged on the parent as well as the
subsidiary set of books This can be done using the Multiple Sets of Books logon option
Summary Balance Drill Down
On the drill down Criteria sheet toggle the summarization option to ldquoYrdquo for any segment that
you which to summaries by GL Wand creates a summary trial balance report and
summarizes by the selected segments The report can still be expanded to show the detailed
lines and you can still drill down to journals from these lines
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
37
Click the explode report button
GL Wand will duplicate the worksheet for each child value found for the selected parent
Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Explode feature except that it will
Explode using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the values one level down the hierarchy and create a new worksheet for each value
Explode Hierarchy (Full)
This option works in exactly the same manner as the Explode feature except that it will
Explode using the defined hierarchy For this option to work your starting cell must contain a
single parent value GL Wand will extract the full hierarchy and create a new worksheet for
each value
Open List of Values
- Open list of values
The segment list of values form can be used to search through the segment values and
descriptions for a specific segment First pick the segment from the segment list
dropdown and then click the segment list of values button The list of values for the chosen
segment is displayed
You can enter a value to search for in the find box The list of values will be filtered to show
only items that match the text entered in the find box The text entered in the find box is
38
compared to the segment value and segment description An item will be included in the results if either field contains the text entered in the find box
In the list section you can start entering a segment value (eg Account number) and the list will scroll to the item matching the values that you have entered
Click the ldquoAddrdquo button double click an item in the list or press enter to add the current item
to the selection list on the right You can also click and drag an item to add it to the selection list
39
If you want to add a range like ldquo1000-2000rdquo do the following
Start by adding the ldquo1000rdquo value using one of the options explained above
Then find the ldquo2000rdquo value in the master list
Ensure that the ldquo2000rdquo value is highlighted in the master list and the ldquo1000rdquo value is
highlighted in the selection list and click the ldquoAdd Rangerdquo button
You can also drag a value from the master list onto an existing value in the selection list to create a range
To remove an item from the selection list ensure that it is highlighted and then click the ldquoRemoverdquo button or press the ldquoDeleterdquo key
Every segment will have the additional value called ldquoAllrdquo Selecting this value will add a ldquordquo
to the parameter list which means ldquoAll valuesrdquo If ldquoAllrdquo is selected then all other selections will be removed and replaced with a
If you want to include certain values and exclude others you can use the ldquoAdd Excluderdquo
option This will add the highlighted value to the selection list prefixed by the reserved exclude character ldquo~rdquo
40
You can add any combination of the options mentioned above to produce your own
calculation
Once you have added all the required segment values to the selection list click ldquoOKrdquo to copy
the list to the clipboard You can then paste these values into a Get Balance function or
anywhere else on the Excel sheet
41
Create List of Values
- Create list of values
This feature can be used to quickly format a cell to be a special list of values cell There are
two types The first type inserts a drop down list of values in the cell and is used for balance
types translated flags and actual flags
The second type creates a link to the standard list of values form It is used for segment values periods and balance and encumbrance names
The cell is identified by a note containing the word ldquoLOVrdquo In order to open the list of values
simply double click the cell or select the cell and click the List of Values button on the
toolbar This will open the list of values form for the specific data type that the list of values cell was created for In the example this was the department segment
The checkbox allows you to link the list of values to a specific set of books This option is only applicable if you have the Multiple Sets of Books feature enabled
42
Functions
The GL Wand functions work in a similar way to any other Excel worksheet function You
provide the required parameters and the results of the function are returned to the Excel
cell The difference being that GL Wand functions retrieve information from your Oracle Applications system
GL Wand currently has the following functions
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value
- Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
43
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
Split Text
Combine Text
Functional Currency
Get Daily Rate
You can enter a function into an Excel cell in a number of ways
Click the applicable button on the GL Wand toolbar (or on the GL Wand menu)
Type the function name into the cell manually prefixed by an = sign
You can select the function from the list that Excel provides when you choose the
Insert Function menu item The GL Wand functions are listed under the special GL
Wand category (Prior to Excel 2007 they are listed in the User Defined category)
If you click the applicable function button on the toolbar and the cell you are in contains that
function the Excel formula wizard window will open If you click a function button in a cell
that contains other data GL Wand will warn you that it is going to replace the contents of the cell with the chosen formula and will give you the option of cancelling the action
All parameters must be entered as text values ie enclosed in double quotes eg enter
ldquoUSDrdquo when entering the currency code or enter ldquo001rdquo when entering a segment value
See ldquoDiscovering versus Functionsrdquo for a comparison extracting information using the
discover tools or the functions
44
Get Balance
The Get Balance function is probably the most important function in GL Wand It returns a
General Ledger balance individually or summed based on the parameters that you enter
Example =Get_Balance(Jan-02YTDUSDEABIS CORPORATE01T4000-41600000000)
Clicking the Get Balance function on the GL Wand toolbar will open the Get Balance Wizard
This form has lists of values for items like period name balance type actual flag etc Select
the applicable values and enter a valid currency code and budget or encumbrance name if required
Double clicking a segment value or clicking the list of values button next to the segment will
open the segment list of values form for that segment See the Segment List of Values
section for details on how to use this form When you click the ldquoOKrdquo button on the Segment
List of Values form the selected segment parameters are entered against that segment in the Get Balance Wizard form
If your Oracle configuration includes dependant segments as part of the accounting
flexfield this form will support selecting values based on the independent and dependant
segment values Simply select a value from the available list of values for the independent
segment Then open the list of values for the dependant segment The list of available values
will be limited to only those values that are related to the selected independent segment
value
When you have entered all the parameters click the ldquoOKrdquo button to insert the Get Balance
function into the selected cell with the entered parameters Clicking the ldquoEditrdquo button will
open the Get Balance function in the Excel formula wizard form which will allow you to link
parameters to cells in the Excel sheet
45
You can also open the Get Balance formula in the Excel formula wizard form using the fx
button on the formula bar or by selecting the ldquoInsert Functionrdquo menu item on the Excel menu bar
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Type ldquoCTDrdquo
(Custom to Date) you can specify a custom period selection For
example ldquoFeb-07-Aug-07rdquo will add all the movement for the entered
period range You may enter multiple lists or ranges of periods and can use wild cards as well eg ldquoJan-0rdquo or ldquo-07rdquo
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Types ldquoJEDrdquo
ldquoJEDUrdquo or ldquoJEDPrdquo (Journal Effective Date) the period parameter
becomes a date parameter eg ldquo01012007-0501200710012007rdquo
The format that your date is in is important The ldquo-ldquo character is
used in GL Wand to denote a range of values and therefore it cannot
be used as a date delimiter eg 01-01-2007 would not be valid So
take care if your Windows regional setting use the ldquo-ldquo as a date
delimiter For JED type calculations we recommend that you use the
ldquordquo as a date delimiter and that you always format the date as text
in Excel otherwise Excel will convert the date based on your regional
setting
Balance Type YTD QTD PTD PJTD CTD JED JEDP or JEDU all in upper case
YTD ndash Summarizes the full years balance
QTD ndash Summarizes the balance for the quarter
46
PTD ndash Includes just the current period‟s movement
PJTD ndash Project to date
CTD ndash Summarizes the custom period criteria entered
JED ndash Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for both posted and unposted journals
JEDP - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for posted journals only
JEDU - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered dates for unposted journals only
Currency Code The currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
Translated Flag Enter E T or C Use E to retrieve the entered amount and T for the
translated amount Use C to report on the converted amount ie
the functional currency equivalent of a foreign currency amount
Only E is valid if requesting a balance for the functional currency of the current Set of Books
You must ensure that you have run the currency translation process
in Oracle for the selected currency and period before reporting on
translated balances If you enter T to request the translated balance
and there is no current translated balance available in the system a zero is returned
Oracle Release 12 provides a new feature to allow reporting on the
values entered in the functional currency only ie excludes any
foreign currency transactions converted to the functional currency
Therefore in Release 12 if you use the E (entered) flag in
conjunction with the functional currency any converted amounts will
be excluded To report on the total balance (including values entered
in functional currency and values converted to the functional
currency) use the new ldquoTotalrdquo option This option is only available if
you log on to a release 12 Oracle instance
Actual Flag A ndash Actual B ndash Budget E ndash Encumbrance
Bud Encumb Name If you enter B or E above enter the exact budget name or
encumbrance type here Otherwise simply enter ldquordquo for actual
balances
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter the segment value here You must enter it as a text value
including any leading zeros eg enter segment value ldquo10rdquo as ldquo0010rdquo
if this segment is configured as four characters with leading zeros in Oracle
You may enter your segment values in a variety of flexible ways
including parents child values ranges wildcards excludes etc See
the explanation below on valid values for this parameter
To include all values simply enter ldquordquo Please note as from GL Wand
3850 you can no longer leave the segment blank a value is
required
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
47
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Options This parameter is used to modify the results returned by the Get
Balance function from the standard behavior Currently two options are supported
Source ndash Limit the results to a specific journal source
Category ndash Limit the results to a specific journal category
The criteria needs to be entered as follows - ldquoSource=Manualrdquo or
ldquoCategory=Adjustmentrdquo To specify both a source and category use
the ldquo|rdquo as a delimiter eg ldquoSource=Manual|Category=Adjustmentrdquo
You can specify multiple values by separating them with ldquordquo eg
ldquoSource=PayablesReceivablesrdquo
When creating Get Balance formulas always use ldquordquo to denote all values as this allows more
efficient SQL to be generated Do not use a range like ldquo000-ZZZrdquo as they will require
unnecessary processing
The segment value parameters can be entered as
a single value representing a child or parent account eg ldquo1500rdquo might represent a
parent account
a range of values eg entering ldquo1500-1600rdquo in one of the segment parameters will
sum all the segment values between 1500 and 1600 for that segment
a list of segment values eg entering ldquo150015101590rdquo in one of the segment
parameters will sum the specific segment values entered If any of the segment
values are parents GL Wand will sum the hierarchy for that parent
wild card entries eg 100 will sum 1100 1200 1300 1400 etc or entering the
value 1 will sum all values that start with 1
values to be included and then specific exclusions eg ldquo1000-2000~1500rdquo will sum
the values between 1000 and 2000 but will skip 1500
a combination of any of the above eg 1000-2000237123752560-
25803000~32004000~4161-4169 In this way you can build up your own calculation definition in the segment parameter
Please note ndash there are two additional methods for specifying segment criteria in the Get
Balance function The one allows you to specify account combinations and the other
allows the use of segment descriptive flexfields Please see the Special Get Balance
Criteria section in order to use these options
Segment Description
Returns the segment description for the chosen segment value
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
48
Example =Get_Segment_Description(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
Returns the next or previous segment value
Parameter Description
Last Value The starting segment value
Segment The segment number
Level Enter a P to return the next or previous parent value enter a C to
return the next or previous child value or leave the parameter blank
to return the next or previous segment value irrespective of whether
it is a parent or child
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example = Next_Segment_Value(ldquo1000rdquo3P)
Parent Flag
Returns the parent flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is a
parent
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Parent_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Enabled Flag
Returns the enabled flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is
enabled
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example = Enabled_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
49
Account Type
Returns the account type for the chosen segment value This function is only applicable for
the natural account segment and will return the value Asset Liability etc
Parameter Description
Account Value The account segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Account_Type(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Period Name
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number Optionally the returned value can be a certain number of periods into the future or past
Parameter Description
PeriodYear The year that you want the period name for
PeriodNumber The period number that you want the period name for
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Offset Optionally enter an offset to return the period name which is n
periods before or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3
periods into the future or -1 to return the previous period
Example =Period_Name(20063)
Set of Books Name
Returns the set of books name for the chosen set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Set_of_Books_Name()
Segment Descriptive Flexfield
Returns the segment values descriptive flexfield for the selected criteria
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
50
Segment The segment number
AttributeNo Identify which attribute you want to report on The segment values
descriptive flexfield has 50 possible attribute values The applicable
attributes will depend on your configuration and whether this
Descriptive Flexfield is used by your organization
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Segment_DFF(ldquo100rdquo25) retrieves the 5th attribute on the segment values
descriptive flexfield for segment value 100 on segment 2
Period Offset
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for
this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
Offset Enter an offset to return the period name which is n periods before
or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3 periods into the
future or -1 to return the previous period
RetRange Enter TRUE (or 1) to return the result as a range eg entering
period Mar-07 with an offset of -2 and the RetRange set to true will
return ldquoJan-07-Mar-07rdquo This can be used in conjunction with the
CTD (Custom to Date) balance type in the Get Balance function to
create rolling period reporting
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Period_Offset(Jan-07-2TRUE)
Split Text
Splits delimited text and returns a specific portion based on an offset Especially useful to
split account combinations but can be used to split any text
Parameter Description
Value Some text which has been concatenated using a delimiter eg an
account combination like ldquo011007000rdquo
Offset Identify which portion of the text to return
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Split_Text(0110070002) will return the ldquo100rdquo portion of the text
51
Combine Text
Combines selected text separated by a delimiter Especially useful to combine segment
values to create a delimited account combinations but can be used to combine any text
Parameter Description
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter segment values that you wish to combine into an account
combination
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Combine_Text(011007000) will return ldquo011007000rdquo
Functional Currency
Returns the functional currency for the set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Functional_Currency()
Get Daily Rate
Returns the daily exchange rate for the entered criteria
Parameter Description
FromCurrency The ldquoFromrdquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case
eg ldquoUSDrdquo
ToCurrency The ldquoTordquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
ConversionType The conversion type as configured in Oracle Spelling and case must
be identical to the Oracle configuration
ConversionDate The conversion date This must be in Excel date format Either refer
to a cell which contains a date or use one of the Excel date functions
to return a date in the parameter
Example =Get_Daily_Rate(USDGBPReportingDATE(200911))
Function return values
The GL Wand functions will return a variety of results depending on a number of factors If
all the information is entered correctly and there are no restrictions on access to the data or
the GL Wand itself the result should be the General Ledger balance segment value segment description etc However the following are also possible return values
glwDemo ndash this means that you are using GL Wand without a valid trial key entered
into the GL Wand License Key profile option When trying GL Wand without a valid
52
trial key you are only allowed to use the first 20 rows and 20 columns of the first
sheet in the workbook Any formula entered outside this range will not calculate a
value but will only return the word ldquoglwDemordquo This is called evaluation mode A
trial key needs to be requested from within GL Wand and entered into the profile
option to allow full access to all functionality
glwNoAccess ndash When you log on you will be prompted for your applications user name
and password and will then need to select a responsibility to log on to Any security
rules that have been linked to the selected responsibility will be enforced on the GL
Wand data If you attempt to access a balance on a general ledger account that you
do not have access to the function will return the word ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo Please see
the ldquoAudit Get Balancerdquo section for information on how to identify the security rule that is being contravened
Please note that Oracles Hierarchical Security is not supported
glwError ndash If you enter invalid information in a parameter for a GL Wand function the
GL Wand error value will be returned This may happen when you for example
enter an invalid budget name or period name in the Get Balance function or when you
enter an invalid segment number in the next segment value function This error value
will also be returned when you are not logged on The details of the return value will
indicate where the problem exists eg glwError (Logon) glwError (Balance Type)
glwError (Translated Flag) glwError (Actual Flag) glwError (Missing segment)
glwError (Data error) glwError (Range) glwError (Period)
glwPending ndash This value will be returned during the calculation process Whenever a
cell requires calculation and the process has not been completed yet the cell will
contain the value ldquoglwPendingrdquo
glwEditing ndash Displays in the Excel function arguments window when editing a Get Balance formula
Discovering versus Functions
You may have noticed that you can achieve similar results by using the discover tools and
using the functions For example you could use the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button to retrieve the
next segment value or you could use the ldquoNext Segment Valuerdquo function to return the same result The difference between these two approaches is as follows
Com
paris
on b
etw
een D
iscoverin
g a
nd
Functio
ns
Discovering Functions
Results returned as text string to Excel
cell
Value is calculated based on
parameters
Value is static Value is dynamic
Never changes Recalculated when sheet refreshed
Lower performance overhead Higher performance overhead
Discover Down Next Segment Value
Discover Up Previous Segment Value
Discover Left Next Segment Value
Discover Right Previous Segment Value
Discover Properties
Segment Description
Parent flag
53
Enabled Flag
Account Type
Discover Child Ranges No equivalent
Toggle Discover Level
Parameters of next segment value
determine whether parents children or
both are returned
Use the discover buttons with ldquoPeriodrdquo
selected in the segment drop down Period Name
Balance Extract is similar to Get
Balance though the static values it
produces are refreshable
Get Balance
Special Get Balance Criteria
GL Wand supports two special types of criteria in the Get Balance function namely ldquoAccount
Combinationsrdquo and ldquoSegment Descriptive Flexfieldrdquo criteria These two forms of the Get
Balance criteria have very specific syntax which must be carefully adhered to in order to
achieve the correct results You also have the ability to expand account combinations for a
selection that uses the ldquoAccount Combinationrdquo criteria
Account Combinations
In the past the Get Balance function only supported individual segment values eg segment
2 = 100 or 200 and segment 3 = 1000 or 2000 This would result in GL Wand returning all the possible combinations of those segment 2 and 3 values
Now you have the ability to specify account combinations using the new Get Balance syntax
This means that you can create new complex criteria for your Get Balance formula eg
(segment 2 = 100 and segment 3 = 1000) or (segment 2 = 200 and segment 3 = 2000)
With these criteria GL Wand will no longer return all the possible combinations but rather only the combinations you specify
In order to specify account combinations in a Get Balance function you must tell GL Wand
which segments you are combining You do this by entering a special value into the segment
eg if you want to combine criteria for segment 2 and segment 3 you would enter the
following in the parameter for segment 2 ldquoUse_Seg3rdquo This tells GL Wand that that it must
find the criteria for segment 2 inside the segment 3 parameter In the segment 3 parameter
you now enter the criteria for both segment 2 and segment 3 separated by the special
delimiter character eg ldquo1001000rdquo This tells GL Wand that you are looking for accounts where segment 2 is 100 and segment 3 is 1000 An example could look like this
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg3100100020020000000000)
It is possible to combine multiple segments as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg5Use_Seg5Use_Seg510010000000000)
54
You simply point each applicable segment to the parameter where the account combination
using the special ldquoUse_SegXrdquo syntax Then inside the target parameter you combine the fully qualified account combination for the applicable segments delimited with a ldquordquo character
When you specify your account combination you have full flexibility to use ranges lists wild
cards parents and exclude criteria For example this criteria will fetch all the values where
segment 2 is between 100 and 200 and segment 3 is between 1000 and 2000 And in
addition to that it will include the values where segment 2 is 250 (a parent) and segment 3
starts with 33 but will exclude the specific value where segment 2 is 250 and segment 3 is
3320
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA01Use_Seg31001000-200200025033~25033200000000)
You also have the flexibility to group different parts of the account combination together For
example this criteria combines the values for segment 1 and 3 together and combines segment 2 and 4 together
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA
Use_Seg3Use_Seg401100002115010000002001050000)
These new Get Balance syntax options provide you with tremendous flexibility when building your GL Wand reports
Expand Account Combinations
The expand feature allows you to extract all the detailed child segment values that roll up to
the criteria that the user specifies The expand feature has been extended to support account combinations
In order to expand an account combination you would do the following
Ensure that the correct set of books is selected in the drop down list on the GL Wand
toolbar
Select the cell containing the account combination criteria eg ldquo1007000rdquo Click the expand button
GL Wand will now identify that the selected cell contains an account combination rather than
a single segment value You will now be presented with a window to identify which segments from your chart of accounts are represented in the account combination
55
Select the correct segments and click ldquoOKrdquo GL Wand will now extract all the child
combinations that roll up to the criteria that you entered and insert them into the Excel sheet
The other options are as follows
Fix ndash if you tick this option for a segment GL Wand will ldquopegrdquo that segment using the
selected value (this option only makes sense for a parent segment value) You might
for example want to expand all the account combinations used in a particular parent
cost centre Simply ldquoFixrdquo the cost centre segment and GL Wand will return all the
account combinations used within that parent cost centre
Exclude disabled account combination ndash tick this option to only return account combinations that are currently enabled and have not been end dated
The expand account combinations feature can be used as a normal GL Wand ldquoExpandrdquo in
order to extract the detail behind a total but it is also very useful to extract existing account combinations from your Oracle system
This feature can be used very effectively with the Split Text and Combine Text functions
Segment Descriptive Flexfields
In order to extract balances using the descriptive flexfields stored on the segment values
you need to use special syntax in the Get Balance function The syntax works as follows
1ABC
You wrap the descriptive flexfield using curly brackets
The first character after the open bracket identifies which descriptive flexfield
attribute is being referred to
You then separate the descriptive flexfield attribute from the actual value using a ldquordquo You then specify the criteria for this attribute
An example Get Balance function would look as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC10000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield on segment 2 is equal to the value ldquoABCrdquo
It is possible to specify criteria for multiple descriptive flexfields as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC2XX10000000000)
Simply wrap each descriptive flexfield value in its own and identify the attribute number
At this stage the descriptive flexfield criteria is restricted to a single value or a single range
of values Lists of values and multiple ranges are not supported A range can be specified
using the special range delimiter ldquo|rdquo (pipe character) This character is different to the range
character that is used for normal Get Balance segment parameters The reason is that the
normal range delimiter ldquo-ldquo may easily be used in a segment descriptive flexfields and
therefore is not suitable In future you will be able to configure your own range delimiter
56
character which will provide the best flexibility The range criteria can be specified as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011100|20010000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield
on segment 2 is between 100 and 200 Date values are also supported in this criteria and GL Wand will correctly derive the ldquobetweenrdquo criteria for a date
Calculating
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what cells are refreshed from
Oracle They are used in conjunction with the GL Wand calculation option (onoff) You can stop a calculation at any time by clicking cancel
- Calculate Range (Alt+Ctl+R)
- Calculate Sheet (Alt+Ctl+S)
- Calculate All (Alt+Ctl+A)
- GL Wand calculation on
- GL Wand calculation off
Calculate Range Sheet or All
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what is recalculated
To calculate a range of cells simply
1 Highlight the range
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Rangerdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+R shortcut key
3 Select multiple ranges using the ctrl button (as normal in Excel)
4 Select a range and then select multiple Excel worksheets to calculate the same range on
each sheet
Please note do not use the calculate range option to recalculate the entire sheet ie by
selecting all the cells on the sheet This will take unnecessarily longer Rather use the
calculate sheet option
To calculate a sheet simply
1 Select the applicable sheet
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Sheetrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+S shortcut key
3 Selecting multiple sheets will calculate each of the selected sheets
To calculate all open workbooks simply
1 Click the ldquoCalculate Allrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+A shortcut key
57
GL Wand calculation on or off
You can use the GL Wand calculation toggle button to control when requests for calculations
are sent to the Oracle server
If you toggle GL Wand calculation ldquoOffrdquo calculation requests are not sent to the Oracle server which means you
you can manipulate a worksheet
change cell values
enter new formulae and
perform any other task that would normally cause Excel to recalculate
and the applicable functions will only return the ldquoglwPendingrdquo status and will not
actually calculate a result
This is useful during report development
To calculate the results simply click one of the three calculation buttons ldquoCalculate Range
Sheet or Allrdquo
If you leave the GL Wand calculation option ldquoOnrdquo the applicable functions will be recalculated whenever Excel initiates a calculation process eg
when changing the contents of the cell
changing one of the functions input values deleting a column or row in the worksheet etc
Please note that the GL Wand calculation option has nothing to do with Excel‟s automatic
and manual calculation The GL Wand calculation option controls only the calculation of the
applicable GL Wand functions All other calculations are controlled as normal by the Excel
automatic and manual calculation option
Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
When you perform a recalculation a window will appear to show the progress of the
calculation
58
If you would like to cancel the calculation process simply click the ldquoCancelrdquo button
Please note that GL Wand will need to wait for the next reply from Oracle before the
connection can be closed Therefore it may take some time before the calculation stops and
the window closes
Snapshot
- Snapshot
The snapshot tool can be used to take a snapshot of your GL Wand report This tool will
remove all the GL Wand functions from the workbook and will replace them with the values that the function returned
The results are similar to using the Excel ldquopaste valuesrdquo functionality However this process will only replace GL Wand formulas All other Excel formulas will be left as they were
Please note that you cannot take a snapshot of a protected worksheet rather output the
sheet to PDF format for archive and distribution purposes
When producing a snapshot GL Wand will request a name for the new workbook You can
select an existing workbook and GL Wand will give you the option to append the snapshot
results to the existing workbook or overwrite the existing workbook You therefore have the
option of producing various snapshot reports and combining them into one new workbook in a single operation rather than producing a separate workbook for each snapshot
Hide zeros
- Hide zeros in selected range
Select a report range that contains rows where all the numbers are zero Click the hide zeros
button and GL Wand will hide all the rows in the selected range where all the cells containing
numbers are zero This is very useful for formatting a report which includes many rows
where for example a number of accounts are not used in a particular cost centre or have no
59
balances in a certain period At the click of a button you can hide all the rows that contain only zeros
Select the entire report range when using the hide zeros function GL Wand checks the
selected range for zeros when determining which rows to hide
Excel automatically forces a recalculation of Get Balance formulas when you hide rows on a
report This is normal Excel functionality
This feature can be used on any Excel worksheet and is not limited to GL Wand reports
Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Undo the last hide zeros operation
Click this button to automatically undo the last hide zeros operation
Drill downs
- Drill to default Balance layout
- Drill to default Journal layout
- Drill to default Sub Ledger layout
The drill down options allow you to extract additional detail about a specific ldquoGet Balancerdquo function
1 Select a cell that contains a valid Get Balance function
2 Click on the drill to balance button
3 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
4 The criteria sheet will be populated with the criteria from the Get Balance function
5 The drill down to balance detail will be executed showing all the detailed accounts that make up the total in the Get Balance function
60
See the Create Drill Criteria Sheet section for more details and options on the drill down criteria sheet
Budget variance analysis If you select two cells on the GL Wand report eg one cell with
actual values and one with budget numbers GL Wand will perform a drill down on the Get
Balance function and display the actual and budget values next to each other and a
calculated variance
You now have a variety of options which can be performed from the drill down workbook
1 Modify the parameters on the criteria sheet and perform a new drill to balance Drop
down lists are provided for most of the parameters see the Create Drill Criteria Sheet for
more details
2 Create a summary drill down report
3 If you have performed a balance drill down you can select the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet and then
click drill down to journal details after selecting one or more rows with accounts
4 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo sheet and then click the button to drill down to the full journal
after selecting one or more rows with journal lines The full journal with all the contra
entries for the selected journal lines will be displayed
5 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo or ldquoJournal-Fullrdquo sheet and then click sub-ledger drill down after
selecting one or more rows with journal lines 6 Drill down to Global Consolidation System transactions
When drilling down you have the following options
Double click any cell on the row that you wish to drill down on
61
Select any cell in the row that you want to drill down on and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar
Highlight a range of rows and click the applicable drill down button on the GL Wand
toolbar to drill down on multiple lines at once
Highlight non contiguous rows using the ldquoCtrlrdquo button and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar to drill down on multiple lines which are not adjacent to each other
It is possible to drill from a Get Balance formula directly to the journal or sub ledger
information Similarly you can drill from a detailed balance (on the Balance worksheet)
directly to the sub ledger information If you select these options GL Wand will execute the
interim drill steps automatically Be careful when performing a drill down directly to the
journal or sub ledger detail level as these drill down operations may return many records
GL Wand will automatically group the drill down to journals and sub ledger information using
Excel‟s group and outline functionality This will allow you expand and collapse the data to
show just a portion of the report Headings are also inserted on the journal and sub-ledger drill down to make the report easier to read
On the sub-ledger drill down the heading includes a number in brackets eg ldquo(23) Journal
Name 123rdquo The number indicates which Excel row these sub-ledger lines originated from on
the ldquoJournalsrdquo sheet
You can use the remove drill down report headings button to strip out the headings on
the journal and sub-ledger drill down sheets
A couple of important things to note about drill downs
GL Wand will first count the number of rows that will be retrieved by the drill down
operation
If the row count is more than 1000 you will receive a warning message asking you if
you want to continue
If the row count is more than the defined limit (see Query Limit) you will receive a
warning and the drill down will be cancelled
If the row count is more than the number of rows available in your version of Excel
you will receive an error and the drill down will be cancelled
When you drill down to journal details the ldquoBalance Typerdquo parameter controls how
much detail is returned If this parameter is ldquoPTDrdquo only the current period‟s journals
are returned If this parameter is ldquoYTDrdquo then all the journals for the year are returned and likewise ldquoQTDrdquo will show the journal for the quarter
Ensure that the worksheet is calculated before performing any drill down functions Also
ensure that the cell contains a ldquoGet Balancerdquo function with valid parameter information
A new drill down workbook will be created each time you perform a drill down operation from
a Get Balance function Once you are finished with a drill down workbook simply close it
without saving
You cannot drill down to journal detail on translated balances
Oracle Global Consolidation System
Drill down to Oracle Global Consolidation System (GCS) transactions is also supported
These items will appear on the journal drill down report with a source and category of
62
ldquoConsolidationrdquo If you execute a normal drill down to Sub Ledger on these transactions a
new GL Wand drill workbook will be created and the drill down to the subsidiary set of books will be executed
In order to drill down on a GCS transaction you must be logged on the parent as well as the
subsidiary set of books This can be done using the Multiple Sets of Books logon option
Summary Balance Drill Down
On the drill down Criteria sheet toggle the summarization option to ldquoYrdquo for any segment that
you which to summaries by GL Wand creates a summary trial balance report and
summarizes by the selected segments The report can still be expanded to show the detailed
lines and you can still drill down to journals from these lines
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
38
compared to the segment value and segment description An item will be included in the results if either field contains the text entered in the find box
In the list section you can start entering a segment value (eg Account number) and the list will scroll to the item matching the values that you have entered
Click the ldquoAddrdquo button double click an item in the list or press enter to add the current item
to the selection list on the right You can also click and drag an item to add it to the selection list
39
If you want to add a range like ldquo1000-2000rdquo do the following
Start by adding the ldquo1000rdquo value using one of the options explained above
Then find the ldquo2000rdquo value in the master list
Ensure that the ldquo2000rdquo value is highlighted in the master list and the ldquo1000rdquo value is
highlighted in the selection list and click the ldquoAdd Rangerdquo button
You can also drag a value from the master list onto an existing value in the selection list to create a range
To remove an item from the selection list ensure that it is highlighted and then click the ldquoRemoverdquo button or press the ldquoDeleterdquo key
Every segment will have the additional value called ldquoAllrdquo Selecting this value will add a ldquordquo
to the parameter list which means ldquoAll valuesrdquo If ldquoAllrdquo is selected then all other selections will be removed and replaced with a
If you want to include certain values and exclude others you can use the ldquoAdd Excluderdquo
option This will add the highlighted value to the selection list prefixed by the reserved exclude character ldquo~rdquo
40
You can add any combination of the options mentioned above to produce your own
calculation
Once you have added all the required segment values to the selection list click ldquoOKrdquo to copy
the list to the clipboard You can then paste these values into a Get Balance function or
anywhere else on the Excel sheet
41
Create List of Values
- Create list of values
This feature can be used to quickly format a cell to be a special list of values cell There are
two types The first type inserts a drop down list of values in the cell and is used for balance
types translated flags and actual flags
The second type creates a link to the standard list of values form It is used for segment values periods and balance and encumbrance names
The cell is identified by a note containing the word ldquoLOVrdquo In order to open the list of values
simply double click the cell or select the cell and click the List of Values button on the
toolbar This will open the list of values form for the specific data type that the list of values cell was created for In the example this was the department segment
The checkbox allows you to link the list of values to a specific set of books This option is only applicable if you have the Multiple Sets of Books feature enabled
42
Functions
The GL Wand functions work in a similar way to any other Excel worksheet function You
provide the required parameters and the results of the function are returned to the Excel
cell The difference being that GL Wand functions retrieve information from your Oracle Applications system
GL Wand currently has the following functions
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value
- Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
43
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
Split Text
Combine Text
Functional Currency
Get Daily Rate
You can enter a function into an Excel cell in a number of ways
Click the applicable button on the GL Wand toolbar (or on the GL Wand menu)
Type the function name into the cell manually prefixed by an = sign
You can select the function from the list that Excel provides when you choose the
Insert Function menu item The GL Wand functions are listed under the special GL
Wand category (Prior to Excel 2007 they are listed in the User Defined category)
If you click the applicable function button on the toolbar and the cell you are in contains that
function the Excel formula wizard window will open If you click a function button in a cell
that contains other data GL Wand will warn you that it is going to replace the contents of the cell with the chosen formula and will give you the option of cancelling the action
All parameters must be entered as text values ie enclosed in double quotes eg enter
ldquoUSDrdquo when entering the currency code or enter ldquo001rdquo when entering a segment value
See ldquoDiscovering versus Functionsrdquo for a comparison extracting information using the
discover tools or the functions
44
Get Balance
The Get Balance function is probably the most important function in GL Wand It returns a
General Ledger balance individually or summed based on the parameters that you enter
Example =Get_Balance(Jan-02YTDUSDEABIS CORPORATE01T4000-41600000000)
Clicking the Get Balance function on the GL Wand toolbar will open the Get Balance Wizard
This form has lists of values for items like period name balance type actual flag etc Select
the applicable values and enter a valid currency code and budget or encumbrance name if required
Double clicking a segment value or clicking the list of values button next to the segment will
open the segment list of values form for that segment See the Segment List of Values
section for details on how to use this form When you click the ldquoOKrdquo button on the Segment
List of Values form the selected segment parameters are entered against that segment in the Get Balance Wizard form
If your Oracle configuration includes dependant segments as part of the accounting
flexfield this form will support selecting values based on the independent and dependant
segment values Simply select a value from the available list of values for the independent
segment Then open the list of values for the dependant segment The list of available values
will be limited to only those values that are related to the selected independent segment
value
When you have entered all the parameters click the ldquoOKrdquo button to insert the Get Balance
function into the selected cell with the entered parameters Clicking the ldquoEditrdquo button will
open the Get Balance function in the Excel formula wizard form which will allow you to link
parameters to cells in the Excel sheet
45
You can also open the Get Balance formula in the Excel formula wizard form using the fx
button on the formula bar or by selecting the ldquoInsert Functionrdquo menu item on the Excel menu bar
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Type ldquoCTDrdquo
(Custom to Date) you can specify a custom period selection For
example ldquoFeb-07-Aug-07rdquo will add all the movement for the entered
period range You may enter multiple lists or ranges of periods and can use wild cards as well eg ldquoJan-0rdquo or ldquo-07rdquo
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Types ldquoJEDrdquo
ldquoJEDUrdquo or ldquoJEDPrdquo (Journal Effective Date) the period parameter
becomes a date parameter eg ldquo01012007-0501200710012007rdquo
The format that your date is in is important The ldquo-ldquo character is
used in GL Wand to denote a range of values and therefore it cannot
be used as a date delimiter eg 01-01-2007 would not be valid So
take care if your Windows regional setting use the ldquo-ldquo as a date
delimiter For JED type calculations we recommend that you use the
ldquordquo as a date delimiter and that you always format the date as text
in Excel otherwise Excel will convert the date based on your regional
setting
Balance Type YTD QTD PTD PJTD CTD JED JEDP or JEDU all in upper case
YTD ndash Summarizes the full years balance
QTD ndash Summarizes the balance for the quarter
46
PTD ndash Includes just the current period‟s movement
PJTD ndash Project to date
CTD ndash Summarizes the custom period criteria entered
JED ndash Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for both posted and unposted journals
JEDP - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for posted journals only
JEDU - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered dates for unposted journals only
Currency Code The currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
Translated Flag Enter E T or C Use E to retrieve the entered amount and T for the
translated amount Use C to report on the converted amount ie
the functional currency equivalent of a foreign currency amount
Only E is valid if requesting a balance for the functional currency of the current Set of Books
You must ensure that you have run the currency translation process
in Oracle for the selected currency and period before reporting on
translated balances If you enter T to request the translated balance
and there is no current translated balance available in the system a zero is returned
Oracle Release 12 provides a new feature to allow reporting on the
values entered in the functional currency only ie excludes any
foreign currency transactions converted to the functional currency
Therefore in Release 12 if you use the E (entered) flag in
conjunction with the functional currency any converted amounts will
be excluded To report on the total balance (including values entered
in functional currency and values converted to the functional
currency) use the new ldquoTotalrdquo option This option is only available if
you log on to a release 12 Oracle instance
Actual Flag A ndash Actual B ndash Budget E ndash Encumbrance
Bud Encumb Name If you enter B or E above enter the exact budget name or
encumbrance type here Otherwise simply enter ldquordquo for actual
balances
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter the segment value here You must enter it as a text value
including any leading zeros eg enter segment value ldquo10rdquo as ldquo0010rdquo
if this segment is configured as four characters with leading zeros in Oracle
You may enter your segment values in a variety of flexible ways
including parents child values ranges wildcards excludes etc See
the explanation below on valid values for this parameter
To include all values simply enter ldquordquo Please note as from GL Wand
3850 you can no longer leave the segment blank a value is
required
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
47
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Options This parameter is used to modify the results returned by the Get
Balance function from the standard behavior Currently two options are supported
Source ndash Limit the results to a specific journal source
Category ndash Limit the results to a specific journal category
The criteria needs to be entered as follows - ldquoSource=Manualrdquo or
ldquoCategory=Adjustmentrdquo To specify both a source and category use
the ldquo|rdquo as a delimiter eg ldquoSource=Manual|Category=Adjustmentrdquo
You can specify multiple values by separating them with ldquordquo eg
ldquoSource=PayablesReceivablesrdquo
When creating Get Balance formulas always use ldquordquo to denote all values as this allows more
efficient SQL to be generated Do not use a range like ldquo000-ZZZrdquo as they will require
unnecessary processing
The segment value parameters can be entered as
a single value representing a child or parent account eg ldquo1500rdquo might represent a
parent account
a range of values eg entering ldquo1500-1600rdquo in one of the segment parameters will
sum all the segment values between 1500 and 1600 for that segment
a list of segment values eg entering ldquo150015101590rdquo in one of the segment
parameters will sum the specific segment values entered If any of the segment
values are parents GL Wand will sum the hierarchy for that parent
wild card entries eg 100 will sum 1100 1200 1300 1400 etc or entering the
value 1 will sum all values that start with 1
values to be included and then specific exclusions eg ldquo1000-2000~1500rdquo will sum
the values between 1000 and 2000 but will skip 1500
a combination of any of the above eg 1000-2000237123752560-
25803000~32004000~4161-4169 In this way you can build up your own calculation definition in the segment parameter
Please note ndash there are two additional methods for specifying segment criteria in the Get
Balance function The one allows you to specify account combinations and the other
allows the use of segment descriptive flexfields Please see the Special Get Balance
Criteria section in order to use these options
Segment Description
Returns the segment description for the chosen segment value
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
48
Example =Get_Segment_Description(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
Returns the next or previous segment value
Parameter Description
Last Value The starting segment value
Segment The segment number
Level Enter a P to return the next or previous parent value enter a C to
return the next or previous child value or leave the parameter blank
to return the next or previous segment value irrespective of whether
it is a parent or child
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example = Next_Segment_Value(ldquo1000rdquo3P)
Parent Flag
Returns the parent flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is a
parent
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Parent_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Enabled Flag
Returns the enabled flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is
enabled
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example = Enabled_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
49
Account Type
Returns the account type for the chosen segment value This function is only applicable for
the natural account segment and will return the value Asset Liability etc
Parameter Description
Account Value The account segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Account_Type(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Period Name
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number Optionally the returned value can be a certain number of periods into the future or past
Parameter Description
PeriodYear The year that you want the period name for
PeriodNumber The period number that you want the period name for
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Offset Optionally enter an offset to return the period name which is n
periods before or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3
periods into the future or -1 to return the previous period
Example =Period_Name(20063)
Set of Books Name
Returns the set of books name for the chosen set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Set_of_Books_Name()
Segment Descriptive Flexfield
Returns the segment values descriptive flexfield for the selected criteria
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
50
Segment The segment number
AttributeNo Identify which attribute you want to report on The segment values
descriptive flexfield has 50 possible attribute values The applicable
attributes will depend on your configuration and whether this
Descriptive Flexfield is used by your organization
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Segment_DFF(ldquo100rdquo25) retrieves the 5th attribute on the segment values
descriptive flexfield for segment value 100 on segment 2
Period Offset
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for
this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
Offset Enter an offset to return the period name which is n periods before
or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3 periods into the
future or -1 to return the previous period
RetRange Enter TRUE (or 1) to return the result as a range eg entering
period Mar-07 with an offset of -2 and the RetRange set to true will
return ldquoJan-07-Mar-07rdquo This can be used in conjunction with the
CTD (Custom to Date) balance type in the Get Balance function to
create rolling period reporting
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Period_Offset(Jan-07-2TRUE)
Split Text
Splits delimited text and returns a specific portion based on an offset Especially useful to
split account combinations but can be used to split any text
Parameter Description
Value Some text which has been concatenated using a delimiter eg an
account combination like ldquo011007000rdquo
Offset Identify which portion of the text to return
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Split_Text(0110070002) will return the ldquo100rdquo portion of the text
51
Combine Text
Combines selected text separated by a delimiter Especially useful to combine segment
values to create a delimited account combinations but can be used to combine any text
Parameter Description
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter segment values that you wish to combine into an account
combination
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Combine_Text(011007000) will return ldquo011007000rdquo
Functional Currency
Returns the functional currency for the set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Functional_Currency()
Get Daily Rate
Returns the daily exchange rate for the entered criteria
Parameter Description
FromCurrency The ldquoFromrdquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case
eg ldquoUSDrdquo
ToCurrency The ldquoTordquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
ConversionType The conversion type as configured in Oracle Spelling and case must
be identical to the Oracle configuration
ConversionDate The conversion date This must be in Excel date format Either refer
to a cell which contains a date or use one of the Excel date functions
to return a date in the parameter
Example =Get_Daily_Rate(USDGBPReportingDATE(200911))
Function return values
The GL Wand functions will return a variety of results depending on a number of factors If
all the information is entered correctly and there are no restrictions on access to the data or
the GL Wand itself the result should be the General Ledger balance segment value segment description etc However the following are also possible return values
glwDemo ndash this means that you are using GL Wand without a valid trial key entered
into the GL Wand License Key profile option When trying GL Wand without a valid
52
trial key you are only allowed to use the first 20 rows and 20 columns of the first
sheet in the workbook Any formula entered outside this range will not calculate a
value but will only return the word ldquoglwDemordquo This is called evaluation mode A
trial key needs to be requested from within GL Wand and entered into the profile
option to allow full access to all functionality
glwNoAccess ndash When you log on you will be prompted for your applications user name
and password and will then need to select a responsibility to log on to Any security
rules that have been linked to the selected responsibility will be enforced on the GL
Wand data If you attempt to access a balance on a general ledger account that you
do not have access to the function will return the word ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo Please see
the ldquoAudit Get Balancerdquo section for information on how to identify the security rule that is being contravened
Please note that Oracles Hierarchical Security is not supported
glwError ndash If you enter invalid information in a parameter for a GL Wand function the
GL Wand error value will be returned This may happen when you for example
enter an invalid budget name or period name in the Get Balance function or when you
enter an invalid segment number in the next segment value function This error value
will also be returned when you are not logged on The details of the return value will
indicate where the problem exists eg glwError (Logon) glwError (Balance Type)
glwError (Translated Flag) glwError (Actual Flag) glwError (Missing segment)
glwError (Data error) glwError (Range) glwError (Period)
glwPending ndash This value will be returned during the calculation process Whenever a
cell requires calculation and the process has not been completed yet the cell will
contain the value ldquoglwPendingrdquo
glwEditing ndash Displays in the Excel function arguments window when editing a Get Balance formula
Discovering versus Functions
You may have noticed that you can achieve similar results by using the discover tools and
using the functions For example you could use the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button to retrieve the
next segment value or you could use the ldquoNext Segment Valuerdquo function to return the same result The difference between these two approaches is as follows
Com
paris
on b
etw
een D
iscoverin
g a
nd
Functio
ns
Discovering Functions
Results returned as text string to Excel
cell
Value is calculated based on
parameters
Value is static Value is dynamic
Never changes Recalculated when sheet refreshed
Lower performance overhead Higher performance overhead
Discover Down Next Segment Value
Discover Up Previous Segment Value
Discover Left Next Segment Value
Discover Right Previous Segment Value
Discover Properties
Segment Description
Parent flag
53
Enabled Flag
Account Type
Discover Child Ranges No equivalent
Toggle Discover Level
Parameters of next segment value
determine whether parents children or
both are returned
Use the discover buttons with ldquoPeriodrdquo
selected in the segment drop down Period Name
Balance Extract is similar to Get
Balance though the static values it
produces are refreshable
Get Balance
Special Get Balance Criteria
GL Wand supports two special types of criteria in the Get Balance function namely ldquoAccount
Combinationsrdquo and ldquoSegment Descriptive Flexfieldrdquo criteria These two forms of the Get
Balance criteria have very specific syntax which must be carefully adhered to in order to
achieve the correct results You also have the ability to expand account combinations for a
selection that uses the ldquoAccount Combinationrdquo criteria
Account Combinations
In the past the Get Balance function only supported individual segment values eg segment
2 = 100 or 200 and segment 3 = 1000 or 2000 This would result in GL Wand returning all the possible combinations of those segment 2 and 3 values
Now you have the ability to specify account combinations using the new Get Balance syntax
This means that you can create new complex criteria for your Get Balance formula eg
(segment 2 = 100 and segment 3 = 1000) or (segment 2 = 200 and segment 3 = 2000)
With these criteria GL Wand will no longer return all the possible combinations but rather only the combinations you specify
In order to specify account combinations in a Get Balance function you must tell GL Wand
which segments you are combining You do this by entering a special value into the segment
eg if you want to combine criteria for segment 2 and segment 3 you would enter the
following in the parameter for segment 2 ldquoUse_Seg3rdquo This tells GL Wand that that it must
find the criteria for segment 2 inside the segment 3 parameter In the segment 3 parameter
you now enter the criteria for both segment 2 and segment 3 separated by the special
delimiter character eg ldquo1001000rdquo This tells GL Wand that you are looking for accounts where segment 2 is 100 and segment 3 is 1000 An example could look like this
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg3100100020020000000000)
It is possible to combine multiple segments as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg5Use_Seg5Use_Seg510010000000000)
54
You simply point each applicable segment to the parameter where the account combination
using the special ldquoUse_SegXrdquo syntax Then inside the target parameter you combine the fully qualified account combination for the applicable segments delimited with a ldquordquo character
When you specify your account combination you have full flexibility to use ranges lists wild
cards parents and exclude criteria For example this criteria will fetch all the values where
segment 2 is between 100 and 200 and segment 3 is between 1000 and 2000 And in
addition to that it will include the values where segment 2 is 250 (a parent) and segment 3
starts with 33 but will exclude the specific value where segment 2 is 250 and segment 3 is
3320
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA01Use_Seg31001000-200200025033~25033200000000)
You also have the flexibility to group different parts of the account combination together For
example this criteria combines the values for segment 1 and 3 together and combines segment 2 and 4 together
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA
Use_Seg3Use_Seg401100002115010000002001050000)
These new Get Balance syntax options provide you with tremendous flexibility when building your GL Wand reports
Expand Account Combinations
The expand feature allows you to extract all the detailed child segment values that roll up to
the criteria that the user specifies The expand feature has been extended to support account combinations
In order to expand an account combination you would do the following
Ensure that the correct set of books is selected in the drop down list on the GL Wand
toolbar
Select the cell containing the account combination criteria eg ldquo1007000rdquo Click the expand button
GL Wand will now identify that the selected cell contains an account combination rather than
a single segment value You will now be presented with a window to identify which segments from your chart of accounts are represented in the account combination
55
Select the correct segments and click ldquoOKrdquo GL Wand will now extract all the child
combinations that roll up to the criteria that you entered and insert them into the Excel sheet
The other options are as follows
Fix ndash if you tick this option for a segment GL Wand will ldquopegrdquo that segment using the
selected value (this option only makes sense for a parent segment value) You might
for example want to expand all the account combinations used in a particular parent
cost centre Simply ldquoFixrdquo the cost centre segment and GL Wand will return all the
account combinations used within that parent cost centre
Exclude disabled account combination ndash tick this option to only return account combinations that are currently enabled and have not been end dated
The expand account combinations feature can be used as a normal GL Wand ldquoExpandrdquo in
order to extract the detail behind a total but it is also very useful to extract existing account combinations from your Oracle system
This feature can be used very effectively with the Split Text and Combine Text functions
Segment Descriptive Flexfields
In order to extract balances using the descriptive flexfields stored on the segment values
you need to use special syntax in the Get Balance function The syntax works as follows
1ABC
You wrap the descriptive flexfield using curly brackets
The first character after the open bracket identifies which descriptive flexfield
attribute is being referred to
You then separate the descriptive flexfield attribute from the actual value using a ldquordquo You then specify the criteria for this attribute
An example Get Balance function would look as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC10000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield on segment 2 is equal to the value ldquoABCrdquo
It is possible to specify criteria for multiple descriptive flexfields as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC2XX10000000000)
Simply wrap each descriptive flexfield value in its own and identify the attribute number
At this stage the descriptive flexfield criteria is restricted to a single value or a single range
of values Lists of values and multiple ranges are not supported A range can be specified
using the special range delimiter ldquo|rdquo (pipe character) This character is different to the range
character that is used for normal Get Balance segment parameters The reason is that the
normal range delimiter ldquo-ldquo may easily be used in a segment descriptive flexfields and
therefore is not suitable In future you will be able to configure your own range delimiter
56
character which will provide the best flexibility The range criteria can be specified as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011100|20010000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield
on segment 2 is between 100 and 200 Date values are also supported in this criteria and GL Wand will correctly derive the ldquobetweenrdquo criteria for a date
Calculating
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what cells are refreshed from
Oracle They are used in conjunction with the GL Wand calculation option (onoff) You can stop a calculation at any time by clicking cancel
- Calculate Range (Alt+Ctl+R)
- Calculate Sheet (Alt+Ctl+S)
- Calculate All (Alt+Ctl+A)
- GL Wand calculation on
- GL Wand calculation off
Calculate Range Sheet or All
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what is recalculated
To calculate a range of cells simply
1 Highlight the range
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Rangerdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+R shortcut key
3 Select multiple ranges using the ctrl button (as normal in Excel)
4 Select a range and then select multiple Excel worksheets to calculate the same range on
each sheet
Please note do not use the calculate range option to recalculate the entire sheet ie by
selecting all the cells on the sheet This will take unnecessarily longer Rather use the
calculate sheet option
To calculate a sheet simply
1 Select the applicable sheet
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Sheetrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+S shortcut key
3 Selecting multiple sheets will calculate each of the selected sheets
To calculate all open workbooks simply
1 Click the ldquoCalculate Allrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+A shortcut key
57
GL Wand calculation on or off
You can use the GL Wand calculation toggle button to control when requests for calculations
are sent to the Oracle server
If you toggle GL Wand calculation ldquoOffrdquo calculation requests are not sent to the Oracle server which means you
you can manipulate a worksheet
change cell values
enter new formulae and
perform any other task that would normally cause Excel to recalculate
and the applicable functions will only return the ldquoglwPendingrdquo status and will not
actually calculate a result
This is useful during report development
To calculate the results simply click one of the three calculation buttons ldquoCalculate Range
Sheet or Allrdquo
If you leave the GL Wand calculation option ldquoOnrdquo the applicable functions will be recalculated whenever Excel initiates a calculation process eg
when changing the contents of the cell
changing one of the functions input values deleting a column or row in the worksheet etc
Please note that the GL Wand calculation option has nothing to do with Excel‟s automatic
and manual calculation The GL Wand calculation option controls only the calculation of the
applicable GL Wand functions All other calculations are controlled as normal by the Excel
automatic and manual calculation option
Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
When you perform a recalculation a window will appear to show the progress of the
calculation
58
If you would like to cancel the calculation process simply click the ldquoCancelrdquo button
Please note that GL Wand will need to wait for the next reply from Oracle before the
connection can be closed Therefore it may take some time before the calculation stops and
the window closes
Snapshot
- Snapshot
The snapshot tool can be used to take a snapshot of your GL Wand report This tool will
remove all the GL Wand functions from the workbook and will replace them with the values that the function returned
The results are similar to using the Excel ldquopaste valuesrdquo functionality However this process will only replace GL Wand formulas All other Excel formulas will be left as they were
Please note that you cannot take a snapshot of a protected worksheet rather output the
sheet to PDF format for archive and distribution purposes
When producing a snapshot GL Wand will request a name for the new workbook You can
select an existing workbook and GL Wand will give you the option to append the snapshot
results to the existing workbook or overwrite the existing workbook You therefore have the
option of producing various snapshot reports and combining them into one new workbook in a single operation rather than producing a separate workbook for each snapshot
Hide zeros
- Hide zeros in selected range
Select a report range that contains rows where all the numbers are zero Click the hide zeros
button and GL Wand will hide all the rows in the selected range where all the cells containing
numbers are zero This is very useful for formatting a report which includes many rows
where for example a number of accounts are not used in a particular cost centre or have no
59
balances in a certain period At the click of a button you can hide all the rows that contain only zeros
Select the entire report range when using the hide zeros function GL Wand checks the
selected range for zeros when determining which rows to hide
Excel automatically forces a recalculation of Get Balance formulas when you hide rows on a
report This is normal Excel functionality
This feature can be used on any Excel worksheet and is not limited to GL Wand reports
Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Undo the last hide zeros operation
Click this button to automatically undo the last hide zeros operation
Drill downs
- Drill to default Balance layout
- Drill to default Journal layout
- Drill to default Sub Ledger layout
The drill down options allow you to extract additional detail about a specific ldquoGet Balancerdquo function
1 Select a cell that contains a valid Get Balance function
2 Click on the drill to balance button
3 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
4 The criteria sheet will be populated with the criteria from the Get Balance function
5 The drill down to balance detail will be executed showing all the detailed accounts that make up the total in the Get Balance function
60
See the Create Drill Criteria Sheet section for more details and options on the drill down criteria sheet
Budget variance analysis If you select two cells on the GL Wand report eg one cell with
actual values and one with budget numbers GL Wand will perform a drill down on the Get
Balance function and display the actual and budget values next to each other and a
calculated variance
You now have a variety of options which can be performed from the drill down workbook
1 Modify the parameters on the criteria sheet and perform a new drill to balance Drop
down lists are provided for most of the parameters see the Create Drill Criteria Sheet for
more details
2 Create a summary drill down report
3 If you have performed a balance drill down you can select the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet and then
click drill down to journal details after selecting one or more rows with accounts
4 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo sheet and then click the button to drill down to the full journal
after selecting one or more rows with journal lines The full journal with all the contra
entries for the selected journal lines will be displayed
5 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo or ldquoJournal-Fullrdquo sheet and then click sub-ledger drill down after
selecting one or more rows with journal lines 6 Drill down to Global Consolidation System transactions
When drilling down you have the following options
Double click any cell on the row that you wish to drill down on
61
Select any cell in the row that you want to drill down on and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar
Highlight a range of rows and click the applicable drill down button on the GL Wand
toolbar to drill down on multiple lines at once
Highlight non contiguous rows using the ldquoCtrlrdquo button and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar to drill down on multiple lines which are not adjacent to each other
It is possible to drill from a Get Balance formula directly to the journal or sub ledger
information Similarly you can drill from a detailed balance (on the Balance worksheet)
directly to the sub ledger information If you select these options GL Wand will execute the
interim drill steps automatically Be careful when performing a drill down directly to the
journal or sub ledger detail level as these drill down operations may return many records
GL Wand will automatically group the drill down to journals and sub ledger information using
Excel‟s group and outline functionality This will allow you expand and collapse the data to
show just a portion of the report Headings are also inserted on the journal and sub-ledger drill down to make the report easier to read
On the sub-ledger drill down the heading includes a number in brackets eg ldquo(23) Journal
Name 123rdquo The number indicates which Excel row these sub-ledger lines originated from on
the ldquoJournalsrdquo sheet
You can use the remove drill down report headings button to strip out the headings on
the journal and sub-ledger drill down sheets
A couple of important things to note about drill downs
GL Wand will first count the number of rows that will be retrieved by the drill down
operation
If the row count is more than 1000 you will receive a warning message asking you if
you want to continue
If the row count is more than the defined limit (see Query Limit) you will receive a
warning and the drill down will be cancelled
If the row count is more than the number of rows available in your version of Excel
you will receive an error and the drill down will be cancelled
When you drill down to journal details the ldquoBalance Typerdquo parameter controls how
much detail is returned If this parameter is ldquoPTDrdquo only the current period‟s journals
are returned If this parameter is ldquoYTDrdquo then all the journals for the year are returned and likewise ldquoQTDrdquo will show the journal for the quarter
Ensure that the worksheet is calculated before performing any drill down functions Also
ensure that the cell contains a ldquoGet Balancerdquo function with valid parameter information
A new drill down workbook will be created each time you perform a drill down operation from
a Get Balance function Once you are finished with a drill down workbook simply close it
without saving
You cannot drill down to journal detail on translated balances
Oracle Global Consolidation System
Drill down to Oracle Global Consolidation System (GCS) transactions is also supported
These items will appear on the journal drill down report with a source and category of
62
ldquoConsolidationrdquo If you execute a normal drill down to Sub Ledger on these transactions a
new GL Wand drill workbook will be created and the drill down to the subsidiary set of books will be executed
In order to drill down on a GCS transaction you must be logged on the parent as well as the
subsidiary set of books This can be done using the Multiple Sets of Books logon option
Summary Balance Drill Down
On the drill down Criteria sheet toggle the summarization option to ldquoYrdquo for any segment that
you which to summaries by GL Wand creates a summary trial balance report and
summarizes by the selected segments The report can still be expanded to show the detailed
lines and you can still drill down to journals from these lines
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
39
If you want to add a range like ldquo1000-2000rdquo do the following
Start by adding the ldquo1000rdquo value using one of the options explained above
Then find the ldquo2000rdquo value in the master list
Ensure that the ldquo2000rdquo value is highlighted in the master list and the ldquo1000rdquo value is
highlighted in the selection list and click the ldquoAdd Rangerdquo button
You can also drag a value from the master list onto an existing value in the selection list to create a range
To remove an item from the selection list ensure that it is highlighted and then click the ldquoRemoverdquo button or press the ldquoDeleterdquo key
Every segment will have the additional value called ldquoAllrdquo Selecting this value will add a ldquordquo
to the parameter list which means ldquoAll valuesrdquo If ldquoAllrdquo is selected then all other selections will be removed and replaced with a
If you want to include certain values and exclude others you can use the ldquoAdd Excluderdquo
option This will add the highlighted value to the selection list prefixed by the reserved exclude character ldquo~rdquo
40
You can add any combination of the options mentioned above to produce your own
calculation
Once you have added all the required segment values to the selection list click ldquoOKrdquo to copy
the list to the clipboard You can then paste these values into a Get Balance function or
anywhere else on the Excel sheet
41
Create List of Values
- Create list of values
This feature can be used to quickly format a cell to be a special list of values cell There are
two types The first type inserts a drop down list of values in the cell and is used for balance
types translated flags and actual flags
The second type creates a link to the standard list of values form It is used for segment values periods and balance and encumbrance names
The cell is identified by a note containing the word ldquoLOVrdquo In order to open the list of values
simply double click the cell or select the cell and click the List of Values button on the
toolbar This will open the list of values form for the specific data type that the list of values cell was created for In the example this was the department segment
The checkbox allows you to link the list of values to a specific set of books This option is only applicable if you have the Multiple Sets of Books feature enabled
42
Functions
The GL Wand functions work in a similar way to any other Excel worksheet function You
provide the required parameters and the results of the function are returned to the Excel
cell The difference being that GL Wand functions retrieve information from your Oracle Applications system
GL Wand currently has the following functions
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value
- Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
43
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
Split Text
Combine Text
Functional Currency
Get Daily Rate
You can enter a function into an Excel cell in a number of ways
Click the applicable button on the GL Wand toolbar (or on the GL Wand menu)
Type the function name into the cell manually prefixed by an = sign
You can select the function from the list that Excel provides when you choose the
Insert Function menu item The GL Wand functions are listed under the special GL
Wand category (Prior to Excel 2007 they are listed in the User Defined category)
If you click the applicable function button on the toolbar and the cell you are in contains that
function the Excel formula wizard window will open If you click a function button in a cell
that contains other data GL Wand will warn you that it is going to replace the contents of the cell with the chosen formula and will give you the option of cancelling the action
All parameters must be entered as text values ie enclosed in double quotes eg enter
ldquoUSDrdquo when entering the currency code or enter ldquo001rdquo when entering a segment value
See ldquoDiscovering versus Functionsrdquo for a comparison extracting information using the
discover tools or the functions
44
Get Balance
The Get Balance function is probably the most important function in GL Wand It returns a
General Ledger balance individually or summed based on the parameters that you enter
Example =Get_Balance(Jan-02YTDUSDEABIS CORPORATE01T4000-41600000000)
Clicking the Get Balance function on the GL Wand toolbar will open the Get Balance Wizard
This form has lists of values for items like period name balance type actual flag etc Select
the applicable values and enter a valid currency code and budget or encumbrance name if required
Double clicking a segment value or clicking the list of values button next to the segment will
open the segment list of values form for that segment See the Segment List of Values
section for details on how to use this form When you click the ldquoOKrdquo button on the Segment
List of Values form the selected segment parameters are entered against that segment in the Get Balance Wizard form
If your Oracle configuration includes dependant segments as part of the accounting
flexfield this form will support selecting values based on the independent and dependant
segment values Simply select a value from the available list of values for the independent
segment Then open the list of values for the dependant segment The list of available values
will be limited to only those values that are related to the selected independent segment
value
When you have entered all the parameters click the ldquoOKrdquo button to insert the Get Balance
function into the selected cell with the entered parameters Clicking the ldquoEditrdquo button will
open the Get Balance function in the Excel formula wizard form which will allow you to link
parameters to cells in the Excel sheet
45
You can also open the Get Balance formula in the Excel formula wizard form using the fx
button on the formula bar or by selecting the ldquoInsert Functionrdquo menu item on the Excel menu bar
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Type ldquoCTDrdquo
(Custom to Date) you can specify a custom period selection For
example ldquoFeb-07-Aug-07rdquo will add all the movement for the entered
period range You may enter multiple lists or ranges of periods and can use wild cards as well eg ldquoJan-0rdquo or ldquo-07rdquo
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Types ldquoJEDrdquo
ldquoJEDUrdquo or ldquoJEDPrdquo (Journal Effective Date) the period parameter
becomes a date parameter eg ldquo01012007-0501200710012007rdquo
The format that your date is in is important The ldquo-ldquo character is
used in GL Wand to denote a range of values and therefore it cannot
be used as a date delimiter eg 01-01-2007 would not be valid So
take care if your Windows regional setting use the ldquo-ldquo as a date
delimiter For JED type calculations we recommend that you use the
ldquordquo as a date delimiter and that you always format the date as text
in Excel otherwise Excel will convert the date based on your regional
setting
Balance Type YTD QTD PTD PJTD CTD JED JEDP or JEDU all in upper case
YTD ndash Summarizes the full years balance
QTD ndash Summarizes the balance for the quarter
46
PTD ndash Includes just the current period‟s movement
PJTD ndash Project to date
CTD ndash Summarizes the custom period criteria entered
JED ndash Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for both posted and unposted journals
JEDP - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for posted journals only
JEDU - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered dates for unposted journals only
Currency Code The currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
Translated Flag Enter E T or C Use E to retrieve the entered amount and T for the
translated amount Use C to report on the converted amount ie
the functional currency equivalent of a foreign currency amount
Only E is valid if requesting a balance for the functional currency of the current Set of Books
You must ensure that you have run the currency translation process
in Oracle for the selected currency and period before reporting on
translated balances If you enter T to request the translated balance
and there is no current translated balance available in the system a zero is returned
Oracle Release 12 provides a new feature to allow reporting on the
values entered in the functional currency only ie excludes any
foreign currency transactions converted to the functional currency
Therefore in Release 12 if you use the E (entered) flag in
conjunction with the functional currency any converted amounts will
be excluded To report on the total balance (including values entered
in functional currency and values converted to the functional
currency) use the new ldquoTotalrdquo option This option is only available if
you log on to a release 12 Oracle instance
Actual Flag A ndash Actual B ndash Budget E ndash Encumbrance
Bud Encumb Name If you enter B or E above enter the exact budget name or
encumbrance type here Otherwise simply enter ldquordquo for actual
balances
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter the segment value here You must enter it as a text value
including any leading zeros eg enter segment value ldquo10rdquo as ldquo0010rdquo
if this segment is configured as four characters with leading zeros in Oracle
You may enter your segment values in a variety of flexible ways
including parents child values ranges wildcards excludes etc See
the explanation below on valid values for this parameter
To include all values simply enter ldquordquo Please note as from GL Wand
3850 you can no longer leave the segment blank a value is
required
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
47
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Options This parameter is used to modify the results returned by the Get
Balance function from the standard behavior Currently two options are supported
Source ndash Limit the results to a specific journal source
Category ndash Limit the results to a specific journal category
The criteria needs to be entered as follows - ldquoSource=Manualrdquo or
ldquoCategory=Adjustmentrdquo To specify both a source and category use
the ldquo|rdquo as a delimiter eg ldquoSource=Manual|Category=Adjustmentrdquo
You can specify multiple values by separating them with ldquordquo eg
ldquoSource=PayablesReceivablesrdquo
When creating Get Balance formulas always use ldquordquo to denote all values as this allows more
efficient SQL to be generated Do not use a range like ldquo000-ZZZrdquo as they will require
unnecessary processing
The segment value parameters can be entered as
a single value representing a child or parent account eg ldquo1500rdquo might represent a
parent account
a range of values eg entering ldquo1500-1600rdquo in one of the segment parameters will
sum all the segment values between 1500 and 1600 for that segment
a list of segment values eg entering ldquo150015101590rdquo in one of the segment
parameters will sum the specific segment values entered If any of the segment
values are parents GL Wand will sum the hierarchy for that parent
wild card entries eg 100 will sum 1100 1200 1300 1400 etc or entering the
value 1 will sum all values that start with 1
values to be included and then specific exclusions eg ldquo1000-2000~1500rdquo will sum
the values between 1000 and 2000 but will skip 1500
a combination of any of the above eg 1000-2000237123752560-
25803000~32004000~4161-4169 In this way you can build up your own calculation definition in the segment parameter
Please note ndash there are two additional methods for specifying segment criteria in the Get
Balance function The one allows you to specify account combinations and the other
allows the use of segment descriptive flexfields Please see the Special Get Balance
Criteria section in order to use these options
Segment Description
Returns the segment description for the chosen segment value
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
48
Example =Get_Segment_Description(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
Returns the next or previous segment value
Parameter Description
Last Value The starting segment value
Segment The segment number
Level Enter a P to return the next or previous parent value enter a C to
return the next or previous child value or leave the parameter blank
to return the next or previous segment value irrespective of whether
it is a parent or child
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example = Next_Segment_Value(ldquo1000rdquo3P)
Parent Flag
Returns the parent flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is a
parent
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Parent_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Enabled Flag
Returns the enabled flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is
enabled
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example = Enabled_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
49
Account Type
Returns the account type for the chosen segment value This function is only applicable for
the natural account segment and will return the value Asset Liability etc
Parameter Description
Account Value The account segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Account_Type(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Period Name
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number Optionally the returned value can be a certain number of periods into the future or past
Parameter Description
PeriodYear The year that you want the period name for
PeriodNumber The period number that you want the period name for
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Offset Optionally enter an offset to return the period name which is n
periods before or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3
periods into the future or -1 to return the previous period
Example =Period_Name(20063)
Set of Books Name
Returns the set of books name for the chosen set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Set_of_Books_Name()
Segment Descriptive Flexfield
Returns the segment values descriptive flexfield for the selected criteria
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
50
Segment The segment number
AttributeNo Identify which attribute you want to report on The segment values
descriptive flexfield has 50 possible attribute values The applicable
attributes will depend on your configuration and whether this
Descriptive Flexfield is used by your organization
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Segment_DFF(ldquo100rdquo25) retrieves the 5th attribute on the segment values
descriptive flexfield for segment value 100 on segment 2
Period Offset
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for
this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
Offset Enter an offset to return the period name which is n periods before
or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3 periods into the
future or -1 to return the previous period
RetRange Enter TRUE (or 1) to return the result as a range eg entering
period Mar-07 with an offset of -2 and the RetRange set to true will
return ldquoJan-07-Mar-07rdquo This can be used in conjunction with the
CTD (Custom to Date) balance type in the Get Balance function to
create rolling period reporting
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Period_Offset(Jan-07-2TRUE)
Split Text
Splits delimited text and returns a specific portion based on an offset Especially useful to
split account combinations but can be used to split any text
Parameter Description
Value Some text which has been concatenated using a delimiter eg an
account combination like ldquo011007000rdquo
Offset Identify which portion of the text to return
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Split_Text(0110070002) will return the ldquo100rdquo portion of the text
51
Combine Text
Combines selected text separated by a delimiter Especially useful to combine segment
values to create a delimited account combinations but can be used to combine any text
Parameter Description
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter segment values that you wish to combine into an account
combination
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Combine_Text(011007000) will return ldquo011007000rdquo
Functional Currency
Returns the functional currency for the set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Functional_Currency()
Get Daily Rate
Returns the daily exchange rate for the entered criteria
Parameter Description
FromCurrency The ldquoFromrdquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case
eg ldquoUSDrdquo
ToCurrency The ldquoTordquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
ConversionType The conversion type as configured in Oracle Spelling and case must
be identical to the Oracle configuration
ConversionDate The conversion date This must be in Excel date format Either refer
to a cell which contains a date or use one of the Excel date functions
to return a date in the parameter
Example =Get_Daily_Rate(USDGBPReportingDATE(200911))
Function return values
The GL Wand functions will return a variety of results depending on a number of factors If
all the information is entered correctly and there are no restrictions on access to the data or
the GL Wand itself the result should be the General Ledger balance segment value segment description etc However the following are also possible return values
glwDemo ndash this means that you are using GL Wand without a valid trial key entered
into the GL Wand License Key profile option When trying GL Wand without a valid
52
trial key you are only allowed to use the first 20 rows and 20 columns of the first
sheet in the workbook Any formula entered outside this range will not calculate a
value but will only return the word ldquoglwDemordquo This is called evaluation mode A
trial key needs to be requested from within GL Wand and entered into the profile
option to allow full access to all functionality
glwNoAccess ndash When you log on you will be prompted for your applications user name
and password and will then need to select a responsibility to log on to Any security
rules that have been linked to the selected responsibility will be enforced on the GL
Wand data If you attempt to access a balance on a general ledger account that you
do not have access to the function will return the word ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo Please see
the ldquoAudit Get Balancerdquo section for information on how to identify the security rule that is being contravened
Please note that Oracles Hierarchical Security is not supported
glwError ndash If you enter invalid information in a parameter for a GL Wand function the
GL Wand error value will be returned This may happen when you for example
enter an invalid budget name or period name in the Get Balance function or when you
enter an invalid segment number in the next segment value function This error value
will also be returned when you are not logged on The details of the return value will
indicate where the problem exists eg glwError (Logon) glwError (Balance Type)
glwError (Translated Flag) glwError (Actual Flag) glwError (Missing segment)
glwError (Data error) glwError (Range) glwError (Period)
glwPending ndash This value will be returned during the calculation process Whenever a
cell requires calculation and the process has not been completed yet the cell will
contain the value ldquoglwPendingrdquo
glwEditing ndash Displays in the Excel function arguments window when editing a Get Balance formula
Discovering versus Functions
You may have noticed that you can achieve similar results by using the discover tools and
using the functions For example you could use the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button to retrieve the
next segment value or you could use the ldquoNext Segment Valuerdquo function to return the same result The difference between these two approaches is as follows
Com
paris
on b
etw
een D
iscoverin
g a
nd
Functio
ns
Discovering Functions
Results returned as text string to Excel
cell
Value is calculated based on
parameters
Value is static Value is dynamic
Never changes Recalculated when sheet refreshed
Lower performance overhead Higher performance overhead
Discover Down Next Segment Value
Discover Up Previous Segment Value
Discover Left Next Segment Value
Discover Right Previous Segment Value
Discover Properties
Segment Description
Parent flag
53
Enabled Flag
Account Type
Discover Child Ranges No equivalent
Toggle Discover Level
Parameters of next segment value
determine whether parents children or
both are returned
Use the discover buttons with ldquoPeriodrdquo
selected in the segment drop down Period Name
Balance Extract is similar to Get
Balance though the static values it
produces are refreshable
Get Balance
Special Get Balance Criteria
GL Wand supports two special types of criteria in the Get Balance function namely ldquoAccount
Combinationsrdquo and ldquoSegment Descriptive Flexfieldrdquo criteria These two forms of the Get
Balance criteria have very specific syntax which must be carefully adhered to in order to
achieve the correct results You also have the ability to expand account combinations for a
selection that uses the ldquoAccount Combinationrdquo criteria
Account Combinations
In the past the Get Balance function only supported individual segment values eg segment
2 = 100 or 200 and segment 3 = 1000 or 2000 This would result in GL Wand returning all the possible combinations of those segment 2 and 3 values
Now you have the ability to specify account combinations using the new Get Balance syntax
This means that you can create new complex criteria for your Get Balance formula eg
(segment 2 = 100 and segment 3 = 1000) or (segment 2 = 200 and segment 3 = 2000)
With these criteria GL Wand will no longer return all the possible combinations but rather only the combinations you specify
In order to specify account combinations in a Get Balance function you must tell GL Wand
which segments you are combining You do this by entering a special value into the segment
eg if you want to combine criteria for segment 2 and segment 3 you would enter the
following in the parameter for segment 2 ldquoUse_Seg3rdquo This tells GL Wand that that it must
find the criteria for segment 2 inside the segment 3 parameter In the segment 3 parameter
you now enter the criteria for both segment 2 and segment 3 separated by the special
delimiter character eg ldquo1001000rdquo This tells GL Wand that you are looking for accounts where segment 2 is 100 and segment 3 is 1000 An example could look like this
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg3100100020020000000000)
It is possible to combine multiple segments as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg5Use_Seg5Use_Seg510010000000000)
54
You simply point each applicable segment to the parameter where the account combination
using the special ldquoUse_SegXrdquo syntax Then inside the target parameter you combine the fully qualified account combination for the applicable segments delimited with a ldquordquo character
When you specify your account combination you have full flexibility to use ranges lists wild
cards parents and exclude criteria For example this criteria will fetch all the values where
segment 2 is between 100 and 200 and segment 3 is between 1000 and 2000 And in
addition to that it will include the values where segment 2 is 250 (a parent) and segment 3
starts with 33 but will exclude the specific value where segment 2 is 250 and segment 3 is
3320
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA01Use_Seg31001000-200200025033~25033200000000)
You also have the flexibility to group different parts of the account combination together For
example this criteria combines the values for segment 1 and 3 together and combines segment 2 and 4 together
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA
Use_Seg3Use_Seg401100002115010000002001050000)
These new Get Balance syntax options provide you with tremendous flexibility when building your GL Wand reports
Expand Account Combinations
The expand feature allows you to extract all the detailed child segment values that roll up to
the criteria that the user specifies The expand feature has been extended to support account combinations
In order to expand an account combination you would do the following
Ensure that the correct set of books is selected in the drop down list on the GL Wand
toolbar
Select the cell containing the account combination criteria eg ldquo1007000rdquo Click the expand button
GL Wand will now identify that the selected cell contains an account combination rather than
a single segment value You will now be presented with a window to identify which segments from your chart of accounts are represented in the account combination
55
Select the correct segments and click ldquoOKrdquo GL Wand will now extract all the child
combinations that roll up to the criteria that you entered and insert them into the Excel sheet
The other options are as follows
Fix ndash if you tick this option for a segment GL Wand will ldquopegrdquo that segment using the
selected value (this option only makes sense for a parent segment value) You might
for example want to expand all the account combinations used in a particular parent
cost centre Simply ldquoFixrdquo the cost centre segment and GL Wand will return all the
account combinations used within that parent cost centre
Exclude disabled account combination ndash tick this option to only return account combinations that are currently enabled and have not been end dated
The expand account combinations feature can be used as a normal GL Wand ldquoExpandrdquo in
order to extract the detail behind a total but it is also very useful to extract existing account combinations from your Oracle system
This feature can be used very effectively with the Split Text and Combine Text functions
Segment Descriptive Flexfields
In order to extract balances using the descriptive flexfields stored on the segment values
you need to use special syntax in the Get Balance function The syntax works as follows
1ABC
You wrap the descriptive flexfield using curly brackets
The first character after the open bracket identifies which descriptive flexfield
attribute is being referred to
You then separate the descriptive flexfield attribute from the actual value using a ldquordquo You then specify the criteria for this attribute
An example Get Balance function would look as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC10000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield on segment 2 is equal to the value ldquoABCrdquo
It is possible to specify criteria for multiple descriptive flexfields as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC2XX10000000000)
Simply wrap each descriptive flexfield value in its own and identify the attribute number
At this stage the descriptive flexfield criteria is restricted to a single value or a single range
of values Lists of values and multiple ranges are not supported A range can be specified
using the special range delimiter ldquo|rdquo (pipe character) This character is different to the range
character that is used for normal Get Balance segment parameters The reason is that the
normal range delimiter ldquo-ldquo may easily be used in a segment descriptive flexfields and
therefore is not suitable In future you will be able to configure your own range delimiter
56
character which will provide the best flexibility The range criteria can be specified as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011100|20010000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield
on segment 2 is between 100 and 200 Date values are also supported in this criteria and GL Wand will correctly derive the ldquobetweenrdquo criteria for a date
Calculating
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what cells are refreshed from
Oracle They are used in conjunction with the GL Wand calculation option (onoff) You can stop a calculation at any time by clicking cancel
- Calculate Range (Alt+Ctl+R)
- Calculate Sheet (Alt+Ctl+S)
- Calculate All (Alt+Ctl+A)
- GL Wand calculation on
- GL Wand calculation off
Calculate Range Sheet or All
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what is recalculated
To calculate a range of cells simply
1 Highlight the range
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Rangerdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+R shortcut key
3 Select multiple ranges using the ctrl button (as normal in Excel)
4 Select a range and then select multiple Excel worksheets to calculate the same range on
each sheet
Please note do not use the calculate range option to recalculate the entire sheet ie by
selecting all the cells on the sheet This will take unnecessarily longer Rather use the
calculate sheet option
To calculate a sheet simply
1 Select the applicable sheet
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Sheetrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+S shortcut key
3 Selecting multiple sheets will calculate each of the selected sheets
To calculate all open workbooks simply
1 Click the ldquoCalculate Allrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+A shortcut key
57
GL Wand calculation on or off
You can use the GL Wand calculation toggle button to control when requests for calculations
are sent to the Oracle server
If you toggle GL Wand calculation ldquoOffrdquo calculation requests are not sent to the Oracle server which means you
you can manipulate a worksheet
change cell values
enter new formulae and
perform any other task that would normally cause Excel to recalculate
and the applicable functions will only return the ldquoglwPendingrdquo status and will not
actually calculate a result
This is useful during report development
To calculate the results simply click one of the three calculation buttons ldquoCalculate Range
Sheet or Allrdquo
If you leave the GL Wand calculation option ldquoOnrdquo the applicable functions will be recalculated whenever Excel initiates a calculation process eg
when changing the contents of the cell
changing one of the functions input values deleting a column or row in the worksheet etc
Please note that the GL Wand calculation option has nothing to do with Excel‟s automatic
and manual calculation The GL Wand calculation option controls only the calculation of the
applicable GL Wand functions All other calculations are controlled as normal by the Excel
automatic and manual calculation option
Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
When you perform a recalculation a window will appear to show the progress of the
calculation
58
If you would like to cancel the calculation process simply click the ldquoCancelrdquo button
Please note that GL Wand will need to wait for the next reply from Oracle before the
connection can be closed Therefore it may take some time before the calculation stops and
the window closes
Snapshot
- Snapshot
The snapshot tool can be used to take a snapshot of your GL Wand report This tool will
remove all the GL Wand functions from the workbook and will replace them with the values that the function returned
The results are similar to using the Excel ldquopaste valuesrdquo functionality However this process will only replace GL Wand formulas All other Excel formulas will be left as they were
Please note that you cannot take a snapshot of a protected worksheet rather output the
sheet to PDF format for archive and distribution purposes
When producing a snapshot GL Wand will request a name for the new workbook You can
select an existing workbook and GL Wand will give you the option to append the snapshot
results to the existing workbook or overwrite the existing workbook You therefore have the
option of producing various snapshot reports and combining them into one new workbook in a single operation rather than producing a separate workbook for each snapshot
Hide zeros
- Hide zeros in selected range
Select a report range that contains rows where all the numbers are zero Click the hide zeros
button and GL Wand will hide all the rows in the selected range where all the cells containing
numbers are zero This is very useful for formatting a report which includes many rows
where for example a number of accounts are not used in a particular cost centre or have no
59
balances in a certain period At the click of a button you can hide all the rows that contain only zeros
Select the entire report range when using the hide zeros function GL Wand checks the
selected range for zeros when determining which rows to hide
Excel automatically forces a recalculation of Get Balance formulas when you hide rows on a
report This is normal Excel functionality
This feature can be used on any Excel worksheet and is not limited to GL Wand reports
Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Undo the last hide zeros operation
Click this button to automatically undo the last hide zeros operation
Drill downs
- Drill to default Balance layout
- Drill to default Journal layout
- Drill to default Sub Ledger layout
The drill down options allow you to extract additional detail about a specific ldquoGet Balancerdquo function
1 Select a cell that contains a valid Get Balance function
2 Click on the drill to balance button
3 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
4 The criteria sheet will be populated with the criteria from the Get Balance function
5 The drill down to balance detail will be executed showing all the detailed accounts that make up the total in the Get Balance function
60
See the Create Drill Criteria Sheet section for more details and options on the drill down criteria sheet
Budget variance analysis If you select two cells on the GL Wand report eg one cell with
actual values and one with budget numbers GL Wand will perform a drill down on the Get
Balance function and display the actual and budget values next to each other and a
calculated variance
You now have a variety of options which can be performed from the drill down workbook
1 Modify the parameters on the criteria sheet and perform a new drill to balance Drop
down lists are provided for most of the parameters see the Create Drill Criteria Sheet for
more details
2 Create a summary drill down report
3 If you have performed a balance drill down you can select the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet and then
click drill down to journal details after selecting one or more rows with accounts
4 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo sheet and then click the button to drill down to the full journal
after selecting one or more rows with journal lines The full journal with all the contra
entries for the selected journal lines will be displayed
5 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo or ldquoJournal-Fullrdquo sheet and then click sub-ledger drill down after
selecting one or more rows with journal lines 6 Drill down to Global Consolidation System transactions
When drilling down you have the following options
Double click any cell on the row that you wish to drill down on
61
Select any cell in the row that you want to drill down on and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar
Highlight a range of rows and click the applicable drill down button on the GL Wand
toolbar to drill down on multiple lines at once
Highlight non contiguous rows using the ldquoCtrlrdquo button and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar to drill down on multiple lines which are not adjacent to each other
It is possible to drill from a Get Balance formula directly to the journal or sub ledger
information Similarly you can drill from a detailed balance (on the Balance worksheet)
directly to the sub ledger information If you select these options GL Wand will execute the
interim drill steps automatically Be careful when performing a drill down directly to the
journal or sub ledger detail level as these drill down operations may return many records
GL Wand will automatically group the drill down to journals and sub ledger information using
Excel‟s group and outline functionality This will allow you expand and collapse the data to
show just a portion of the report Headings are also inserted on the journal and sub-ledger drill down to make the report easier to read
On the sub-ledger drill down the heading includes a number in brackets eg ldquo(23) Journal
Name 123rdquo The number indicates which Excel row these sub-ledger lines originated from on
the ldquoJournalsrdquo sheet
You can use the remove drill down report headings button to strip out the headings on
the journal and sub-ledger drill down sheets
A couple of important things to note about drill downs
GL Wand will first count the number of rows that will be retrieved by the drill down
operation
If the row count is more than 1000 you will receive a warning message asking you if
you want to continue
If the row count is more than the defined limit (see Query Limit) you will receive a
warning and the drill down will be cancelled
If the row count is more than the number of rows available in your version of Excel
you will receive an error and the drill down will be cancelled
When you drill down to journal details the ldquoBalance Typerdquo parameter controls how
much detail is returned If this parameter is ldquoPTDrdquo only the current period‟s journals
are returned If this parameter is ldquoYTDrdquo then all the journals for the year are returned and likewise ldquoQTDrdquo will show the journal for the quarter
Ensure that the worksheet is calculated before performing any drill down functions Also
ensure that the cell contains a ldquoGet Balancerdquo function with valid parameter information
A new drill down workbook will be created each time you perform a drill down operation from
a Get Balance function Once you are finished with a drill down workbook simply close it
without saving
You cannot drill down to journal detail on translated balances
Oracle Global Consolidation System
Drill down to Oracle Global Consolidation System (GCS) transactions is also supported
These items will appear on the journal drill down report with a source and category of
62
ldquoConsolidationrdquo If you execute a normal drill down to Sub Ledger on these transactions a
new GL Wand drill workbook will be created and the drill down to the subsidiary set of books will be executed
In order to drill down on a GCS transaction you must be logged on the parent as well as the
subsidiary set of books This can be done using the Multiple Sets of Books logon option
Summary Balance Drill Down
On the drill down Criteria sheet toggle the summarization option to ldquoYrdquo for any segment that
you which to summaries by GL Wand creates a summary trial balance report and
summarizes by the selected segments The report can still be expanded to show the detailed
lines and you can still drill down to journals from these lines
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
40
You can add any combination of the options mentioned above to produce your own
calculation
Once you have added all the required segment values to the selection list click ldquoOKrdquo to copy
the list to the clipboard You can then paste these values into a Get Balance function or
anywhere else on the Excel sheet
41
Create List of Values
- Create list of values
This feature can be used to quickly format a cell to be a special list of values cell There are
two types The first type inserts a drop down list of values in the cell and is used for balance
types translated flags and actual flags
The second type creates a link to the standard list of values form It is used for segment values periods and balance and encumbrance names
The cell is identified by a note containing the word ldquoLOVrdquo In order to open the list of values
simply double click the cell or select the cell and click the List of Values button on the
toolbar This will open the list of values form for the specific data type that the list of values cell was created for In the example this was the department segment
The checkbox allows you to link the list of values to a specific set of books This option is only applicable if you have the Multiple Sets of Books feature enabled
42
Functions
The GL Wand functions work in a similar way to any other Excel worksheet function You
provide the required parameters and the results of the function are returned to the Excel
cell The difference being that GL Wand functions retrieve information from your Oracle Applications system
GL Wand currently has the following functions
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value
- Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
43
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
Split Text
Combine Text
Functional Currency
Get Daily Rate
You can enter a function into an Excel cell in a number of ways
Click the applicable button on the GL Wand toolbar (or on the GL Wand menu)
Type the function name into the cell manually prefixed by an = sign
You can select the function from the list that Excel provides when you choose the
Insert Function menu item The GL Wand functions are listed under the special GL
Wand category (Prior to Excel 2007 they are listed in the User Defined category)
If you click the applicable function button on the toolbar and the cell you are in contains that
function the Excel formula wizard window will open If you click a function button in a cell
that contains other data GL Wand will warn you that it is going to replace the contents of the cell with the chosen formula and will give you the option of cancelling the action
All parameters must be entered as text values ie enclosed in double quotes eg enter
ldquoUSDrdquo when entering the currency code or enter ldquo001rdquo when entering a segment value
See ldquoDiscovering versus Functionsrdquo for a comparison extracting information using the
discover tools or the functions
44
Get Balance
The Get Balance function is probably the most important function in GL Wand It returns a
General Ledger balance individually or summed based on the parameters that you enter
Example =Get_Balance(Jan-02YTDUSDEABIS CORPORATE01T4000-41600000000)
Clicking the Get Balance function on the GL Wand toolbar will open the Get Balance Wizard
This form has lists of values for items like period name balance type actual flag etc Select
the applicable values and enter a valid currency code and budget or encumbrance name if required
Double clicking a segment value or clicking the list of values button next to the segment will
open the segment list of values form for that segment See the Segment List of Values
section for details on how to use this form When you click the ldquoOKrdquo button on the Segment
List of Values form the selected segment parameters are entered against that segment in the Get Balance Wizard form
If your Oracle configuration includes dependant segments as part of the accounting
flexfield this form will support selecting values based on the independent and dependant
segment values Simply select a value from the available list of values for the independent
segment Then open the list of values for the dependant segment The list of available values
will be limited to only those values that are related to the selected independent segment
value
When you have entered all the parameters click the ldquoOKrdquo button to insert the Get Balance
function into the selected cell with the entered parameters Clicking the ldquoEditrdquo button will
open the Get Balance function in the Excel formula wizard form which will allow you to link
parameters to cells in the Excel sheet
45
You can also open the Get Balance formula in the Excel formula wizard form using the fx
button on the formula bar or by selecting the ldquoInsert Functionrdquo menu item on the Excel menu bar
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Type ldquoCTDrdquo
(Custom to Date) you can specify a custom period selection For
example ldquoFeb-07-Aug-07rdquo will add all the movement for the entered
period range You may enter multiple lists or ranges of periods and can use wild cards as well eg ldquoJan-0rdquo or ldquo-07rdquo
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Types ldquoJEDrdquo
ldquoJEDUrdquo or ldquoJEDPrdquo (Journal Effective Date) the period parameter
becomes a date parameter eg ldquo01012007-0501200710012007rdquo
The format that your date is in is important The ldquo-ldquo character is
used in GL Wand to denote a range of values and therefore it cannot
be used as a date delimiter eg 01-01-2007 would not be valid So
take care if your Windows regional setting use the ldquo-ldquo as a date
delimiter For JED type calculations we recommend that you use the
ldquordquo as a date delimiter and that you always format the date as text
in Excel otherwise Excel will convert the date based on your regional
setting
Balance Type YTD QTD PTD PJTD CTD JED JEDP or JEDU all in upper case
YTD ndash Summarizes the full years balance
QTD ndash Summarizes the balance for the quarter
46
PTD ndash Includes just the current period‟s movement
PJTD ndash Project to date
CTD ndash Summarizes the custom period criteria entered
JED ndash Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for both posted and unposted journals
JEDP - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for posted journals only
JEDU - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered dates for unposted journals only
Currency Code The currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
Translated Flag Enter E T or C Use E to retrieve the entered amount and T for the
translated amount Use C to report on the converted amount ie
the functional currency equivalent of a foreign currency amount
Only E is valid if requesting a balance for the functional currency of the current Set of Books
You must ensure that you have run the currency translation process
in Oracle for the selected currency and period before reporting on
translated balances If you enter T to request the translated balance
and there is no current translated balance available in the system a zero is returned
Oracle Release 12 provides a new feature to allow reporting on the
values entered in the functional currency only ie excludes any
foreign currency transactions converted to the functional currency
Therefore in Release 12 if you use the E (entered) flag in
conjunction with the functional currency any converted amounts will
be excluded To report on the total balance (including values entered
in functional currency and values converted to the functional
currency) use the new ldquoTotalrdquo option This option is only available if
you log on to a release 12 Oracle instance
Actual Flag A ndash Actual B ndash Budget E ndash Encumbrance
Bud Encumb Name If you enter B or E above enter the exact budget name or
encumbrance type here Otherwise simply enter ldquordquo for actual
balances
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter the segment value here You must enter it as a text value
including any leading zeros eg enter segment value ldquo10rdquo as ldquo0010rdquo
if this segment is configured as four characters with leading zeros in Oracle
You may enter your segment values in a variety of flexible ways
including parents child values ranges wildcards excludes etc See
the explanation below on valid values for this parameter
To include all values simply enter ldquordquo Please note as from GL Wand
3850 you can no longer leave the segment blank a value is
required
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
47
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Options This parameter is used to modify the results returned by the Get
Balance function from the standard behavior Currently two options are supported
Source ndash Limit the results to a specific journal source
Category ndash Limit the results to a specific journal category
The criteria needs to be entered as follows - ldquoSource=Manualrdquo or
ldquoCategory=Adjustmentrdquo To specify both a source and category use
the ldquo|rdquo as a delimiter eg ldquoSource=Manual|Category=Adjustmentrdquo
You can specify multiple values by separating them with ldquordquo eg
ldquoSource=PayablesReceivablesrdquo
When creating Get Balance formulas always use ldquordquo to denote all values as this allows more
efficient SQL to be generated Do not use a range like ldquo000-ZZZrdquo as they will require
unnecessary processing
The segment value parameters can be entered as
a single value representing a child or parent account eg ldquo1500rdquo might represent a
parent account
a range of values eg entering ldquo1500-1600rdquo in one of the segment parameters will
sum all the segment values between 1500 and 1600 for that segment
a list of segment values eg entering ldquo150015101590rdquo in one of the segment
parameters will sum the specific segment values entered If any of the segment
values are parents GL Wand will sum the hierarchy for that parent
wild card entries eg 100 will sum 1100 1200 1300 1400 etc or entering the
value 1 will sum all values that start with 1
values to be included and then specific exclusions eg ldquo1000-2000~1500rdquo will sum
the values between 1000 and 2000 but will skip 1500
a combination of any of the above eg 1000-2000237123752560-
25803000~32004000~4161-4169 In this way you can build up your own calculation definition in the segment parameter
Please note ndash there are two additional methods for specifying segment criteria in the Get
Balance function The one allows you to specify account combinations and the other
allows the use of segment descriptive flexfields Please see the Special Get Balance
Criteria section in order to use these options
Segment Description
Returns the segment description for the chosen segment value
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
48
Example =Get_Segment_Description(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
Returns the next or previous segment value
Parameter Description
Last Value The starting segment value
Segment The segment number
Level Enter a P to return the next or previous parent value enter a C to
return the next or previous child value or leave the parameter blank
to return the next or previous segment value irrespective of whether
it is a parent or child
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example = Next_Segment_Value(ldquo1000rdquo3P)
Parent Flag
Returns the parent flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is a
parent
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Parent_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Enabled Flag
Returns the enabled flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is
enabled
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example = Enabled_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
49
Account Type
Returns the account type for the chosen segment value This function is only applicable for
the natural account segment and will return the value Asset Liability etc
Parameter Description
Account Value The account segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Account_Type(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Period Name
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number Optionally the returned value can be a certain number of periods into the future or past
Parameter Description
PeriodYear The year that you want the period name for
PeriodNumber The period number that you want the period name for
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Offset Optionally enter an offset to return the period name which is n
periods before or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3
periods into the future or -1 to return the previous period
Example =Period_Name(20063)
Set of Books Name
Returns the set of books name for the chosen set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Set_of_Books_Name()
Segment Descriptive Flexfield
Returns the segment values descriptive flexfield for the selected criteria
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
50
Segment The segment number
AttributeNo Identify which attribute you want to report on The segment values
descriptive flexfield has 50 possible attribute values The applicable
attributes will depend on your configuration and whether this
Descriptive Flexfield is used by your organization
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Segment_DFF(ldquo100rdquo25) retrieves the 5th attribute on the segment values
descriptive flexfield for segment value 100 on segment 2
Period Offset
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for
this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
Offset Enter an offset to return the period name which is n periods before
or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3 periods into the
future or -1 to return the previous period
RetRange Enter TRUE (or 1) to return the result as a range eg entering
period Mar-07 with an offset of -2 and the RetRange set to true will
return ldquoJan-07-Mar-07rdquo This can be used in conjunction with the
CTD (Custom to Date) balance type in the Get Balance function to
create rolling period reporting
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Period_Offset(Jan-07-2TRUE)
Split Text
Splits delimited text and returns a specific portion based on an offset Especially useful to
split account combinations but can be used to split any text
Parameter Description
Value Some text which has been concatenated using a delimiter eg an
account combination like ldquo011007000rdquo
Offset Identify which portion of the text to return
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Split_Text(0110070002) will return the ldquo100rdquo portion of the text
51
Combine Text
Combines selected text separated by a delimiter Especially useful to combine segment
values to create a delimited account combinations but can be used to combine any text
Parameter Description
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter segment values that you wish to combine into an account
combination
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Combine_Text(011007000) will return ldquo011007000rdquo
Functional Currency
Returns the functional currency for the set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Functional_Currency()
Get Daily Rate
Returns the daily exchange rate for the entered criteria
Parameter Description
FromCurrency The ldquoFromrdquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case
eg ldquoUSDrdquo
ToCurrency The ldquoTordquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
ConversionType The conversion type as configured in Oracle Spelling and case must
be identical to the Oracle configuration
ConversionDate The conversion date This must be in Excel date format Either refer
to a cell which contains a date or use one of the Excel date functions
to return a date in the parameter
Example =Get_Daily_Rate(USDGBPReportingDATE(200911))
Function return values
The GL Wand functions will return a variety of results depending on a number of factors If
all the information is entered correctly and there are no restrictions on access to the data or
the GL Wand itself the result should be the General Ledger balance segment value segment description etc However the following are also possible return values
glwDemo ndash this means that you are using GL Wand without a valid trial key entered
into the GL Wand License Key profile option When trying GL Wand without a valid
52
trial key you are only allowed to use the first 20 rows and 20 columns of the first
sheet in the workbook Any formula entered outside this range will not calculate a
value but will only return the word ldquoglwDemordquo This is called evaluation mode A
trial key needs to be requested from within GL Wand and entered into the profile
option to allow full access to all functionality
glwNoAccess ndash When you log on you will be prompted for your applications user name
and password and will then need to select a responsibility to log on to Any security
rules that have been linked to the selected responsibility will be enforced on the GL
Wand data If you attempt to access a balance on a general ledger account that you
do not have access to the function will return the word ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo Please see
the ldquoAudit Get Balancerdquo section for information on how to identify the security rule that is being contravened
Please note that Oracles Hierarchical Security is not supported
glwError ndash If you enter invalid information in a parameter for a GL Wand function the
GL Wand error value will be returned This may happen when you for example
enter an invalid budget name or period name in the Get Balance function or when you
enter an invalid segment number in the next segment value function This error value
will also be returned when you are not logged on The details of the return value will
indicate where the problem exists eg glwError (Logon) glwError (Balance Type)
glwError (Translated Flag) glwError (Actual Flag) glwError (Missing segment)
glwError (Data error) glwError (Range) glwError (Period)
glwPending ndash This value will be returned during the calculation process Whenever a
cell requires calculation and the process has not been completed yet the cell will
contain the value ldquoglwPendingrdquo
glwEditing ndash Displays in the Excel function arguments window when editing a Get Balance formula
Discovering versus Functions
You may have noticed that you can achieve similar results by using the discover tools and
using the functions For example you could use the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button to retrieve the
next segment value or you could use the ldquoNext Segment Valuerdquo function to return the same result The difference between these two approaches is as follows
Com
paris
on b
etw
een D
iscoverin
g a
nd
Functio
ns
Discovering Functions
Results returned as text string to Excel
cell
Value is calculated based on
parameters
Value is static Value is dynamic
Never changes Recalculated when sheet refreshed
Lower performance overhead Higher performance overhead
Discover Down Next Segment Value
Discover Up Previous Segment Value
Discover Left Next Segment Value
Discover Right Previous Segment Value
Discover Properties
Segment Description
Parent flag
53
Enabled Flag
Account Type
Discover Child Ranges No equivalent
Toggle Discover Level
Parameters of next segment value
determine whether parents children or
both are returned
Use the discover buttons with ldquoPeriodrdquo
selected in the segment drop down Period Name
Balance Extract is similar to Get
Balance though the static values it
produces are refreshable
Get Balance
Special Get Balance Criteria
GL Wand supports two special types of criteria in the Get Balance function namely ldquoAccount
Combinationsrdquo and ldquoSegment Descriptive Flexfieldrdquo criteria These two forms of the Get
Balance criteria have very specific syntax which must be carefully adhered to in order to
achieve the correct results You also have the ability to expand account combinations for a
selection that uses the ldquoAccount Combinationrdquo criteria
Account Combinations
In the past the Get Balance function only supported individual segment values eg segment
2 = 100 or 200 and segment 3 = 1000 or 2000 This would result in GL Wand returning all the possible combinations of those segment 2 and 3 values
Now you have the ability to specify account combinations using the new Get Balance syntax
This means that you can create new complex criteria for your Get Balance formula eg
(segment 2 = 100 and segment 3 = 1000) or (segment 2 = 200 and segment 3 = 2000)
With these criteria GL Wand will no longer return all the possible combinations but rather only the combinations you specify
In order to specify account combinations in a Get Balance function you must tell GL Wand
which segments you are combining You do this by entering a special value into the segment
eg if you want to combine criteria for segment 2 and segment 3 you would enter the
following in the parameter for segment 2 ldquoUse_Seg3rdquo This tells GL Wand that that it must
find the criteria for segment 2 inside the segment 3 parameter In the segment 3 parameter
you now enter the criteria for both segment 2 and segment 3 separated by the special
delimiter character eg ldquo1001000rdquo This tells GL Wand that you are looking for accounts where segment 2 is 100 and segment 3 is 1000 An example could look like this
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg3100100020020000000000)
It is possible to combine multiple segments as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg5Use_Seg5Use_Seg510010000000000)
54
You simply point each applicable segment to the parameter where the account combination
using the special ldquoUse_SegXrdquo syntax Then inside the target parameter you combine the fully qualified account combination for the applicable segments delimited with a ldquordquo character
When you specify your account combination you have full flexibility to use ranges lists wild
cards parents and exclude criteria For example this criteria will fetch all the values where
segment 2 is between 100 and 200 and segment 3 is between 1000 and 2000 And in
addition to that it will include the values where segment 2 is 250 (a parent) and segment 3
starts with 33 but will exclude the specific value where segment 2 is 250 and segment 3 is
3320
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA01Use_Seg31001000-200200025033~25033200000000)
You also have the flexibility to group different parts of the account combination together For
example this criteria combines the values for segment 1 and 3 together and combines segment 2 and 4 together
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA
Use_Seg3Use_Seg401100002115010000002001050000)
These new Get Balance syntax options provide you with tremendous flexibility when building your GL Wand reports
Expand Account Combinations
The expand feature allows you to extract all the detailed child segment values that roll up to
the criteria that the user specifies The expand feature has been extended to support account combinations
In order to expand an account combination you would do the following
Ensure that the correct set of books is selected in the drop down list on the GL Wand
toolbar
Select the cell containing the account combination criteria eg ldquo1007000rdquo Click the expand button
GL Wand will now identify that the selected cell contains an account combination rather than
a single segment value You will now be presented with a window to identify which segments from your chart of accounts are represented in the account combination
55
Select the correct segments and click ldquoOKrdquo GL Wand will now extract all the child
combinations that roll up to the criteria that you entered and insert them into the Excel sheet
The other options are as follows
Fix ndash if you tick this option for a segment GL Wand will ldquopegrdquo that segment using the
selected value (this option only makes sense for a parent segment value) You might
for example want to expand all the account combinations used in a particular parent
cost centre Simply ldquoFixrdquo the cost centre segment and GL Wand will return all the
account combinations used within that parent cost centre
Exclude disabled account combination ndash tick this option to only return account combinations that are currently enabled and have not been end dated
The expand account combinations feature can be used as a normal GL Wand ldquoExpandrdquo in
order to extract the detail behind a total but it is also very useful to extract existing account combinations from your Oracle system
This feature can be used very effectively with the Split Text and Combine Text functions
Segment Descriptive Flexfields
In order to extract balances using the descriptive flexfields stored on the segment values
you need to use special syntax in the Get Balance function The syntax works as follows
1ABC
You wrap the descriptive flexfield using curly brackets
The first character after the open bracket identifies which descriptive flexfield
attribute is being referred to
You then separate the descriptive flexfield attribute from the actual value using a ldquordquo You then specify the criteria for this attribute
An example Get Balance function would look as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC10000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield on segment 2 is equal to the value ldquoABCrdquo
It is possible to specify criteria for multiple descriptive flexfields as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC2XX10000000000)
Simply wrap each descriptive flexfield value in its own and identify the attribute number
At this stage the descriptive flexfield criteria is restricted to a single value or a single range
of values Lists of values and multiple ranges are not supported A range can be specified
using the special range delimiter ldquo|rdquo (pipe character) This character is different to the range
character that is used for normal Get Balance segment parameters The reason is that the
normal range delimiter ldquo-ldquo may easily be used in a segment descriptive flexfields and
therefore is not suitable In future you will be able to configure your own range delimiter
56
character which will provide the best flexibility The range criteria can be specified as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011100|20010000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield
on segment 2 is between 100 and 200 Date values are also supported in this criteria and GL Wand will correctly derive the ldquobetweenrdquo criteria for a date
Calculating
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what cells are refreshed from
Oracle They are used in conjunction with the GL Wand calculation option (onoff) You can stop a calculation at any time by clicking cancel
- Calculate Range (Alt+Ctl+R)
- Calculate Sheet (Alt+Ctl+S)
- Calculate All (Alt+Ctl+A)
- GL Wand calculation on
- GL Wand calculation off
Calculate Range Sheet or All
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what is recalculated
To calculate a range of cells simply
1 Highlight the range
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Rangerdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+R shortcut key
3 Select multiple ranges using the ctrl button (as normal in Excel)
4 Select a range and then select multiple Excel worksheets to calculate the same range on
each sheet
Please note do not use the calculate range option to recalculate the entire sheet ie by
selecting all the cells on the sheet This will take unnecessarily longer Rather use the
calculate sheet option
To calculate a sheet simply
1 Select the applicable sheet
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Sheetrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+S shortcut key
3 Selecting multiple sheets will calculate each of the selected sheets
To calculate all open workbooks simply
1 Click the ldquoCalculate Allrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+A shortcut key
57
GL Wand calculation on or off
You can use the GL Wand calculation toggle button to control when requests for calculations
are sent to the Oracle server
If you toggle GL Wand calculation ldquoOffrdquo calculation requests are not sent to the Oracle server which means you
you can manipulate a worksheet
change cell values
enter new formulae and
perform any other task that would normally cause Excel to recalculate
and the applicable functions will only return the ldquoglwPendingrdquo status and will not
actually calculate a result
This is useful during report development
To calculate the results simply click one of the three calculation buttons ldquoCalculate Range
Sheet or Allrdquo
If you leave the GL Wand calculation option ldquoOnrdquo the applicable functions will be recalculated whenever Excel initiates a calculation process eg
when changing the contents of the cell
changing one of the functions input values deleting a column or row in the worksheet etc
Please note that the GL Wand calculation option has nothing to do with Excel‟s automatic
and manual calculation The GL Wand calculation option controls only the calculation of the
applicable GL Wand functions All other calculations are controlled as normal by the Excel
automatic and manual calculation option
Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
When you perform a recalculation a window will appear to show the progress of the
calculation
58
If you would like to cancel the calculation process simply click the ldquoCancelrdquo button
Please note that GL Wand will need to wait for the next reply from Oracle before the
connection can be closed Therefore it may take some time before the calculation stops and
the window closes
Snapshot
- Snapshot
The snapshot tool can be used to take a snapshot of your GL Wand report This tool will
remove all the GL Wand functions from the workbook and will replace them with the values that the function returned
The results are similar to using the Excel ldquopaste valuesrdquo functionality However this process will only replace GL Wand formulas All other Excel formulas will be left as they were
Please note that you cannot take a snapshot of a protected worksheet rather output the
sheet to PDF format for archive and distribution purposes
When producing a snapshot GL Wand will request a name for the new workbook You can
select an existing workbook and GL Wand will give you the option to append the snapshot
results to the existing workbook or overwrite the existing workbook You therefore have the
option of producing various snapshot reports and combining them into one new workbook in a single operation rather than producing a separate workbook for each snapshot
Hide zeros
- Hide zeros in selected range
Select a report range that contains rows where all the numbers are zero Click the hide zeros
button and GL Wand will hide all the rows in the selected range where all the cells containing
numbers are zero This is very useful for formatting a report which includes many rows
where for example a number of accounts are not used in a particular cost centre or have no
59
balances in a certain period At the click of a button you can hide all the rows that contain only zeros
Select the entire report range when using the hide zeros function GL Wand checks the
selected range for zeros when determining which rows to hide
Excel automatically forces a recalculation of Get Balance formulas when you hide rows on a
report This is normal Excel functionality
This feature can be used on any Excel worksheet and is not limited to GL Wand reports
Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Undo the last hide zeros operation
Click this button to automatically undo the last hide zeros operation
Drill downs
- Drill to default Balance layout
- Drill to default Journal layout
- Drill to default Sub Ledger layout
The drill down options allow you to extract additional detail about a specific ldquoGet Balancerdquo function
1 Select a cell that contains a valid Get Balance function
2 Click on the drill to balance button
3 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
4 The criteria sheet will be populated with the criteria from the Get Balance function
5 The drill down to balance detail will be executed showing all the detailed accounts that make up the total in the Get Balance function
60
See the Create Drill Criteria Sheet section for more details and options on the drill down criteria sheet
Budget variance analysis If you select two cells on the GL Wand report eg one cell with
actual values and one with budget numbers GL Wand will perform a drill down on the Get
Balance function and display the actual and budget values next to each other and a
calculated variance
You now have a variety of options which can be performed from the drill down workbook
1 Modify the parameters on the criteria sheet and perform a new drill to balance Drop
down lists are provided for most of the parameters see the Create Drill Criteria Sheet for
more details
2 Create a summary drill down report
3 If you have performed a balance drill down you can select the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet and then
click drill down to journal details after selecting one or more rows with accounts
4 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo sheet and then click the button to drill down to the full journal
after selecting one or more rows with journal lines The full journal with all the contra
entries for the selected journal lines will be displayed
5 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo or ldquoJournal-Fullrdquo sheet and then click sub-ledger drill down after
selecting one or more rows with journal lines 6 Drill down to Global Consolidation System transactions
When drilling down you have the following options
Double click any cell on the row that you wish to drill down on
61
Select any cell in the row that you want to drill down on and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar
Highlight a range of rows and click the applicable drill down button on the GL Wand
toolbar to drill down on multiple lines at once
Highlight non contiguous rows using the ldquoCtrlrdquo button and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar to drill down on multiple lines which are not adjacent to each other
It is possible to drill from a Get Balance formula directly to the journal or sub ledger
information Similarly you can drill from a detailed balance (on the Balance worksheet)
directly to the sub ledger information If you select these options GL Wand will execute the
interim drill steps automatically Be careful when performing a drill down directly to the
journal or sub ledger detail level as these drill down operations may return many records
GL Wand will automatically group the drill down to journals and sub ledger information using
Excel‟s group and outline functionality This will allow you expand and collapse the data to
show just a portion of the report Headings are also inserted on the journal and sub-ledger drill down to make the report easier to read
On the sub-ledger drill down the heading includes a number in brackets eg ldquo(23) Journal
Name 123rdquo The number indicates which Excel row these sub-ledger lines originated from on
the ldquoJournalsrdquo sheet
You can use the remove drill down report headings button to strip out the headings on
the journal and sub-ledger drill down sheets
A couple of important things to note about drill downs
GL Wand will first count the number of rows that will be retrieved by the drill down
operation
If the row count is more than 1000 you will receive a warning message asking you if
you want to continue
If the row count is more than the defined limit (see Query Limit) you will receive a
warning and the drill down will be cancelled
If the row count is more than the number of rows available in your version of Excel
you will receive an error and the drill down will be cancelled
When you drill down to journal details the ldquoBalance Typerdquo parameter controls how
much detail is returned If this parameter is ldquoPTDrdquo only the current period‟s journals
are returned If this parameter is ldquoYTDrdquo then all the journals for the year are returned and likewise ldquoQTDrdquo will show the journal for the quarter
Ensure that the worksheet is calculated before performing any drill down functions Also
ensure that the cell contains a ldquoGet Balancerdquo function with valid parameter information
A new drill down workbook will be created each time you perform a drill down operation from
a Get Balance function Once you are finished with a drill down workbook simply close it
without saving
You cannot drill down to journal detail on translated balances
Oracle Global Consolidation System
Drill down to Oracle Global Consolidation System (GCS) transactions is also supported
These items will appear on the journal drill down report with a source and category of
62
ldquoConsolidationrdquo If you execute a normal drill down to Sub Ledger on these transactions a
new GL Wand drill workbook will be created and the drill down to the subsidiary set of books will be executed
In order to drill down on a GCS transaction you must be logged on the parent as well as the
subsidiary set of books This can be done using the Multiple Sets of Books logon option
Summary Balance Drill Down
On the drill down Criteria sheet toggle the summarization option to ldquoYrdquo for any segment that
you which to summaries by GL Wand creates a summary trial balance report and
summarizes by the selected segments The report can still be expanded to show the detailed
lines and you can still drill down to journals from these lines
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
41
Create List of Values
- Create list of values
This feature can be used to quickly format a cell to be a special list of values cell There are
two types The first type inserts a drop down list of values in the cell and is used for balance
types translated flags and actual flags
The second type creates a link to the standard list of values form It is used for segment values periods and balance and encumbrance names
The cell is identified by a note containing the word ldquoLOVrdquo In order to open the list of values
simply double click the cell or select the cell and click the List of Values button on the
toolbar This will open the list of values form for the specific data type that the list of values cell was created for In the example this was the department segment
The checkbox allows you to link the list of values to a specific set of books This option is only applicable if you have the Multiple Sets of Books feature enabled
42
Functions
The GL Wand functions work in a similar way to any other Excel worksheet function You
provide the required parameters and the results of the function are returned to the Excel
cell The difference being that GL Wand functions retrieve information from your Oracle Applications system
GL Wand currently has the following functions
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value
- Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
43
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
Split Text
Combine Text
Functional Currency
Get Daily Rate
You can enter a function into an Excel cell in a number of ways
Click the applicable button on the GL Wand toolbar (or on the GL Wand menu)
Type the function name into the cell manually prefixed by an = sign
You can select the function from the list that Excel provides when you choose the
Insert Function menu item The GL Wand functions are listed under the special GL
Wand category (Prior to Excel 2007 they are listed in the User Defined category)
If you click the applicable function button on the toolbar and the cell you are in contains that
function the Excel formula wizard window will open If you click a function button in a cell
that contains other data GL Wand will warn you that it is going to replace the contents of the cell with the chosen formula and will give you the option of cancelling the action
All parameters must be entered as text values ie enclosed in double quotes eg enter
ldquoUSDrdquo when entering the currency code or enter ldquo001rdquo when entering a segment value
See ldquoDiscovering versus Functionsrdquo for a comparison extracting information using the
discover tools or the functions
44
Get Balance
The Get Balance function is probably the most important function in GL Wand It returns a
General Ledger balance individually or summed based on the parameters that you enter
Example =Get_Balance(Jan-02YTDUSDEABIS CORPORATE01T4000-41600000000)
Clicking the Get Balance function on the GL Wand toolbar will open the Get Balance Wizard
This form has lists of values for items like period name balance type actual flag etc Select
the applicable values and enter a valid currency code and budget or encumbrance name if required
Double clicking a segment value or clicking the list of values button next to the segment will
open the segment list of values form for that segment See the Segment List of Values
section for details on how to use this form When you click the ldquoOKrdquo button on the Segment
List of Values form the selected segment parameters are entered against that segment in the Get Balance Wizard form
If your Oracle configuration includes dependant segments as part of the accounting
flexfield this form will support selecting values based on the independent and dependant
segment values Simply select a value from the available list of values for the independent
segment Then open the list of values for the dependant segment The list of available values
will be limited to only those values that are related to the selected independent segment
value
When you have entered all the parameters click the ldquoOKrdquo button to insert the Get Balance
function into the selected cell with the entered parameters Clicking the ldquoEditrdquo button will
open the Get Balance function in the Excel formula wizard form which will allow you to link
parameters to cells in the Excel sheet
45
You can also open the Get Balance formula in the Excel formula wizard form using the fx
button on the formula bar or by selecting the ldquoInsert Functionrdquo menu item on the Excel menu bar
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Type ldquoCTDrdquo
(Custom to Date) you can specify a custom period selection For
example ldquoFeb-07-Aug-07rdquo will add all the movement for the entered
period range You may enter multiple lists or ranges of periods and can use wild cards as well eg ldquoJan-0rdquo or ldquo-07rdquo
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Types ldquoJEDrdquo
ldquoJEDUrdquo or ldquoJEDPrdquo (Journal Effective Date) the period parameter
becomes a date parameter eg ldquo01012007-0501200710012007rdquo
The format that your date is in is important The ldquo-ldquo character is
used in GL Wand to denote a range of values and therefore it cannot
be used as a date delimiter eg 01-01-2007 would not be valid So
take care if your Windows regional setting use the ldquo-ldquo as a date
delimiter For JED type calculations we recommend that you use the
ldquordquo as a date delimiter and that you always format the date as text
in Excel otherwise Excel will convert the date based on your regional
setting
Balance Type YTD QTD PTD PJTD CTD JED JEDP or JEDU all in upper case
YTD ndash Summarizes the full years balance
QTD ndash Summarizes the balance for the quarter
46
PTD ndash Includes just the current period‟s movement
PJTD ndash Project to date
CTD ndash Summarizes the custom period criteria entered
JED ndash Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for both posted and unposted journals
JEDP - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for posted journals only
JEDU - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered dates for unposted journals only
Currency Code The currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
Translated Flag Enter E T or C Use E to retrieve the entered amount and T for the
translated amount Use C to report on the converted amount ie
the functional currency equivalent of a foreign currency amount
Only E is valid if requesting a balance for the functional currency of the current Set of Books
You must ensure that you have run the currency translation process
in Oracle for the selected currency and period before reporting on
translated balances If you enter T to request the translated balance
and there is no current translated balance available in the system a zero is returned
Oracle Release 12 provides a new feature to allow reporting on the
values entered in the functional currency only ie excludes any
foreign currency transactions converted to the functional currency
Therefore in Release 12 if you use the E (entered) flag in
conjunction with the functional currency any converted amounts will
be excluded To report on the total balance (including values entered
in functional currency and values converted to the functional
currency) use the new ldquoTotalrdquo option This option is only available if
you log on to a release 12 Oracle instance
Actual Flag A ndash Actual B ndash Budget E ndash Encumbrance
Bud Encumb Name If you enter B or E above enter the exact budget name or
encumbrance type here Otherwise simply enter ldquordquo for actual
balances
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter the segment value here You must enter it as a text value
including any leading zeros eg enter segment value ldquo10rdquo as ldquo0010rdquo
if this segment is configured as four characters with leading zeros in Oracle
You may enter your segment values in a variety of flexible ways
including parents child values ranges wildcards excludes etc See
the explanation below on valid values for this parameter
To include all values simply enter ldquordquo Please note as from GL Wand
3850 you can no longer leave the segment blank a value is
required
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
47
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Options This parameter is used to modify the results returned by the Get
Balance function from the standard behavior Currently two options are supported
Source ndash Limit the results to a specific journal source
Category ndash Limit the results to a specific journal category
The criteria needs to be entered as follows - ldquoSource=Manualrdquo or
ldquoCategory=Adjustmentrdquo To specify both a source and category use
the ldquo|rdquo as a delimiter eg ldquoSource=Manual|Category=Adjustmentrdquo
You can specify multiple values by separating them with ldquordquo eg
ldquoSource=PayablesReceivablesrdquo
When creating Get Balance formulas always use ldquordquo to denote all values as this allows more
efficient SQL to be generated Do not use a range like ldquo000-ZZZrdquo as they will require
unnecessary processing
The segment value parameters can be entered as
a single value representing a child or parent account eg ldquo1500rdquo might represent a
parent account
a range of values eg entering ldquo1500-1600rdquo in one of the segment parameters will
sum all the segment values between 1500 and 1600 for that segment
a list of segment values eg entering ldquo150015101590rdquo in one of the segment
parameters will sum the specific segment values entered If any of the segment
values are parents GL Wand will sum the hierarchy for that parent
wild card entries eg 100 will sum 1100 1200 1300 1400 etc or entering the
value 1 will sum all values that start with 1
values to be included and then specific exclusions eg ldquo1000-2000~1500rdquo will sum
the values between 1000 and 2000 but will skip 1500
a combination of any of the above eg 1000-2000237123752560-
25803000~32004000~4161-4169 In this way you can build up your own calculation definition in the segment parameter
Please note ndash there are two additional methods for specifying segment criteria in the Get
Balance function The one allows you to specify account combinations and the other
allows the use of segment descriptive flexfields Please see the Special Get Balance
Criteria section in order to use these options
Segment Description
Returns the segment description for the chosen segment value
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
48
Example =Get_Segment_Description(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
Returns the next or previous segment value
Parameter Description
Last Value The starting segment value
Segment The segment number
Level Enter a P to return the next or previous parent value enter a C to
return the next or previous child value or leave the parameter blank
to return the next or previous segment value irrespective of whether
it is a parent or child
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example = Next_Segment_Value(ldquo1000rdquo3P)
Parent Flag
Returns the parent flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is a
parent
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Parent_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Enabled Flag
Returns the enabled flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is
enabled
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example = Enabled_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
49
Account Type
Returns the account type for the chosen segment value This function is only applicable for
the natural account segment and will return the value Asset Liability etc
Parameter Description
Account Value The account segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Account_Type(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Period Name
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number Optionally the returned value can be a certain number of periods into the future or past
Parameter Description
PeriodYear The year that you want the period name for
PeriodNumber The period number that you want the period name for
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Offset Optionally enter an offset to return the period name which is n
periods before or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3
periods into the future or -1 to return the previous period
Example =Period_Name(20063)
Set of Books Name
Returns the set of books name for the chosen set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Set_of_Books_Name()
Segment Descriptive Flexfield
Returns the segment values descriptive flexfield for the selected criteria
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
50
Segment The segment number
AttributeNo Identify which attribute you want to report on The segment values
descriptive flexfield has 50 possible attribute values The applicable
attributes will depend on your configuration and whether this
Descriptive Flexfield is used by your organization
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Segment_DFF(ldquo100rdquo25) retrieves the 5th attribute on the segment values
descriptive flexfield for segment value 100 on segment 2
Period Offset
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for
this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
Offset Enter an offset to return the period name which is n periods before
or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3 periods into the
future or -1 to return the previous period
RetRange Enter TRUE (or 1) to return the result as a range eg entering
period Mar-07 with an offset of -2 and the RetRange set to true will
return ldquoJan-07-Mar-07rdquo This can be used in conjunction with the
CTD (Custom to Date) balance type in the Get Balance function to
create rolling period reporting
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Period_Offset(Jan-07-2TRUE)
Split Text
Splits delimited text and returns a specific portion based on an offset Especially useful to
split account combinations but can be used to split any text
Parameter Description
Value Some text which has been concatenated using a delimiter eg an
account combination like ldquo011007000rdquo
Offset Identify which portion of the text to return
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Split_Text(0110070002) will return the ldquo100rdquo portion of the text
51
Combine Text
Combines selected text separated by a delimiter Especially useful to combine segment
values to create a delimited account combinations but can be used to combine any text
Parameter Description
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter segment values that you wish to combine into an account
combination
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Combine_Text(011007000) will return ldquo011007000rdquo
Functional Currency
Returns the functional currency for the set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Functional_Currency()
Get Daily Rate
Returns the daily exchange rate for the entered criteria
Parameter Description
FromCurrency The ldquoFromrdquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case
eg ldquoUSDrdquo
ToCurrency The ldquoTordquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
ConversionType The conversion type as configured in Oracle Spelling and case must
be identical to the Oracle configuration
ConversionDate The conversion date This must be in Excel date format Either refer
to a cell which contains a date or use one of the Excel date functions
to return a date in the parameter
Example =Get_Daily_Rate(USDGBPReportingDATE(200911))
Function return values
The GL Wand functions will return a variety of results depending on a number of factors If
all the information is entered correctly and there are no restrictions on access to the data or
the GL Wand itself the result should be the General Ledger balance segment value segment description etc However the following are also possible return values
glwDemo ndash this means that you are using GL Wand without a valid trial key entered
into the GL Wand License Key profile option When trying GL Wand without a valid
52
trial key you are only allowed to use the first 20 rows and 20 columns of the first
sheet in the workbook Any formula entered outside this range will not calculate a
value but will only return the word ldquoglwDemordquo This is called evaluation mode A
trial key needs to be requested from within GL Wand and entered into the profile
option to allow full access to all functionality
glwNoAccess ndash When you log on you will be prompted for your applications user name
and password and will then need to select a responsibility to log on to Any security
rules that have been linked to the selected responsibility will be enforced on the GL
Wand data If you attempt to access a balance on a general ledger account that you
do not have access to the function will return the word ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo Please see
the ldquoAudit Get Balancerdquo section for information on how to identify the security rule that is being contravened
Please note that Oracles Hierarchical Security is not supported
glwError ndash If you enter invalid information in a parameter for a GL Wand function the
GL Wand error value will be returned This may happen when you for example
enter an invalid budget name or period name in the Get Balance function or when you
enter an invalid segment number in the next segment value function This error value
will also be returned when you are not logged on The details of the return value will
indicate where the problem exists eg glwError (Logon) glwError (Balance Type)
glwError (Translated Flag) glwError (Actual Flag) glwError (Missing segment)
glwError (Data error) glwError (Range) glwError (Period)
glwPending ndash This value will be returned during the calculation process Whenever a
cell requires calculation and the process has not been completed yet the cell will
contain the value ldquoglwPendingrdquo
glwEditing ndash Displays in the Excel function arguments window when editing a Get Balance formula
Discovering versus Functions
You may have noticed that you can achieve similar results by using the discover tools and
using the functions For example you could use the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button to retrieve the
next segment value or you could use the ldquoNext Segment Valuerdquo function to return the same result The difference between these two approaches is as follows
Com
paris
on b
etw
een D
iscoverin
g a
nd
Functio
ns
Discovering Functions
Results returned as text string to Excel
cell
Value is calculated based on
parameters
Value is static Value is dynamic
Never changes Recalculated when sheet refreshed
Lower performance overhead Higher performance overhead
Discover Down Next Segment Value
Discover Up Previous Segment Value
Discover Left Next Segment Value
Discover Right Previous Segment Value
Discover Properties
Segment Description
Parent flag
53
Enabled Flag
Account Type
Discover Child Ranges No equivalent
Toggle Discover Level
Parameters of next segment value
determine whether parents children or
both are returned
Use the discover buttons with ldquoPeriodrdquo
selected in the segment drop down Period Name
Balance Extract is similar to Get
Balance though the static values it
produces are refreshable
Get Balance
Special Get Balance Criteria
GL Wand supports two special types of criteria in the Get Balance function namely ldquoAccount
Combinationsrdquo and ldquoSegment Descriptive Flexfieldrdquo criteria These two forms of the Get
Balance criteria have very specific syntax which must be carefully adhered to in order to
achieve the correct results You also have the ability to expand account combinations for a
selection that uses the ldquoAccount Combinationrdquo criteria
Account Combinations
In the past the Get Balance function only supported individual segment values eg segment
2 = 100 or 200 and segment 3 = 1000 or 2000 This would result in GL Wand returning all the possible combinations of those segment 2 and 3 values
Now you have the ability to specify account combinations using the new Get Balance syntax
This means that you can create new complex criteria for your Get Balance formula eg
(segment 2 = 100 and segment 3 = 1000) or (segment 2 = 200 and segment 3 = 2000)
With these criteria GL Wand will no longer return all the possible combinations but rather only the combinations you specify
In order to specify account combinations in a Get Balance function you must tell GL Wand
which segments you are combining You do this by entering a special value into the segment
eg if you want to combine criteria for segment 2 and segment 3 you would enter the
following in the parameter for segment 2 ldquoUse_Seg3rdquo This tells GL Wand that that it must
find the criteria for segment 2 inside the segment 3 parameter In the segment 3 parameter
you now enter the criteria for both segment 2 and segment 3 separated by the special
delimiter character eg ldquo1001000rdquo This tells GL Wand that you are looking for accounts where segment 2 is 100 and segment 3 is 1000 An example could look like this
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg3100100020020000000000)
It is possible to combine multiple segments as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg5Use_Seg5Use_Seg510010000000000)
54
You simply point each applicable segment to the parameter where the account combination
using the special ldquoUse_SegXrdquo syntax Then inside the target parameter you combine the fully qualified account combination for the applicable segments delimited with a ldquordquo character
When you specify your account combination you have full flexibility to use ranges lists wild
cards parents and exclude criteria For example this criteria will fetch all the values where
segment 2 is between 100 and 200 and segment 3 is between 1000 and 2000 And in
addition to that it will include the values where segment 2 is 250 (a parent) and segment 3
starts with 33 but will exclude the specific value where segment 2 is 250 and segment 3 is
3320
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA01Use_Seg31001000-200200025033~25033200000000)
You also have the flexibility to group different parts of the account combination together For
example this criteria combines the values for segment 1 and 3 together and combines segment 2 and 4 together
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA
Use_Seg3Use_Seg401100002115010000002001050000)
These new Get Balance syntax options provide you with tremendous flexibility when building your GL Wand reports
Expand Account Combinations
The expand feature allows you to extract all the detailed child segment values that roll up to
the criteria that the user specifies The expand feature has been extended to support account combinations
In order to expand an account combination you would do the following
Ensure that the correct set of books is selected in the drop down list on the GL Wand
toolbar
Select the cell containing the account combination criteria eg ldquo1007000rdquo Click the expand button
GL Wand will now identify that the selected cell contains an account combination rather than
a single segment value You will now be presented with a window to identify which segments from your chart of accounts are represented in the account combination
55
Select the correct segments and click ldquoOKrdquo GL Wand will now extract all the child
combinations that roll up to the criteria that you entered and insert them into the Excel sheet
The other options are as follows
Fix ndash if you tick this option for a segment GL Wand will ldquopegrdquo that segment using the
selected value (this option only makes sense for a parent segment value) You might
for example want to expand all the account combinations used in a particular parent
cost centre Simply ldquoFixrdquo the cost centre segment and GL Wand will return all the
account combinations used within that parent cost centre
Exclude disabled account combination ndash tick this option to only return account combinations that are currently enabled and have not been end dated
The expand account combinations feature can be used as a normal GL Wand ldquoExpandrdquo in
order to extract the detail behind a total but it is also very useful to extract existing account combinations from your Oracle system
This feature can be used very effectively with the Split Text and Combine Text functions
Segment Descriptive Flexfields
In order to extract balances using the descriptive flexfields stored on the segment values
you need to use special syntax in the Get Balance function The syntax works as follows
1ABC
You wrap the descriptive flexfield using curly brackets
The first character after the open bracket identifies which descriptive flexfield
attribute is being referred to
You then separate the descriptive flexfield attribute from the actual value using a ldquordquo You then specify the criteria for this attribute
An example Get Balance function would look as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC10000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield on segment 2 is equal to the value ldquoABCrdquo
It is possible to specify criteria for multiple descriptive flexfields as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC2XX10000000000)
Simply wrap each descriptive flexfield value in its own and identify the attribute number
At this stage the descriptive flexfield criteria is restricted to a single value or a single range
of values Lists of values and multiple ranges are not supported A range can be specified
using the special range delimiter ldquo|rdquo (pipe character) This character is different to the range
character that is used for normal Get Balance segment parameters The reason is that the
normal range delimiter ldquo-ldquo may easily be used in a segment descriptive flexfields and
therefore is not suitable In future you will be able to configure your own range delimiter
56
character which will provide the best flexibility The range criteria can be specified as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011100|20010000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield
on segment 2 is between 100 and 200 Date values are also supported in this criteria and GL Wand will correctly derive the ldquobetweenrdquo criteria for a date
Calculating
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what cells are refreshed from
Oracle They are used in conjunction with the GL Wand calculation option (onoff) You can stop a calculation at any time by clicking cancel
- Calculate Range (Alt+Ctl+R)
- Calculate Sheet (Alt+Ctl+S)
- Calculate All (Alt+Ctl+A)
- GL Wand calculation on
- GL Wand calculation off
Calculate Range Sheet or All
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what is recalculated
To calculate a range of cells simply
1 Highlight the range
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Rangerdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+R shortcut key
3 Select multiple ranges using the ctrl button (as normal in Excel)
4 Select a range and then select multiple Excel worksheets to calculate the same range on
each sheet
Please note do not use the calculate range option to recalculate the entire sheet ie by
selecting all the cells on the sheet This will take unnecessarily longer Rather use the
calculate sheet option
To calculate a sheet simply
1 Select the applicable sheet
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Sheetrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+S shortcut key
3 Selecting multiple sheets will calculate each of the selected sheets
To calculate all open workbooks simply
1 Click the ldquoCalculate Allrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+A shortcut key
57
GL Wand calculation on or off
You can use the GL Wand calculation toggle button to control when requests for calculations
are sent to the Oracle server
If you toggle GL Wand calculation ldquoOffrdquo calculation requests are not sent to the Oracle server which means you
you can manipulate a worksheet
change cell values
enter new formulae and
perform any other task that would normally cause Excel to recalculate
and the applicable functions will only return the ldquoglwPendingrdquo status and will not
actually calculate a result
This is useful during report development
To calculate the results simply click one of the three calculation buttons ldquoCalculate Range
Sheet or Allrdquo
If you leave the GL Wand calculation option ldquoOnrdquo the applicable functions will be recalculated whenever Excel initiates a calculation process eg
when changing the contents of the cell
changing one of the functions input values deleting a column or row in the worksheet etc
Please note that the GL Wand calculation option has nothing to do with Excel‟s automatic
and manual calculation The GL Wand calculation option controls only the calculation of the
applicable GL Wand functions All other calculations are controlled as normal by the Excel
automatic and manual calculation option
Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
When you perform a recalculation a window will appear to show the progress of the
calculation
58
If you would like to cancel the calculation process simply click the ldquoCancelrdquo button
Please note that GL Wand will need to wait for the next reply from Oracle before the
connection can be closed Therefore it may take some time before the calculation stops and
the window closes
Snapshot
- Snapshot
The snapshot tool can be used to take a snapshot of your GL Wand report This tool will
remove all the GL Wand functions from the workbook and will replace them with the values that the function returned
The results are similar to using the Excel ldquopaste valuesrdquo functionality However this process will only replace GL Wand formulas All other Excel formulas will be left as they were
Please note that you cannot take a snapshot of a protected worksheet rather output the
sheet to PDF format for archive and distribution purposes
When producing a snapshot GL Wand will request a name for the new workbook You can
select an existing workbook and GL Wand will give you the option to append the snapshot
results to the existing workbook or overwrite the existing workbook You therefore have the
option of producing various snapshot reports and combining them into one new workbook in a single operation rather than producing a separate workbook for each snapshot
Hide zeros
- Hide zeros in selected range
Select a report range that contains rows where all the numbers are zero Click the hide zeros
button and GL Wand will hide all the rows in the selected range where all the cells containing
numbers are zero This is very useful for formatting a report which includes many rows
where for example a number of accounts are not used in a particular cost centre or have no
59
balances in a certain period At the click of a button you can hide all the rows that contain only zeros
Select the entire report range when using the hide zeros function GL Wand checks the
selected range for zeros when determining which rows to hide
Excel automatically forces a recalculation of Get Balance formulas when you hide rows on a
report This is normal Excel functionality
This feature can be used on any Excel worksheet and is not limited to GL Wand reports
Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Undo the last hide zeros operation
Click this button to automatically undo the last hide zeros operation
Drill downs
- Drill to default Balance layout
- Drill to default Journal layout
- Drill to default Sub Ledger layout
The drill down options allow you to extract additional detail about a specific ldquoGet Balancerdquo function
1 Select a cell that contains a valid Get Balance function
2 Click on the drill to balance button
3 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
4 The criteria sheet will be populated with the criteria from the Get Balance function
5 The drill down to balance detail will be executed showing all the detailed accounts that make up the total in the Get Balance function
60
See the Create Drill Criteria Sheet section for more details and options on the drill down criteria sheet
Budget variance analysis If you select two cells on the GL Wand report eg one cell with
actual values and one with budget numbers GL Wand will perform a drill down on the Get
Balance function and display the actual and budget values next to each other and a
calculated variance
You now have a variety of options which can be performed from the drill down workbook
1 Modify the parameters on the criteria sheet and perform a new drill to balance Drop
down lists are provided for most of the parameters see the Create Drill Criteria Sheet for
more details
2 Create a summary drill down report
3 If you have performed a balance drill down you can select the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet and then
click drill down to journal details after selecting one or more rows with accounts
4 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo sheet and then click the button to drill down to the full journal
after selecting one or more rows with journal lines The full journal with all the contra
entries for the selected journal lines will be displayed
5 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo or ldquoJournal-Fullrdquo sheet and then click sub-ledger drill down after
selecting one or more rows with journal lines 6 Drill down to Global Consolidation System transactions
When drilling down you have the following options
Double click any cell on the row that you wish to drill down on
61
Select any cell in the row that you want to drill down on and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar
Highlight a range of rows and click the applicable drill down button on the GL Wand
toolbar to drill down on multiple lines at once
Highlight non contiguous rows using the ldquoCtrlrdquo button and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar to drill down on multiple lines which are not adjacent to each other
It is possible to drill from a Get Balance formula directly to the journal or sub ledger
information Similarly you can drill from a detailed balance (on the Balance worksheet)
directly to the sub ledger information If you select these options GL Wand will execute the
interim drill steps automatically Be careful when performing a drill down directly to the
journal or sub ledger detail level as these drill down operations may return many records
GL Wand will automatically group the drill down to journals and sub ledger information using
Excel‟s group and outline functionality This will allow you expand and collapse the data to
show just a portion of the report Headings are also inserted on the journal and sub-ledger drill down to make the report easier to read
On the sub-ledger drill down the heading includes a number in brackets eg ldquo(23) Journal
Name 123rdquo The number indicates which Excel row these sub-ledger lines originated from on
the ldquoJournalsrdquo sheet
You can use the remove drill down report headings button to strip out the headings on
the journal and sub-ledger drill down sheets
A couple of important things to note about drill downs
GL Wand will first count the number of rows that will be retrieved by the drill down
operation
If the row count is more than 1000 you will receive a warning message asking you if
you want to continue
If the row count is more than the defined limit (see Query Limit) you will receive a
warning and the drill down will be cancelled
If the row count is more than the number of rows available in your version of Excel
you will receive an error and the drill down will be cancelled
When you drill down to journal details the ldquoBalance Typerdquo parameter controls how
much detail is returned If this parameter is ldquoPTDrdquo only the current period‟s journals
are returned If this parameter is ldquoYTDrdquo then all the journals for the year are returned and likewise ldquoQTDrdquo will show the journal for the quarter
Ensure that the worksheet is calculated before performing any drill down functions Also
ensure that the cell contains a ldquoGet Balancerdquo function with valid parameter information
A new drill down workbook will be created each time you perform a drill down operation from
a Get Balance function Once you are finished with a drill down workbook simply close it
without saving
You cannot drill down to journal detail on translated balances
Oracle Global Consolidation System
Drill down to Oracle Global Consolidation System (GCS) transactions is also supported
These items will appear on the journal drill down report with a source and category of
62
ldquoConsolidationrdquo If you execute a normal drill down to Sub Ledger on these transactions a
new GL Wand drill workbook will be created and the drill down to the subsidiary set of books will be executed
In order to drill down on a GCS transaction you must be logged on the parent as well as the
subsidiary set of books This can be done using the Multiple Sets of Books logon option
Summary Balance Drill Down
On the drill down Criteria sheet toggle the summarization option to ldquoYrdquo for any segment that
you which to summaries by GL Wand creates a summary trial balance report and
summarizes by the selected segments The report can still be expanded to show the detailed
lines and you can still drill down to journals from these lines
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
42
Functions
The GL Wand functions work in a similar way to any other Excel worksheet function You
provide the required parameters and the results of the function are returned to the Excel
cell The difference being that GL Wand functions retrieve information from your Oracle Applications system
GL Wand currently has the following functions
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value
- Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
43
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
Split Text
Combine Text
Functional Currency
Get Daily Rate
You can enter a function into an Excel cell in a number of ways
Click the applicable button on the GL Wand toolbar (or on the GL Wand menu)
Type the function name into the cell manually prefixed by an = sign
You can select the function from the list that Excel provides when you choose the
Insert Function menu item The GL Wand functions are listed under the special GL
Wand category (Prior to Excel 2007 they are listed in the User Defined category)
If you click the applicable function button on the toolbar and the cell you are in contains that
function the Excel formula wizard window will open If you click a function button in a cell
that contains other data GL Wand will warn you that it is going to replace the contents of the cell with the chosen formula and will give you the option of cancelling the action
All parameters must be entered as text values ie enclosed in double quotes eg enter
ldquoUSDrdquo when entering the currency code or enter ldquo001rdquo when entering a segment value
See ldquoDiscovering versus Functionsrdquo for a comparison extracting information using the
discover tools or the functions
44
Get Balance
The Get Balance function is probably the most important function in GL Wand It returns a
General Ledger balance individually or summed based on the parameters that you enter
Example =Get_Balance(Jan-02YTDUSDEABIS CORPORATE01T4000-41600000000)
Clicking the Get Balance function on the GL Wand toolbar will open the Get Balance Wizard
This form has lists of values for items like period name balance type actual flag etc Select
the applicable values and enter a valid currency code and budget or encumbrance name if required
Double clicking a segment value or clicking the list of values button next to the segment will
open the segment list of values form for that segment See the Segment List of Values
section for details on how to use this form When you click the ldquoOKrdquo button on the Segment
List of Values form the selected segment parameters are entered against that segment in the Get Balance Wizard form
If your Oracle configuration includes dependant segments as part of the accounting
flexfield this form will support selecting values based on the independent and dependant
segment values Simply select a value from the available list of values for the independent
segment Then open the list of values for the dependant segment The list of available values
will be limited to only those values that are related to the selected independent segment
value
When you have entered all the parameters click the ldquoOKrdquo button to insert the Get Balance
function into the selected cell with the entered parameters Clicking the ldquoEditrdquo button will
open the Get Balance function in the Excel formula wizard form which will allow you to link
parameters to cells in the Excel sheet
45
You can also open the Get Balance formula in the Excel formula wizard form using the fx
button on the formula bar or by selecting the ldquoInsert Functionrdquo menu item on the Excel menu bar
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Type ldquoCTDrdquo
(Custom to Date) you can specify a custom period selection For
example ldquoFeb-07-Aug-07rdquo will add all the movement for the entered
period range You may enter multiple lists or ranges of periods and can use wild cards as well eg ldquoJan-0rdquo or ldquo-07rdquo
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Types ldquoJEDrdquo
ldquoJEDUrdquo or ldquoJEDPrdquo (Journal Effective Date) the period parameter
becomes a date parameter eg ldquo01012007-0501200710012007rdquo
The format that your date is in is important The ldquo-ldquo character is
used in GL Wand to denote a range of values and therefore it cannot
be used as a date delimiter eg 01-01-2007 would not be valid So
take care if your Windows regional setting use the ldquo-ldquo as a date
delimiter For JED type calculations we recommend that you use the
ldquordquo as a date delimiter and that you always format the date as text
in Excel otherwise Excel will convert the date based on your regional
setting
Balance Type YTD QTD PTD PJTD CTD JED JEDP or JEDU all in upper case
YTD ndash Summarizes the full years balance
QTD ndash Summarizes the balance for the quarter
46
PTD ndash Includes just the current period‟s movement
PJTD ndash Project to date
CTD ndash Summarizes the custom period criteria entered
JED ndash Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for both posted and unposted journals
JEDP - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for posted journals only
JEDU - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered dates for unposted journals only
Currency Code The currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
Translated Flag Enter E T or C Use E to retrieve the entered amount and T for the
translated amount Use C to report on the converted amount ie
the functional currency equivalent of a foreign currency amount
Only E is valid if requesting a balance for the functional currency of the current Set of Books
You must ensure that you have run the currency translation process
in Oracle for the selected currency and period before reporting on
translated balances If you enter T to request the translated balance
and there is no current translated balance available in the system a zero is returned
Oracle Release 12 provides a new feature to allow reporting on the
values entered in the functional currency only ie excludes any
foreign currency transactions converted to the functional currency
Therefore in Release 12 if you use the E (entered) flag in
conjunction with the functional currency any converted amounts will
be excluded To report on the total balance (including values entered
in functional currency and values converted to the functional
currency) use the new ldquoTotalrdquo option This option is only available if
you log on to a release 12 Oracle instance
Actual Flag A ndash Actual B ndash Budget E ndash Encumbrance
Bud Encumb Name If you enter B or E above enter the exact budget name or
encumbrance type here Otherwise simply enter ldquordquo for actual
balances
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter the segment value here You must enter it as a text value
including any leading zeros eg enter segment value ldquo10rdquo as ldquo0010rdquo
if this segment is configured as four characters with leading zeros in Oracle
You may enter your segment values in a variety of flexible ways
including parents child values ranges wildcards excludes etc See
the explanation below on valid values for this parameter
To include all values simply enter ldquordquo Please note as from GL Wand
3850 you can no longer leave the segment blank a value is
required
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
47
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Options This parameter is used to modify the results returned by the Get
Balance function from the standard behavior Currently two options are supported
Source ndash Limit the results to a specific journal source
Category ndash Limit the results to a specific journal category
The criteria needs to be entered as follows - ldquoSource=Manualrdquo or
ldquoCategory=Adjustmentrdquo To specify both a source and category use
the ldquo|rdquo as a delimiter eg ldquoSource=Manual|Category=Adjustmentrdquo
You can specify multiple values by separating them with ldquordquo eg
ldquoSource=PayablesReceivablesrdquo
When creating Get Balance formulas always use ldquordquo to denote all values as this allows more
efficient SQL to be generated Do not use a range like ldquo000-ZZZrdquo as they will require
unnecessary processing
The segment value parameters can be entered as
a single value representing a child or parent account eg ldquo1500rdquo might represent a
parent account
a range of values eg entering ldquo1500-1600rdquo in one of the segment parameters will
sum all the segment values between 1500 and 1600 for that segment
a list of segment values eg entering ldquo150015101590rdquo in one of the segment
parameters will sum the specific segment values entered If any of the segment
values are parents GL Wand will sum the hierarchy for that parent
wild card entries eg 100 will sum 1100 1200 1300 1400 etc or entering the
value 1 will sum all values that start with 1
values to be included and then specific exclusions eg ldquo1000-2000~1500rdquo will sum
the values between 1000 and 2000 but will skip 1500
a combination of any of the above eg 1000-2000237123752560-
25803000~32004000~4161-4169 In this way you can build up your own calculation definition in the segment parameter
Please note ndash there are two additional methods for specifying segment criteria in the Get
Balance function The one allows you to specify account combinations and the other
allows the use of segment descriptive flexfields Please see the Special Get Balance
Criteria section in order to use these options
Segment Description
Returns the segment description for the chosen segment value
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
48
Example =Get_Segment_Description(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
Returns the next or previous segment value
Parameter Description
Last Value The starting segment value
Segment The segment number
Level Enter a P to return the next or previous parent value enter a C to
return the next or previous child value or leave the parameter blank
to return the next or previous segment value irrespective of whether
it is a parent or child
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example = Next_Segment_Value(ldquo1000rdquo3P)
Parent Flag
Returns the parent flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is a
parent
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Parent_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Enabled Flag
Returns the enabled flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is
enabled
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example = Enabled_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
49
Account Type
Returns the account type for the chosen segment value This function is only applicable for
the natural account segment and will return the value Asset Liability etc
Parameter Description
Account Value The account segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Account_Type(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Period Name
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number Optionally the returned value can be a certain number of periods into the future or past
Parameter Description
PeriodYear The year that you want the period name for
PeriodNumber The period number that you want the period name for
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Offset Optionally enter an offset to return the period name which is n
periods before or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3
periods into the future or -1 to return the previous period
Example =Period_Name(20063)
Set of Books Name
Returns the set of books name for the chosen set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Set_of_Books_Name()
Segment Descriptive Flexfield
Returns the segment values descriptive flexfield for the selected criteria
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
50
Segment The segment number
AttributeNo Identify which attribute you want to report on The segment values
descriptive flexfield has 50 possible attribute values The applicable
attributes will depend on your configuration and whether this
Descriptive Flexfield is used by your organization
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Segment_DFF(ldquo100rdquo25) retrieves the 5th attribute on the segment values
descriptive flexfield for segment value 100 on segment 2
Period Offset
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for
this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
Offset Enter an offset to return the period name which is n periods before
or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3 periods into the
future or -1 to return the previous period
RetRange Enter TRUE (or 1) to return the result as a range eg entering
period Mar-07 with an offset of -2 and the RetRange set to true will
return ldquoJan-07-Mar-07rdquo This can be used in conjunction with the
CTD (Custom to Date) balance type in the Get Balance function to
create rolling period reporting
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Period_Offset(Jan-07-2TRUE)
Split Text
Splits delimited text and returns a specific portion based on an offset Especially useful to
split account combinations but can be used to split any text
Parameter Description
Value Some text which has been concatenated using a delimiter eg an
account combination like ldquo011007000rdquo
Offset Identify which portion of the text to return
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Split_Text(0110070002) will return the ldquo100rdquo portion of the text
51
Combine Text
Combines selected text separated by a delimiter Especially useful to combine segment
values to create a delimited account combinations but can be used to combine any text
Parameter Description
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter segment values that you wish to combine into an account
combination
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Combine_Text(011007000) will return ldquo011007000rdquo
Functional Currency
Returns the functional currency for the set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Functional_Currency()
Get Daily Rate
Returns the daily exchange rate for the entered criteria
Parameter Description
FromCurrency The ldquoFromrdquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case
eg ldquoUSDrdquo
ToCurrency The ldquoTordquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
ConversionType The conversion type as configured in Oracle Spelling and case must
be identical to the Oracle configuration
ConversionDate The conversion date This must be in Excel date format Either refer
to a cell which contains a date or use one of the Excel date functions
to return a date in the parameter
Example =Get_Daily_Rate(USDGBPReportingDATE(200911))
Function return values
The GL Wand functions will return a variety of results depending on a number of factors If
all the information is entered correctly and there are no restrictions on access to the data or
the GL Wand itself the result should be the General Ledger balance segment value segment description etc However the following are also possible return values
glwDemo ndash this means that you are using GL Wand without a valid trial key entered
into the GL Wand License Key profile option When trying GL Wand without a valid
52
trial key you are only allowed to use the first 20 rows and 20 columns of the first
sheet in the workbook Any formula entered outside this range will not calculate a
value but will only return the word ldquoglwDemordquo This is called evaluation mode A
trial key needs to be requested from within GL Wand and entered into the profile
option to allow full access to all functionality
glwNoAccess ndash When you log on you will be prompted for your applications user name
and password and will then need to select a responsibility to log on to Any security
rules that have been linked to the selected responsibility will be enforced on the GL
Wand data If you attempt to access a balance on a general ledger account that you
do not have access to the function will return the word ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo Please see
the ldquoAudit Get Balancerdquo section for information on how to identify the security rule that is being contravened
Please note that Oracles Hierarchical Security is not supported
glwError ndash If you enter invalid information in a parameter for a GL Wand function the
GL Wand error value will be returned This may happen when you for example
enter an invalid budget name or period name in the Get Balance function or when you
enter an invalid segment number in the next segment value function This error value
will also be returned when you are not logged on The details of the return value will
indicate where the problem exists eg glwError (Logon) glwError (Balance Type)
glwError (Translated Flag) glwError (Actual Flag) glwError (Missing segment)
glwError (Data error) glwError (Range) glwError (Period)
glwPending ndash This value will be returned during the calculation process Whenever a
cell requires calculation and the process has not been completed yet the cell will
contain the value ldquoglwPendingrdquo
glwEditing ndash Displays in the Excel function arguments window when editing a Get Balance formula
Discovering versus Functions
You may have noticed that you can achieve similar results by using the discover tools and
using the functions For example you could use the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button to retrieve the
next segment value or you could use the ldquoNext Segment Valuerdquo function to return the same result The difference between these two approaches is as follows
Com
paris
on b
etw
een D
iscoverin
g a
nd
Functio
ns
Discovering Functions
Results returned as text string to Excel
cell
Value is calculated based on
parameters
Value is static Value is dynamic
Never changes Recalculated when sheet refreshed
Lower performance overhead Higher performance overhead
Discover Down Next Segment Value
Discover Up Previous Segment Value
Discover Left Next Segment Value
Discover Right Previous Segment Value
Discover Properties
Segment Description
Parent flag
53
Enabled Flag
Account Type
Discover Child Ranges No equivalent
Toggle Discover Level
Parameters of next segment value
determine whether parents children or
both are returned
Use the discover buttons with ldquoPeriodrdquo
selected in the segment drop down Period Name
Balance Extract is similar to Get
Balance though the static values it
produces are refreshable
Get Balance
Special Get Balance Criteria
GL Wand supports two special types of criteria in the Get Balance function namely ldquoAccount
Combinationsrdquo and ldquoSegment Descriptive Flexfieldrdquo criteria These two forms of the Get
Balance criteria have very specific syntax which must be carefully adhered to in order to
achieve the correct results You also have the ability to expand account combinations for a
selection that uses the ldquoAccount Combinationrdquo criteria
Account Combinations
In the past the Get Balance function only supported individual segment values eg segment
2 = 100 or 200 and segment 3 = 1000 or 2000 This would result in GL Wand returning all the possible combinations of those segment 2 and 3 values
Now you have the ability to specify account combinations using the new Get Balance syntax
This means that you can create new complex criteria for your Get Balance formula eg
(segment 2 = 100 and segment 3 = 1000) or (segment 2 = 200 and segment 3 = 2000)
With these criteria GL Wand will no longer return all the possible combinations but rather only the combinations you specify
In order to specify account combinations in a Get Balance function you must tell GL Wand
which segments you are combining You do this by entering a special value into the segment
eg if you want to combine criteria for segment 2 and segment 3 you would enter the
following in the parameter for segment 2 ldquoUse_Seg3rdquo This tells GL Wand that that it must
find the criteria for segment 2 inside the segment 3 parameter In the segment 3 parameter
you now enter the criteria for both segment 2 and segment 3 separated by the special
delimiter character eg ldquo1001000rdquo This tells GL Wand that you are looking for accounts where segment 2 is 100 and segment 3 is 1000 An example could look like this
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg3100100020020000000000)
It is possible to combine multiple segments as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg5Use_Seg5Use_Seg510010000000000)
54
You simply point each applicable segment to the parameter where the account combination
using the special ldquoUse_SegXrdquo syntax Then inside the target parameter you combine the fully qualified account combination for the applicable segments delimited with a ldquordquo character
When you specify your account combination you have full flexibility to use ranges lists wild
cards parents and exclude criteria For example this criteria will fetch all the values where
segment 2 is between 100 and 200 and segment 3 is between 1000 and 2000 And in
addition to that it will include the values where segment 2 is 250 (a parent) and segment 3
starts with 33 but will exclude the specific value where segment 2 is 250 and segment 3 is
3320
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA01Use_Seg31001000-200200025033~25033200000000)
You also have the flexibility to group different parts of the account combination together For
example this criteria combines the values for segment 1 and 3 together and combines segment 2 and 4 together
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA
Use_Seg3Use_Seg401100002115010000002001050000)
These new Get Balance syntax options provide you with tremendous flexibility when building your GL Wand reports
Expand Account Combinations
The expand feature allows you to extract all the detailed child segment values that roll up to
the criteria that the user specifies The expand feature has been extended to support account combinations
In order to expand an account combination you would do the following
Ensure that the correct set of books is selected in the drop down list on the GL Wand
toolbar
Select the cell containing the account combination criteria eg ldquo1007000rdquo Click the expand button
GL Wand will now identify that the selected cell contains an account combination rather than
a single segment value You will now be presented with a window to identify which segments from your chart of accounts are represented in the account combination
55
Select the correct segments and click ldquoOKrdquo GL Wand will now extract all the child
combinations that roll up to the criteria that you entered and insert them into the Excel sheet
The other options are as follows
Fix ndash if you tick this option for a segment GL Wand will ldquopegrdquo that segment using the
selected value (this option only makes sense for a parent segment value) You might
for example want to expand all the account combinations used in a particular parent
cost centre Simply ldquoFixrdquo the cost centre segment and GL Wand will return all the
account combinations used within that parent cost centre
Exclude disabled account combination ndash tick this option to only return account combinations that are currently enabled and have not been end dated
The expand account combinations feature can be used as a normal GL Wand ldquoExpandrdquo in
order to extract the detail behind a total but it is also very useful to extract existing account combinations from your Oracle system
This feature can be used very effectively with the Split Text and Combine Text functions
Segment Descriptive Flexfields
In order to extract balances using the descriptive flexfields stored on the segment values
you need to use special syntax in the Get Balance function The syntax works as follows
1ABC
You wrap the descriptive flexfield using curly brackets
The first character after the open bracket identifies which descriptive flexfield
attribute is being referred to
You then separate the descriptive flexfield attribute from the actual value using a ldquordquo You then specify the criteria for this attribute
An example Get Balance function would look as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC10000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield on segment 2 is equal to the value ldquoABCrdquo
It is possible to specify criteria for multiple descriptive flexfields as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC2XX10000000000)
Simply wrap each descriptive flexfield value in its own and identify the attribute number
At this stage the descriptive flexfield criteria is restricted to a single value or a single range
of values Lists of values and multiple ranges are not supported A range can be specified
using the special range delimiter ldquo|rdquo (pipe character) This character is different to the range
character that is used for normal Get Balance segment parameters The reason is that the
normal range delimiter ldquo-ldquo may easily be used in a segment descriptive flexfields and
therefore is not suitable In future you will be able to configure your own range delimiter
56
character which will provide the best flexibility The range criteria can be specified as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011100|20010000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield
on segment 2 is between 100 and 200 Date values are also supported in this criteria and GL Wand will correctly derive the ldquobetweenrdquo criteria for a date
Calculating
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what cells are refreshed from
Oracle They are used in conjunction with the GL Wand calculation option (onoff) You can stop a calculation at any time by clicking cancel
- Calculate Range (Alt+Ctl+R)
- Calculate Sheet (Alt+Ctl+S)
- Calculate All (Alt+Ctl+A)
- GL Wand calculation on
- GL Wand calculation off
Calculate Range Sheet or All
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what is recalculated
To calculate a range of cells simply
1 Highlight the range
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Rangerdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+R shortcut key
3 Select multiple ranges using the ctrl button (as normal in Excel)
4 Select a range and then select multiple Excel worksheets to calculate the same range on
each sheet
Please note do not use the calculate range option to recalculate the entire sheet ie by
selecting all the cells on the sheet This will take unnecessarily longer Rather use the
calculate sheet option
To calculate a sheet simply
1 Select the applicable sheet
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Sheetrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+S shortcut key
3 Selecting multiple sheets will calculate each of the selected sheets
To calculate all open workbooks simply
1 Click the ldquoCalculate Allrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+A shortcut key
57
GL Wand calculation on or off
You can use the GL Wand calculation toggle button to control when requests for calculations
are sent to the Oracle server
If you toggle GL Wand calculation ldquoOffrdquo calculation requests are not sent to the Oracle server which means you
you can manipulate a worksheet
change cell values
enter new formulae and
perform any other task that would normally cause Excel to recalculate
and the applicable functions will only return the ldquoglwPendingrdquo status and will not
actually calculate a result
This is useful during report development
To calculate the results simply click one of the three calculation buttons ldquoCalculate Range
Sheet or Allrdquo
If you leave the GL Wand calculation option ldquoOnrdquo the applicable functions will be recalculated whenever Excel initiates a calculation process eg
when changing the contents of the cell
changing one of the functions input values deleting a column or row in the worksheet etc
Please note that the GL Wand calculation option has nothing to do with Excel‟s automatic
and manual calculation The GL Wand calculation option controls only the calculation of the
applicable GL Wand functions All other calculations are controlled as normal by the Excel
automatic and manual calculation option
Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
When you perform a recalculation a window will appear to show the progress of the
calculation
58
If you would like to cancel the calculation process simply click the ldquoCancelrdquo button
Please note that GL Wand will need to wait for the next reply from Oracle before the
connection can be closed Therefore it may take some time before the calculation stops and
the window closes
Snapshot
- Snapshot
The snapshot tool can be used to take a snapshot of your GL Wand report This tool will
remove all the GL Wand functions from the workbook and will replace them with the values that the function returned
The results are similar to using the Excel ldquopaste valuesrdquo functionality However this process will only replace GL Wand formulas All other Excel formulas will be left as they were
Please note that you cannot take a snapshot of a protected worksheet rather output the
sheet to PDF format for archive and distribution purposes
When producing a snapshot GL Wand will request a name for the new workbook You can
select an existing workbook and GL Wand will give you the option to append the snapshot
results to the existing workbook or overwrite the existing workbook You therefore have the
option of producing various snapshot reports and combining them into one new workbook in a single operation rather than producing a separate workbook for each snapshot
Hide zeros
- Hide zeros in selected range
Select a report range that contains rows where all the numbers are zero Click the hide zeros
button and GL Wand will hide all the rows in the selected range where all the cells containing
numbers are zero This is very useful for formatting a report which includes many rows
where for example a number of accounts are not used in a particular cost centre or have no
59
balances in a certain period At the click of a button you can hide all the rows that contain only zeros
Select the entire report range when using the hide zeros function GL Wand checks the
selected range for zeros when determining which rows to hide
Excel automatically forces a recalculation of Get Balance formulas when you hide rows on a
report This is normal Excel functionality
This feature can be used on any Excel worksheet and is not limited to GL Wand reports
Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Undo the last hide zeros operation
Click this button to automatically undo the last hide zeros operation
Drill downs
- Drill to default Balance layout
- Drill to default Journal layout
- Drill to default Sub Ledger layout
The drill down options allow you to extract additional detail about a specific ldquoGet Balancerdquo function
1 Select a cell that contains a valid Get Balance function
2 Click on the drill to balance button
3 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
4 The criteria sheet will be populated with the criteria from the Get Balance function
5 The drill down to balance detail will be executed showing all the detailed accounts that make up the total in the Get Balance function
60
See the Create Drill Criteria Sheet section for more details and options on the drill down criteria sheet
Budget variance analysis If you select two cells on the GL Wand report eg one cell with
actual values and one with budget numbers GL Wand will perform a drill down on the Get
Balance function and display the actual and budget values next to each other and a
calculated variance
You now have a variety of options which can be performed from the drill down workbook
1 Modify the parameters on the criteria sheet and perform a new drill to balance Drop
down lists are provided for most of the parameters see the Create Drill Criteria Sheet for
more details
2 Create a summary drill down report
3 If you have performed a balance drill down you can select the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet and then
click drill down to journal details after selecting one or more rows with accounts
4 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo sheet and then click the button to drill down to the full journal
after selecting one or more rows with journal lines The full journal with all the contra
entries for the selected journal lines will be displayed
5 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo or ldquoJournal-Fullrdquo sheet and then click sub-ledger drill down after
selecting one or more rows with journal lines 6 Drill down to Global Consolidation System transactions
When drilling down you have the following options
Double click any cell on the row that you wish to drill down on
61
Select any cell in the row that you want to drill down on and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar
Highlight a range of rows and click the applicable drill down button on the GL Wand
toolbar to drill down on multiple lines at once
Highlight non contiguous rows using the ldquoCtrlrdquo button and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar to drill down on multiple lines which are not adjacent to each other
It is possible to drill from a Get Balance formula directly to the journal or sub ledger
information Similarly you can drill from a detailed balance (on the Balance worksheet)
directly to the sub ledger information If you select these options GL Wand will execute the
interim drill steps automatically Be careful when performing a drill down directly to the
journal or sub ledger detail level as these drill down operations may return many records
GL Wand will automatically group the drill down to journals and sub ledger information using
Excel‟s group and outline functionality This will allow you expand and collapse the data to
show just a portion of the report Headings are also inserted on the journal and sub-ledger drill down to make the report easier to read
On the sub-ledger drill down the heading includes a number in brackets eg ldquo(23) Journal
Name 123rdquo The number indicates which Excel row these sub-ledger lines originated from on
the ldquoJournalsrdquo sheet
You can use the remove drill down report headings button to strip out the headings on
the journal and sub-ledger drill down sheets
A couple of important things to note about drill downs
GL Wand will first count the number of rows that will be retrieved by the drill down
operation
If the row count is more than 1000 you will receive a warning message asking you if
you want to continue
If the row count is more than the defined limit (see Query Limit) you will receive a
warning and the drill down will be cancelled
If the row count is more than the number of rows available in your version of Excel
you will receive an error and the drill down will be cancelled
When you drill down to journal details the ldquoBalance Typerdquo parameter controls how
much detail is returned If this parameter is ldquoPTDrdquo only the current period‟s journals
are returned If this parameter is ldquoYTDrdquo then all the journals for the year are returned and likewise ldquoQTDrdquo will show the journal for the quarter
Ensure that the worksheet is calculated before performing any drill down functions Also
ensure that the cell contains a ldquoGet Balancerdquo function with valid parameter information
A new drill down workbook will be created each time you perform a drill down operation from
a Get Balance function Once you are finished with a drill down workbook simply close it
without saving
You cannot drill down to journal detail on translated balances
Oracle Global Consolidation System
Drill down to Oracle Global Consolidation System (GCS) transactions is also supported
These items will appear on the journal drill down report with a source and category of
62
ldquoConsolidationrdquo If you execute a normal drill down to Sub Ledger on these transactions a
new GL Wand drill workbook will be created and the drill down to the subsidiary set of books will be executed
In order to drill down on a GCS transaction you must be logged on the parent as well as the
subsidiary set of books This can be done using the Multiple Sets of Books logon option
Summary Balance Drill Down
On the drill down Criteria sheet toggle the summarization option to ldquoYrdquo for any segment that
you which to summaries by GL Wand creates a summary trial balance report and
summarizes by the selected segments The report can still be expanded to show the detailed
lines and you can still drill down to journals from these lines
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
43
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
Split Text
Combine Text
Functional Currency
Get Daily Rate
You can enter a function into an Excel cell in a number of ways
Click the applicable button on the GL Wand toolbar (or on the GL Wand menu)
Type the function name into the cell manually prefixed by an = sign
You can select the function from the list that Excel provides when you choose the
Insert Function menu item The GL Wand functions are listed under the special GL
Wand category (Prior to Excel 2007 they are listed in the User Defined category)
If you click the applicable function button on the toolbar and the cell you are in contains that
function the Excel formula wizard window will open If you click a function button in a cell
that contains other data GL Wand will warn you that it is going to replace the contents of the cell with the chosen formula and will give you the option of cancelling the action
All parameters must be entered as text values ie enclosed in double quotes eg enter
ldquoUSDrdquo when entering the currency code or enter ldquo001rdquo when entering a segment value
See ldquoDiscovering versus Functionsrdquo for a comparison extracting information using the
discover tools or the functions
44
Get Balance
The Get Balance function is probably the most important function in GL Wand It returns a
General Ledger balance individually or summed based on the parameters that you enter
Example =Get_Balance(Jan-02YTDUSDEABIS CORPORATE01T4000-41600000000)
Clicking the Get Balance function on the GL Wand toolbar will open the Get Balance Wizard
This form has lists of values for items like period name balance type actual flag etc Select
the applicable values and enter a valid currency code and budget or encumbrance name if required
Double clicking a segment value or clicking the list of values button next to the segment will
open the segment list of values form for that segment See the Segment List of Values
section for details on how to use this form When you click the ldquoOKrdquo button on the Segment
List of Values form the selected segment parameters are entered against that segment in the Get Balance Wizard form
If your Oracle configuration includes dependant segments as part of the accounting
flexfield this form will support selecting values based on the independent and dependant
segment values Simply select a value from the available list of values for the independent
segment Then open the list of values for the dependant segment The list of available values
will be limited to only those values that are related to the selected independent segment
value
When you have entered all the parameters click the ldquoOKrdquo button to insert the Get Balance
function into the selected cell with the entered parameters Clicking the ldquoEditrdquo button will
open the Get Balance function in the Excel formula wizard form which will allow you to link
parameters to cells in the Excel sheet
45
You can also open the Get Balance formula in the Excel formula wizard form using the fx
button on the formula bar or by selecting the ldquoInsert Functionrdquo menu item on the Excel menu bar
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Type ldquoCTDrdquo
(Custom to Date) you can specify a custom period selection For
example ldquoFeb-07-Aug-07rdquo will add all the movement for the entered
period range You may enter multiple lists or ranges of periods and can use wild cards as well eg ldquoJan-0rdquo or ldquo-07rdquo
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Types ldquoJEDrdquo
ldquoJEDUrdquo or ldquoJEDPrdquo (Journal Effective Date) the period parameter
becomes a date parameter eg ldquo01012007-0501200710012007rdquo
The format that your date is in is important The ldquo-ldquo character is
used in GL Wand to denote a range of values and therefore it cannot
be used as a date delimiter eg 01-01-2007 would not be valid So
take care if your Windows regional setting use the ldquo-ldquo as a date
delimiter For JED type calculations we recommend that you use the
ldquordquo as a date delimiter and that you always format the date as text
in Excel otherwise Excel will convert the date based on your regional
setting
Balance Type YTD QTD PTD PJTD CTD JED JEDP or JEDU all in upper case
YTD ndash Summarizes the full years balance
QTD ndash Summarizes the balance for the quarter
46
PTD ndash Includes just the current period‟s movement
PJTD ndash Project to date
CTD ndash Summarizes the custom period criteria entered
JED ndash Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for both posted and unposted journals
JEDP - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for posted journals only
JEDU - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered dates for unposted journals only
Currency Code The currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
Translated Flag Enter E T or C Use E to retrieve the entered amount and T for the
translated amount Use C to report on the converted amount ie
the functional currency equivalent of a foreign currency amount
Only E is valid if requesting a balance for the functional currency of the current Set of Books
You must ensure that you have run the currency translation process
in Oracle for the selected currency and period before reporting on
translated balances If you enter T to request the translated balance
and there is no current translated balance available in the system a zero is returned
Oracle Release 12 provides a new feature to allow reporting on the
values entered in the functional currency only ie excludes any
foreign currency transactions converted to the functional currency
Therefore in Release 12 if you use the E (entered) flag in
conjunction with the functional currency any converted amounts will
be excluded To report on the total balance (including values entered
in functional currency and values converted to the functional
currency) use the new ldquoTotalrdquo option This option is only available if
you log on to a release 12 Oracle instance
Actual Flag A ndash Actual B ndash Budget E ndash Encumbrance
Bud Encumb Name If you enter B or E above enter the exact budget name or
encumbrance type here Otherwise simply enter ldquordquo for actual
balances
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter the segment value here You must enter it as a text value
including any leading zeros eg enter segment value ldquo10rdquo as ldquo0010rdquo
if this segment is configured as four characters with leading zeros in Oracle
You may enter your segment values in a variety of flexible ways
including parents child values ranges wildcards excludes etc See
the explanation below on valid values for this parameter
To include all values simply enter ldquordquo Please note as from GL Wand
3850 you can no longer leave the segment blank a value is
required
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
47
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Options This parameter is used to modify the results returned by the Get
Balance function from the standard behavior Currently two options are supported
Source ndash Limit the results to a specific journal source
Category ndash Limit the results to a specific journal category
The criteria needs to be entered as follows - ldquoSource=Manualrdquo or
ldquoCategory=Adjustmentrdquo To specify both a source and category use
the ldquo|rdquo as a delimiter eg ldquoSource=Manual|Category=Adjustmentrdquo
You can specify multiple values by separating them with ldquordquo eg
ldquoSource=PayablesReceivablesrdquo
When creating Get Balance formulas always use ldquordquo to denote all values as this allows more
efficient SQL to be generated Do not use a range like ldquo000-ZZZrdquo as they will require
unnecessary processing
The segment value parameters can be entered as
a single value representing a child or parent account eg ldquo1500rdquo might represent a
parent account
a range of values eg entering ldquo1500-1600rdquo in one of the segment parameters will
sum all the segment values between 1500 and 1600 for that segment
a list of segment values eg entering ldquo150015101590rdquo in one of the segment
parameters will sum the specific segment values entered If any of the segment
values are parents GL Wand will sum the hierarchy for that parent
wild card entries eg 100 will sum 1100 1200 1300 1400 etc or entering the
value 1 will sum all values that start with 1
values to be included and then specific exclusions eg ldquo1000-2000~1500rdquo will sum
the values between 1000 and 2000 but will skip 1500
a combination of any of the above eg 1000-2000237123752560-
25803000~32004000~4161-4169 In this way you can build up your own calculation definition in the segment parameter
Please note ndash there are two additional methods for specifying segment criteria in the Get
Balance function The one allows you to specify account combinations and the other
allows the use of segment descriptive flexfields Please see the Special Get Balance
Criteria section in order to use these options
Segment Description
Returns the segment description for the chosen segment value
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
48
Example =Get_Segment_Description(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
Returns the next or previous segment value
Parameter Description
Last Value The starting segment value
Segment The segment number
Level Enter a P to return the next or previous parent value enter a C to
return the next or previous child value or leave the parameter blank
to return the next or previous segment value irrespective of whether
it is a parent or child
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example = Next_Segment_Value(ldquo1000rdquo3P)
Parent Flag
Returns the parent flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is a
parent
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Parent_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Enabled Flag
Returns the enabled flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is
enabled
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example = Enabled_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
49
Account Type
Returns the account type for the chosen segment value This function is only applicable for
the natural account segment and will return the value Asset Liability etc
Parameter Description
Account Value The account segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Account_Type(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Period Name
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number Optionally the returned value can be a certain number of periods into the future or past
Parameter Description
PeriodYear The year that you want the period name for
PeriodNumber The period number that you want the period name for
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Offset Optionally enter an offset to return the period name which is n
periods before or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3
periods into the future or -1 to return the previous period
Example =Period_Name(20063)
Set of Books Name
Returns the set of books name for the chosen set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Set_of_Books_Name()
Segment Descriptive Flexfield
Returns the segment values descriptive flexfield for the selected criteria
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
50
Segment The segment number
AttributeNo Identify which attribute you want to report on The segment values
descriptive flexfield has 50 possible attribute values The applicable
attributes will depend on your configuration and whether this
Descriptive Flexfield is used by your organization
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Segment_DFF(ldquo100rdquo25) retrieves the 5th attribute on the segment values
descriptive flexfield for segment value 100 on segment 2
Period Offset
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for
this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
Offset Enter an offset to return the period name which is n periods before
or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3 periods into the
future or -1 to return the previous period
RetRange Enter TRUE (or 1) to return the result as a range eg entering
period Mar-07 with an offset of -2 and the RetRange set to true will
return ldquoJan-07-Mar-07rdquo This can be used in conjunction with the
CTD (Custom to Date) balance type in the Get Balance function to
create rolling period reporting
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Period_Offset(Jan-07-2TRUE)
Split Text
Splits delimited text and returns a specific portion based on an offset Especially useful to
split account combinations but can be used to split any text
Parameter Description
Value Some text which has been concatenated using a delimiter eg an
account combination like ldquo011007000rdquo
Offset Identify which portion of the text to return
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Split_Text(0110070002) will return the ldquo100rdquo portion of the text
51
Combine Text
Combines selected text separated by a delimiter Especially useful to combine segment
values to create a delimited account combinations but can be used to combine any text
Parameter Description
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter segment values that you wish to combine into an account
combination
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Combine_Text(011007000) will return ldquo011007000rdquo
Functional Currency
Returns the functional currency for the set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Functional_Currency()
Get Daily Rate
Returns the daily exchange rate for the entered criteria
Parameter Description
FromCurrency The ldquoFromrdquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case
eg ldquoUSDrdquo
ToCurrency The ldquoTordquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
ConversionType The conversion type as configured in Oracle Spelling and case must
be identical to the Oracle configuration
ConversionDate The conversion date This must be in Excel date format Either refer
to a cell which contains a date or use one of the Excel date functions
to return a date in the parameter
Example =Get_Daily_Rate(USDGBPReportingDATE(200911))
Function return values
The GL Wand functions will return a variety of results depending on a number of factors If
all the information is entered correctly and there are no restrictions on access to the data or
the GL Wand itself the result should be the General Ledger balance segment value segment description etc However the following are also possible return values
glwDemo ndash this means that you are using GL Wand without a valid trial key entered
into the GL Wand License Key profile option When trying GL Wand without a valid
52
trial key you are only allowed to use the first 20 rows and 20 columns of the first
sheet in the workbook Any formula entered outside this range will not calculate a
value but will only return the word ldquoglwDemordquo This is called evaluation mode A
trial key needs to be requested from within GL Wand and entered into the profile
option to allow full access to all functionality
glwNoAccess ndash When you log on you will be prompted for your applications user name
and password and will then need to select a responsibility to log on to Any security
rules that have been linked to the selected responsibility will be enforced on the GL
Wand data If you attempt to access a balance on a general ledger account that you
do not have access to the function will return the word ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo Please see
the ldquoAudit Get Balancerdquo section for information on how to identify the security rule that is being contravened
Please note that Oracles Hierarchical Security is not supported
glwError ndash If you enter invalid information in a parameter for a GL Wand function the
GL Wand error value will be returned This may happen when you for example
enter an invalid budget name or period name in the Get Balance function or when you
enter an invalid segment number in the next segment value function This error value
will also be returned when you are not logged on The details of the return value will
indicate where the problem exists eg glwError (Logon) glwError (Balance Type)
glwError (Translated Flag) glwError (Actual Flag) glwError (Missing segment)
glwError (Data error) glwError (Range) glwError (Period)
glwPending ndash This value will be returned during the calculation process Whenever a
cell requires calculation and the process has not been completed yet the cell will
contain the value ldquoglwPendingrdquo
glwEditing ndash Displays in the Excel function arguments window when editing a Get Balance formula
Discovering versus Functions
You may have noticed that you can achieve similar results by using the discover tools and
using the functions For example you could use the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button to retrieve the
next segment value or you could use the ldquoNext Segment Valuerdquo function to return the same result The difference between these two approaches is as follows
Com
paris
on b
etw
een D
iscoverin
g a
nd
Functio
ns
Discovering Functions
Results returned as text string to Excel
cell
Value is calculated based on
parameters
Value is static Value is dynamic
Never changes Recalculated when sheet refreshed
Lower performance overhead Higher performance overhead
Discover Down Next Segment Value
Discover Up Previous Segment Value
Discover Left Next Segment Value
Discover Right Previous Segment Value
Discover Properties
Segment Description
Parent flag
53
Enabled Flag
Account Type
Discover Child Ranges No equivalent
Toggle Discover Level
Parameters of next segment value
determine whether parents children or
both are returned
Use the discover buttons with ldquoPeriodrdquo
selected in the segment drop down Period Name
Balance Extract is similar to Get
Balance though the static values it
produces are refreshable
Get Balance
Special Get Balance Criteria
GL Wand supports two special types of criteria in the Get Balance function namely ldquoAccount
Combinationsrdquo and ldquoSegment Descriptive Flexfieldrdquo criteria These two forms of the Get
Balance criteria have very specific syntax which must be carefully adhered to in order to
achieve the correct results You also have the ability to expand account combinations for a
selection that uses the ldquoAccount Combinationrdquo criteria
Account Combinations
In the past the Get Balance function only supported individual segment values eg segment
2 = 100 or 200 and segment 3 = 1000 or 2000 This would result in GL Wand returning all the possible combinations of those segment 2 and 3 values
Now you have the ability to specify account combinations using the new Get Balance syntax
This means that you can create new complex criteria for your Get Balance formula eg
(segment 2 = 100 and segment 3 = 1000) or (segment 2 = 200 and segment 3 = 2000)
With these criteria GL Wand will no longer return all the possible combinations but rather only the combinations you specify
In order to specify account combinations in a Get Balance function you must tell GL Wand
which segments you are combining You do this by entering a special value into the segment
eg if you want to combine criteria for segment 2 and segment 3 you would enter the
following in the parameter for segment 2 ldquoUse_Seg3rdquo This tells GL Wand that that it must
find the criteria for segment 2 inside the segment 3 parameter In the segment 3 parameter
you now enter the criteria for both segment 2 and segment 3 separated by the special
delimiter character eg ldquo1001000rdquo This tells GL Wand that you are looking for accounts where segment 2 is 100 and segment 3 is 1000 An example could look like this
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg3100100020020000000000)
It is possible to combine multiple segments as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg5Use_Seg5Use_Seg510010000000000)
54
You simply point each applicable segment to the parameter where the account combination
using the special ldquoUse_SegXrdquo syntax Then inside the target parameter you combine the fully qualified account combination for the applicable segments delimited with a ldquordquo character
When you specify your account combination you have full flexibility to use ranges lists wild
cards parents and exclude criteria For example this criteria will fetch all the values where
segment 2 is between 100 and 200 and segment 3 is between 1000 and 2000 And in
addition to that it will include the values where segment 2 is 250 (a parent) and segment 3
starts with 33 but will exclude the specific value where segment 2 is 250 and segment 3 is
3320
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA01Use_Seg31001000-200200025033~25033200000000)
You also have the flexibility to group different parts of the account combination together For
example this criteria combines the values for segment 1 and 3 together and combines segment 2 and 4 together
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA
Use_Seg3Use_Seg401100002115010000002001050000)
These new Get Balance syntax options provide you with tremendous flexibility when building your GL Wand reports
Expand Account Combinations
The expand feature allows you to extract all the detailed child segment values that roll up to
the criteria that the user specifies The expand feature has been extended to support account combinations
In order to expand an account combination you would do the following
Ensure that the correct set of books is selected in the drop down list on the GL Wand
toolbar
Select the cell containing the account combination criteria eg ldquo1007000rdquo Click the expand button
GL Wand will now identify that the selected cell contains an account combination rather than
a single segment value You will now be presented with a window to identify which segments from your chart of accounts are represented in the account combination
55
Select the correct segments and click ldquoOKrdquo GL Wand will now extract all the child
combinations that roll up to the criteria that you entered and insert them into the Excel sheet
The other options are as follows
Fix ndash if you tick this option for a segment GL Wand will ldquopegrdquo that segment using the
selected value (this option only makes sense for a parent segment value) You might
for example want to expand all the account combinations used in a particular parent
cost centre Simply ldquoFixrdquo the cost centre segment and GL Wand will return all the
account combinations used within that parent cost centre
Exclude disabled account combination ndash tick this option to only return account combinations that are currently enabled and have not been end dated
The expand account combinations feature can be used as a normal GL Wand ldquoExpandrdquo in
order to extract the detail behind a total but it is also very useful to extract existing account combinations from your Oracle system
This feature can be used very effectively with the Split Text and Combine Text functions
Segment Descriptive Flexfields
In order to extract balances using the descriptive flexfields stored on the segment values
you need to use special syntax in the Get Balance function The syntax works as follows
1ABC
You wrap the descriptive flexfield using curly brackets
The first character after the open bracket identifies which descriptive flexfield
attribute is being referred to
You then separate the descriptive flexfield attribute from the actual value using a ldquordquo You then specify the criteria for this attribute
An example Get Balance function would look as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC10000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield on segment 2 is equal to the value ldquoABCrdquo
It is possible to specify criteria for multiple descriptive flexfields as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC2XX10000000000)
Simply wrap each descriptive flexfield value in its own and identify the attribute number
At this stage the descriptive flexfield criteria is restricted to a single value or a single range
of values Lists of values and multiple ranges are not supported A range can be specified
using the special range delimiter ldquo|rdquo (pipe character) This character is different to the range
character that is used for normal Get Balance segment parameters The reason is that the
normal range delimiter ldquo-ldquo may easily be used in a segment descriptive flexfields and
therefore is not suitable In future you will be able to configure your own range delimiter
56
character which will provide the best flexibility The range criteria can be specified as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011100|20010000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield
on segment 2 is between 100 and 200 Date values are also supported in this criteria and GL Wand will correctly derive the ldquobetweenrdquo criteria for a date
Calculating
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what cells are refreshed from
Oracle They are used in conjunction with the GL Wand calculation option (onoff) You can stop a calculation at any time by clicking cancel
- Calculate Range (Alt+Ctl+R)
- Calculate Sheet (Alt+Ctl+S)
- Calculate All (Alt+Ctl+A)
- GL Wand calculation on
- GL Wand calculation off
Calculate Range Sheet or All
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what is recalculated
To calculate a range of cells simply
1 Highlight the range
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Rangerdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+R shortcut key
3 Select multiple ranges using the ctrl button (as normal in Excel)
4 Select a range and then select multiple Excel worksheets to calculate the same range on
each sheet
Please note do not use the calculate range option to recalculate the entire sheet ie by
selecting all the cells on the sheet This will take unnecessarily longer Rather use the
calculate sheet option
To calculate a sheet simply
1 Select the applicable sheet
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Sheetrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+S shortcut key
3 Selecting multiple sheets will calculate each of the selected sheets
To calculate all open workbooks simply
1 Click the ldquoCalculate Allrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+A shortcut key
57
GL Wand calculation on or off
You can use the GL Wand calculation toggle button to control when requests for calculations
are sent to the Oracle server
If you toggle GL Wand calculation ldquoOffrdquo calculation requests are not sent to the Oracle server which means you
you can manipulate a worksheet
change cell values
enter new formulae and
perform any other task that would normally cause Excel to recalculate
and the applicable functions will only return the ldquoglwPendingrdquo status and will not
actually calculate a result
This is useful during report development
To calculate the results simply click one of the three calculation buttons ldquoCalculate Range
Sheet or Allrdquo
If you leave the GL Wand calculation option ldquoOnrdquo the applicable functions will be recalculated whenever Excel initiates a calculation process eg
when changing the contents of the cell
changing one of the functions input values deleting a column or row in the worksheet etc
Please note that the GL Wand calculation option has nothing to do with Excel‟s automatic
and manual calculation The GL Wand calculation option controls only the calculation of the
applicable GL Wand functions All other calculations are controlled as normal by the Excel
automatic and manual calculation option
Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
When you perform a recalculation a window will appear to show the progress of the
calculation
58
If you would like to cancel the calculation process simply click the ldquoCancelrdquo button
Please note that GL Wand will need to wait for the next reply from Oracle before the
connection can be closed Therefore it may take some time before the calculation stops and
the window closes
Snapshot
- Snapshot
The snapshot tool can be used to take a snapshot of your GL Wand report This tool will
remove all the GL Wand functions from the workbook and will replace them with the values that the function returned
The results are similar to using the Excel ldquopaste valuesrdquo functionality However this process will only replace GL Wand formulas All other Excel formulas will be left as they were
Please note that you cannot take a snapshot of a protected worksheet rather output the
sheet to PDF format for archive and distribution purposes
When producing a snapshot GL Wand will request a name for the new workbook You can
select an existing workbook and GL Wand will give you the option to append the snapshot
results to the existing workbook or overwrite the existing workbook You therefore have the
option of producing various snapshot reports and combining them into one new workbook in a single operation rather than producing a separate workbook for each snapshot
Hide zeros
- Hide zeros in selected range
Select a report range that contains rows where all the numbers are zero Click the hide zeros
button and GL Wand will hide all the rows in the selected range where all the cells containing
numbers are zero This is very useful for formatting a report which includes many rows
where for example a number of accounts are not used in a particular cost centre or have no
59
balances in a certain period At the click of a button you can hide all the rows that contain only zeros
Select the entire report range when using the hide zeros function GL Wand checks the
selected range for zeros when determining which rows to hide
Excel automatically forces a recalculation of Get Balance formulas when you hide rows on a
report This is normal Excel functionality
This feature can be used on any Excel worksheet and is not limited to GL Wand reports
Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Undo the last hide zeros operation
Click this button to automatically undo the last hide zeros operation
Drill downs
- Drill to default Balance layout
- Drill to default Journal layout
- Drill to default Sub Ledger layout
The drill down options allow you to extract additional detail about a specific ldquoGet Balancerdquo function
1 Select a cell that contains a valid Get Balance function
2 Click on the drill to balance button
3 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
4 The criteria sheet will be populated with the criteria from the Get Balance function
5 The drill down to balance detail will be executed showing all the detailed accounts that make up the total in the Get Balance function
60
See the Create Drill Criteria Sheet section for more details and options on the drill down criteria sheet
Budget variance analysis If you select two cells on the GL Wand report eg one cell with
actual values and one with budget numbers GL Wand will perform a drill down on the Get
Balance function and display the actual and budget values next to each other and a
calculated variance
You now have a variety of options which can be performed from the drill down workbook
1 Modify the parameters on the criteria sheet and perform a new drill to balance Drop
down lists are provided for most of the parameters see the Create Drill Criteria Sheet for
more details
2 Create a summary drill down report
3 If you have performed a balance drill down you can select the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet and then
click drill down to journal details after selecting one or more rows with accounts
4 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo sheet and then click the button to drill down to the full journal
after selecting one or more rows with journal lines The full journal with all the contra
entries for the selected journal lines will be displayed
5 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo or ldquoJournal-Fullrdquo sheet and then click sub-ledger drill down after
selecting one or more rows with journal lines 6 Drill down to Global Consolidation System transactions
When drilling down you have the following options
Double click any cell on the row that you wish to drill down on
61
Select any cell in the row that you want to drill down on and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar
Highlight a range of rows and click the applicable drill down button on the GL Wand
toolbar to drill down on multiple lines at once
Highlight non contiguous rows using the ldquoCtrlrdquo button and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar to drill down on multiple lines which are not adjacent to each other
It is possible to drill from a Get Balance formula directly to the journal or sub ledger
information Similarly you can drill from a detailed balance (on the Balance worksheet)
directly to the sub ledger information If you select these options GL Wand will execute the
interim drill steps automatically Be careful when performing a drill down directly to the
journal or sub ledger detail level as these drill down operations may return many records
GL Wand will automatically group the drill down to journals and sub ledger information using
Excel‟s group and outline functionality This will allow you expand and collapse the data to
show just a portion of the report Headings are also inserted on the journal and sub-ledger drill down to make the report easier to read
On the sub-ledger drill down the heading includes a number in brackets eg ldquo(23) Journal
Name 123rdquo The number indicates which Excel row these sub-ledger lines originated from on
the ldquoJournalsrdquo sheet
You can use the remove drill down report headings button to strip out the headings on
the journal and sub-ledger drill down sheets
A couple of important things to note about drill downs
GL Wand will first count the number of rows that will be retrieved by the drill down
operation
If the row count is more than 1000 you will receive a warning message asking you if
you want to continue
If the row count is more than the defined limit (see Query Limit) you will receive a
warning and the drill down will be cancelled
If the row count is more than the number of rows available in your version of Excel
you will receive an error and the drill down will be cancelled
When you drill down to journal details the ldquoBalance Typerdquo parameter controls how
much detail is returned If this parameter is ldquoPTDrdquo only the current period‟s journals
are returned If this parameter is ldquoYTDrdquo then all the journals for the year are returned and likewise ldquoQTDrdquo will show the journal for the quarter
Ensure that the worksheet is calculated before performing any drill down functions Also
ensure that the cell contains a ldquoGet Balancerdquo function with valid parameter information
A new drill down workbook will be created each time you perform a drill down operation from
a Get Balance function Once you are finished with a drill down workbook simply close it
without saving
You cannot drill down to journal detail on translated balances
Oracle Global Consolidation System
Drill down to Oracle Global Consolidation System (GCS) transactions is also supported
These items will appear on the journal drill down report with a source and category of
62
ldquoConsolidationrdquo If you execute a normal drill down to Sub Ledger on these transactions a
new GL Wand drill workbook will be created and the drill down to the subsidiary set of books will be executed
In order to drill down on a GCS transaction you must be logged on the parent as well as the
subsidiary set of books This can be done using the Multiple Sets of Books logon option
Summary Balance Drill Down
On the drill down Criteria sheet toggle the summarization option to ldquoYrdquo for any segment that
you which to summaries by GL Wand creates a summary trial balance report and
summarizes by the selected segments The report can still be expanded to show the detailed
lines and you can still drill down to journals from these lines
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
44
Get Balance
The Get Balance function is probably the most important function in GL Wand It returns a
General Ledger balance individually or summed based on the parameters that you enter
Example =Get_Balance(Jan-02YTDUSDEABIS CORPORATE01T4000-41600000000)
Clicking the Get Balance function on the GL Wand toolbar will open the Get Balance Wizard
This form has lists of values for items like period name balance type actual flag etc Select
the applicable values and enter a valid currency code and budget or encumbrance name if required
Double clicking a segment value or clicking the list of values button next to the segment will
open the segment list of values form for that segment See the Segment List of Values
section for details on how to use this form When you click the ldquoOKrdquo button on the Segment
List of Values form the selected segment parameters are entered against that segment in the Get Balance Wizard form
If your Oracle configuration includes dependant segments as part of the accounting
flexfield this form will support selecting values based on the independent and dependant
segment values Simply select a value from the available list of values for the independent
segment Then open the list of values for the dependant segment The list of available values
will be limited to only those values that are related to the selected independent segment
value
When you have entered all the parameters click the ldquoOKrdquo button to insert the Get Balance
function into the selected cell with the entered parameters Clicking the ldquoEditrdquo button will
open the Get Balance function in the Excel formula wizard form which will allow you to link
parameters to cells in the Excel sheet
45
You can also open the Get Balance formula in the Excel formula wizard form using the fx
button on the formula bar or by selecting the ldquoInsert Functionrdquo menu item on the Excel menu bar
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Type ldquoCTDrdquo
(Custom to Date) you can specify a custom period selection For
example ldquoFeb-07-Aug-07rdquo will add all the movement for the entered
period range You may enter multiple lists or ranges of periods and can use wild cards as well eg ldquoJan-0rdquo or ldquo-07rdquo
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Types ldquoJEDrdquo
ldquoJEDUrdquo or ldquoJEDPrdquo (Journal Effective Date) the period parameter
becomes a date parameter eg ldquo01012007-0501200710012007rdquo
The format that your date is in is important The ldquo-ldquo character is
used in GL Wand to denote a range of values and therefore it cannot
be used as a date delimiter eg 01-01-2007 would not be valid So
take care if your Windows regional setting use the ldquo-ldquo as a date
delimiter For JED type calculations we recommend that you use the
ldquordquo as a date delimiter and that you always format the date as text
in Excel otherwise Excel will convert the date based on your regional
setting
Balance Type YTD QTD PTD PJTD CTD JED JEDP or JEDU all in upper case
YTD ndash Summarizes the full years balance
QTD ndash Summarizes the balance for the quarter
46
PTD ndash Includes just the current period‟s movement
PJTD ndash Project to date
CTD ndash Summarizes the custom period criteria entered
JED ndash Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for both posted and unposted journals
JEDP - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for posted journals only
JEDU - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered dates for unposted journals only
Currency Code The currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
Translated Flag Enter E T or C Use E to retrieve the entered amount and T for the
translated amount Use C to report on the converted amount ie
the functional currency equivalent of a foreign currency amount
Only E is valid if requesting a balance for the functional currency of the current Set of Books
You must ensure that you have run the currency translation process
in Oracle for the selected currency and period before reporting on
translated balances If you enter T to request the translated balance
and there is no current translated balance available in the system a zero is returned
Oracle Release 12 provides a new feature to allow reporting on the
values entered in the functional currency only ie excludes any
foreign currency transactions converted to the functional currency
Therefore in Release 12 if you use the E (entered) flag in
conjunction with the functional currency any converted amounts will
be excluded To report on the total balance (including values entered
in functional currency and values converted to the functional
currency) use the new ldquoTotalrdquo option This option is only available if
you log on to a release 12 Oracle instance
Actual Flag A ndash Actual B ndash Budget E ndash Encumbrance
Bud Encumb Name If you enter B or E above enter the exact budget name or
encumbrance type here Otherwise simply enter ldquordquo for actual
balances
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter the segment value here You must enter it as a text value
including any leading zeros eg enter segment value ldquo10rdquo as ldquo0010rdquo
if this segment is configured as four characters with leading zeros in Oracle
You may enter your segment values in a variety of flexible ways
including parents child values ranges wildcards excludes etc See
the explanation below on valid values for this parameter
To include all values simply enter ldquordquo Please note as from GL Wand
3850 you can no longer leave the segment blank a value is
required
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
47
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Options This parameter is used to modify the results returned by the Get
Balance function from the standard behavior Currently two options are supported
Source ndash Limit the results to a specific journal source
Category ndash Limit the results to a specific journal category
The criteria needs to be entered as follows - ldquoSource=Manualrdquo or
ldquoCategory=Adjustmentrdquo To specify both a source and category use
the ldquo|rdquo as a delimiter eg ldquoSource=Manual|Category=Adjustmentrdquo
You can specify multiple values by separating them with ldquordquo eg
ldquoSource=PayablesReceivablesrdquo
When creating Get Balance formulas always use ldquordquo to denote all values as this allows more
efficient SQL to be generated Do not use a range like ldquo000-ZZZrdquo as they will require
unnecessary processing
The segment value parameters can be entered as
a single value representing a child or parent account eg ldquo1500rdquo might represent a
parent account
a range of values eg entering ldquo1500-1600rdquo in one of the segment parameters will
sum all the segment values between 1500 and 1600 for that segment
a list of segment values eg entering ldquo150015101590rdquo in one of the segment
parameters will sum the specific segment values entered If any of the segment
values are parents GL Wand will sum the hierarchy for that parent
wild card entries eg 100 will sum 1100 1200 1300 1400 etc or entering the
value 1 will sum all values that start with 1
values to be included and then specific exclusions eg ldquo1000-2000~1500rdquo will sum
the values between 1000 and 2000 but will skip 1500
a combination of any of the above eg 1000-2000237123752560-
25803000~32004000~4161-4169 In this way you can build up your own calculation definition in the segment parameter
Please note ndash there are two additional methods for specifying segment criteria in the Get
Balance function The one allows you to specify account combinations and the other
allows the use of segment descriptive flexfields Please see the Special Get Balance
Criteria section in order to use these options
Segment Description
Returns the segment description for the chosen segment value
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
48
Example =Get_Segment_Description(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
Returns the next or previous segment value
Parameter Description
Last Value The starting segment value
Segment The segment number
Level Enter a P to return the next or previous parent value enter a C to
return the next or previous child value or leave the parameter blank
to return the next or previous segment value irrespective of whether
it is a parent or child
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example = Next_Segment_Value(ldquo1000rdquo3P)
Parent Flag
Returns the parent flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is a
parent
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Parent_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Enabled Flag
Returns the enabled flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is
enabled
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example = Enabled_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
49
Account Type
Returns the account type for the chosen segment value This function is only applicable for
the natural account segment and will return the value Asset Liability etc
Parameter Description
Account Value The account segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Account_Type(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Period Name
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number Optionally the returned value can be a certain number of periods into the future or past
Parameter Description
PeriodYear The year that you want the period name for
PeriodNumber The period number that you want the period name for
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Offset Optionally enter an offset to return the period name which is n
periods before or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3
periods into the future or -1 to return the previous period
Example =Period_Name(20063)
Set of Books Name
Returns the set of books name for the chosen set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Set_of_Books_Name()
Segment Descriptive Flexfield
Returns the segment values descriptive flexfield for the selected criteria
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
50
Segment The segment number
AttributeNo Identify which attribute you want to report on The segment values
descriptive flexfield has 50 possible attribute values The applicable
attributes will depend on your configuration and whether this
Descriptive Flexfield is used by your organization
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Segment_DFF(ldquo100rdquo25) retrieves the 5th attribute on the segment values
descriptive flexfield for segment value 100 on segment 2
Period Offset
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for
this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
Offset Enter an offset to return the period name which is n periods before
or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3 periods into the
future or -1 to return the previous period
RetRange Enter TRUE (or 1) to return the result as a range eg entering
period Mar-07 with an offset of -2 and the RetRange set to true will
return ldquoJan-07-Mar-07rdquo This can be used in conjunction with the
CTD (Custom to Date) balance type in the Get Balance function to
create rolling period reporting
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Period_Offset(Jan-07-2TRUE)
Split Text
Splits delimited text and returns a specific portion based on an offset Especially useful to
split account combinations but can be used to split any text
Parameter Description
Value Some text which has been concatenated using a delimiter eg an
account combination like ldquo011007000rdquo
Offset Identify which portion of the text to return
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Split_Text(0110070002) will return the ldquo100rdquo portion of the text
51
Combine Text
Combines selected text separated by a delimiter Especially useful to combine segment
values to create a delimited account combinations but can be used to combine any text
Parameter Description
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter segment values that you wish to combine into an account
combination
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Combine_Text(011007000) will return ldquo011007000rdquo
Functional Currency
Returns the functional currency for the set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Functional_Currency()
Get Daily Rate
Returns the daily exchange rate for the entered criteria
Parameter Description
FromCurrency The ldquoFromrdquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case
eg ldquoUSDrdquo
ToCurrency The ldquoTordquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
ConversionType The conversion type as configured in Oracle Spelling and case must
be identical to the Oracle configuration
ConversionDate The conversion date This must be in Excel date format Either refer
to a cell which contains a date or use one of the Excel date functions
to return a date in the parameter
Example =Get_Daily_Rate(USDGBPReportingDATE(200911))
Function return values
The GL Wand functions will return a variety of results depending on a number of factors If
all the information is entered correctly and there are no restrictions on access to the data or
the GL Wand itself the result should be the General Ledger balance segment value segment description etc However the following are also possible return values
glwDemo ndash this means that you are using GL Wand without a valid trial key entered
into the GL Wand License Key profile option When trying GL Wand without a valid
52
trial key you are only allowed to use the first 20 rows and 20 columns of the first
sheet in the workbook Any formula entered outside this range will not calculate a
value but will only return the word ldquoglwDemordquo This is called evaluation mode A
trial key needs to be requested from within GL Wand and entered into the profile
option to allow full access to all functionality
glwNoAccess ndash When you log on you will be prompted for your applications user name
and password and will then need to select a responsibility to log on to Any security
rules that have been linked to the selected responsibility will be enforced on the GL
Wand data If you attempt to access a balance on a general ledger account that you
do not have access to the function will return the word ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo Please see
the ldquoAudit Get Balancerdquo section for information on how to identify the security rule that is being contravened
Please note that Oracles Hierarchical Security is not supported
glwError ndash If you enter invalid information in a parameter for a GL Wand function the
GL Wand error value will be returned This may happen when you for example
enter an invalid budget name or period name in the Get Balance function or when you
enter an invalid segment number in the next segment value function This error value
will also be returned when you are not logged on The details of the return value will
indicate where the problem exists eg glwError (Logon) glwError (Balance Type)
glwError (Translated Flag) glwError (Actual Flag) glwError (Missing segment)
glwError (Data error) glwError (Range) glwError (Period)
glwPending ndash This value will be returned during the calculation process Whenever a
cell requires calculation and the process has not been completed yet the cell will
contain the value ldquoglwPendingrdquo
glwEditing ndash Displays in the Excel function arguments window when editing a Get Balance formula
Discovering versus Functions
You may have noticed that you can achieve similar results by using the discover tools and
using the functions For example you could use the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button to retrieve the
next segment value or you could use the ldquoNext Segment Valuerdquo function to return the same result The difference between these two approaches is as follows
Com
paris
on b
etw
een D
iscoverin
g a
nd
Functio
ns
Discovering Functions
Results returned as text string to Excel
cell
Value is calculated based on
parameters
Value is static Value is dynamic
Never changes Recalculated when sheet refreshed
Lower performance overhead Higher performance overhead
Discover Down Next Segment Value
Discover Up Previous Segment Value
Discover Left Next Segment Value
Discover Right Previous Segment Value
Discover Properties
Segment Description
Parent flag
53
Enabled Flag
Account Type
Discover Child Ranges No equivalent
Toggle Discover Level
Parameters of next segment value
determine whether parents children or
both are returned
Use the discover buttons with ldquoPeriodrdquo
selected in the segment drop down Period Name
Balance Extract is similar to Get
Balance though the static values it
produces are refreshable
Get Balance
Special Get Balance Criteria
GL Wand supports two special types of criteria in the Get Balance function namely ldquoAccount
Combinationsrdquo and ldquoSegment Descriptive Flexfieldrdquo criteria These two forms of the Get
Balance criteria have very specific syntax which must be carefully adhered to in order to
achieve the correct results You also have the ability to expand account combinations for a
selection that uses the ldquoAccount Combinationrdquo criteria
Account Combinations
In the past the Get Balance function only supported individual segment values eg segment
2 = 100 or 200 and segment 3 = 1000 or 2000 This would result in GL Wand returning all the possible combinations of those segment 2 and 3 values
Now you have the ability to specify account combinations using the new Get Balance syntax
This means that you can create new complex criteria for your Get Balance formula eg
(segment 2 = 100 and segment 3 = 1000) or (segment 2 = 200 and segment 3 = 2000)
With these criteria GL Wand will no longer return all the possible combinations but rather only the combinations you specify
In order to specify account combinations in a Get Balance function you must tell GL Wand
which segments you are combining You do this by entering a special value into the segment
eg if you want to combine criteria for segment 2 and segment 3 you would enter the
following in the parameter for segment 2 ldquoUse_Seg3rdquo This tells GL Wand that that it must
find the criteria for segment 2 inside the segment 3 parameter In the segment 3 parameter
you now enter the criteria for both segment 2 and segment 3 separated by the special
delimiter character eg ldquo1001000rdquo This tells GL Wand that you are looking for accounts where segment 2 is 100 and segment 3 is 1000 An example could look like this
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg3100100020020000000000)
It is possible to combine multiple segments as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg5Use_Seg5Use_Seg510010000000000)
54
You simply point each applicable segment to the parameter where the account combination
using the special ldquoUse_SegXrdquo syntax Then inside the target parameter you combine the fully qualified account combination for the applicable segments delimited with a ldquordquo character
When you specify your account combination you have full flexibility to use ranges lists wild
cards parents and exclude criteria For example this criteria will fetch all the values where
segment 2 is between 100 and 200 and segment 3 is between 1000 and 2000 And in
addition to that it will include the values where segment 2 is 250 (a parent) and segment 3
starts with 33 but will exclude the specific value where segment 2 is 250 and segment 3 is
3320
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA01Use_Seg31001000-200200025033~25033200000000)
You also have the flexibility to group different parts of the account combination together For
example this criteria combines the values for segment 1 and 3 together and combines segment 2 and 4 together
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA
Use_Seg3Use_Seg401100002115010000002001050000)
These new Get Balance syntax options provide you with tremendous flexibility when building your GL Wand reports
Expand Account Combinations
The expand feature allows you to extract all the detailed child segment values that roll up to
the criteria that the user specifies The expand feature has been extended to support account combinations
In order to expand an account combination you would do the following
Ensure that the correct set of books is selected in the drop down list on the GL Wand
toolbar
Select the cell containing the account combination criteria eg ldquo1007000rdquo Click the expand button
GL Wand will now identify that the selected cell contains an account combination rather than
a single segment value You will now be presented with a window to identify which segments from your chart of accounts are represented in the account combination
55
Select the correct segments and click ldquoOKrdquo GL Wand will now extract all the child
combinations that roll up to the criteria that you entered and insert them into the Excel sheet
The other options are as follows
Fix ndash if you tick this option for a segment GL Wand will ldquopegrdquo that segment using the
selected value (this option only makes sense for a parent segment value) You might
for example want to expand all the account combinations used in a particular parent
cost centre Simply ldquoFixrdquo the cost centre segment and GL Wand will return all the
account combinations used within that parent cost centre
Exclude disabled account combination ndash tick this option to only return account combinations that are currently enabled and have not been end dated
The expand account combinations feature can be used as a normal GL Wand ldquoExpandrdquo in
order to extract the detail behind a total but it is also very useful to extract existing account combinations from your Oracle system
This feature can be used very effectively with the Split Text and Combine Text functions
Segment Descriptive Flexfields
In order to extract balances using the descriptive flexfields stored on the segment values
you need to use special syntax in the Get Balance function The syntax works as follows
1ABC
You wrap the descriptive flexfield using curly brackets
The first character after the open bracket identifies which descriptive flexfield
attribute is being referred to
You then separate the descriptive flexfield attribute from the actual value using a ldquordquo You then specify the criteria for this attribute
An example Get Balance function would look as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC10000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield on segment 2 is equal to the value ldquoABCrdquo
It is possible to specify criteria for multiple descriptive flexfields as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC2XX10000000000)
Simply wrap each descriptive flexfield value in its own and identify the attribute number
At this stage the descriptive flexfield criteria is restricted to a single value or a single range
of values Lists of values and multiple ranges are not supported A range can be specified
using the special range delimiter ldquo|rdquo (pipe character) This character is different to the range
character that is used for normal Get Balance segment parameters The reason is that the
normal range delimiter ldquo-ldquo may easily be used in a segment descriptive flexfields and
therefore is not suitable In future you will be able to configure your own range delimiter
56
character which will provide the best flexibility The range criteria can be specified as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011100|20010000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield
on segment 2 is between 100 and 200 Date values are also supported in this criteria and GL Wand will correctly derive the ldquobetweenrdquo criteria for a date
Calculating
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what cells are refreshed from
Oracle They are used in conjunction with the GL Wand calculation option (onoff) You can stop a calculation at any time by clicking cancel
- Calculate Range (Alt+Ctl+R)
- Calculate Sheet (Alt+Ctl+S)
- Calculate All (Alt+Ctl+A)
- GL Wand calculation on
- GL Wand calculation off
Calculate Range Sheet or All
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what is recalculated
To calculate a range of cells simply
1 Highlight the range
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Rangerdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+R shortcut key
3 Select multiple ranges using the ctrl button (as normal in Excel)
4 Select a range and then select multiple Excel worksheets to calculate the same range on
each sheet
Please note do not use the calculate range option to recalculate the entire sheet ie by
selecting all the cells on the sheet This will take unnecessarily longer Rather use the
calculate sheet option
To calculate a sheet simply
1 Select the applicable sheet
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Sheetrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+S shortcut key
3 Selecting multiple sheets will calculate each of the selected sheets
To calculate all open workbooks simply
1 Click the ldquoCalculate Allrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+A shortcut key
57
GL Wand calculation on or off
You can use the GL Wand calculation toggle button to control when requests for calculations
are sent to the Oracle server
If you toggle GL Wand calculation ldquoOffrdquo calculation requests are not sent to the Oracle server which means you
you can manipulate a worksheet
change cell values
enter new formulae and
perform any other task that would normally cause Excel to recalculate
and the applicable functions will only return the ldquoglwPendingrdquo status and will not
actually calculate a result
This is useful during report development
To calculate the results simply click one of the three calculation buttons ldquoCalculate Range
Sheet or Allrdquo
If you leave the GL Wand calculation option ldquoOnrdquo the applicable functions will be recalculated whenever Excel initiates a calculation process eg
when changing the contents of the cell
changing one of the functions input values deleting a column or row in the worksheet etc
Please note that the GL Wand calculation option has nothing to do with Excel‟s automatic
and manual calculation The GL Wand calculation option controls only the calculation of the
applicable GL Wand functions All other calculations are controlled as normal by the Excel
automatic and manual calculation option
Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
When you perform a recalculation a window will appear to show the progress of the
calculation
58
If you would like to cancel the calculation process simply click the ldquoCancelrdquo button
Please note that GL Wand will need to wait for the next reply from Oracle before the
connection can be closed Therefore it may take some time before the calculation stops and
the window closes
Snapshot
- Snapshot
The snapshot tool can be used to take a snapshot of your GL Wand report This tool will
remove all the GL Wand functions from the workbook and will replace them with the values that the function returned
The results are similar to using the Excel ldquopaste valuesrdquo functionality However this process will only replace GL Wand formulas All other Excel formulas will be left as they were
Please note that you cannot take a snapshot of a protected worksheet rather output the
sheet to PDF format for archive and distribution purposes
When producing a snapshot GL Wand will request a name for the new workbook You can
select an existing workbook and GL Wand will give you the option to append the snapshot
results to the existing workbook or overwrite the existing workbook You therefore have the
option of producing various snapshot reports and combining them into one new workbook in a single operation rather than producing a separate workbook for each snapshot
Hide zeros
- Hide zeros in selected range
Select a report range that contains rows where all the numbers are zero Click the hide zeros
button and GL Wand will hide all the rows in the selected range where all the cells containing
numbers are zero This is very useful for formatting a report which includes many rows
where for example a number of accounts are not used in a particular cost centre or have no
59
balances in a certain period At the click of a button you can hide all the rows that contain only zeros
Select the entire report range when using the hide zeros function GL Wand checks the
selected range for zeros when determining which rows to hide
Excel automatically forces a recalculation of Get Balance formulas when you hide rows on a
report This is normal Excel functionality
This feature can be used on any Excel worksheet and is not limited to GL Wand reports
Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Undo the last hide zeros operation
Click this button to automatically undo the last hide zeros operation
Drill downs
- Drill to default Balance layout
- Drill to default Journal layout
- Drill to default Sub Ledger layout
The drill down options allow you to extract additional detail about a specific ldquoGet Balancerdquo function
1 Select a cell that contains a valid Get Balance function
2 Click on the drill to balance button
3 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
4 The criteria sheet will be populated with the criteria from the Get Balance function
5 The drill down to balance detail will be executed showing all the detailed accounts that make up the total in the Get Balance function
60
See the Create Drill Criteria Sheet section for more details and options on the drill down criteria sheet
Budget variance analysis If you select two cells on the GL Wand report eg one cell with
actual values and one with budget numbers GL Wand will perform a drill down on the Get
Balance function and display the actual and budget values next to each other and a
calculated variance
You now have a variety of options which can be performed from the drill down workbook
1 Modify the parameters on the criteria sheet and perform a new drill to balance Drop
down lists are provided for most of the parameters see the Create Drill Criteria Sheet for
more details
2 Create a summary drill down report
3 If you have performed a balance drill down you can select the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet and then
click drill down to journal details after selecting one or more rows with accounts
4 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo sheet and then click the button to drill down to the full journal
after selecting one or more rows with journal lines The full journal with all the contra
entries for the selected journal lines will be displayed
5 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo or ldquoJournal-Fullrdquo sheet and then click sub-ledger drill down after
selecting one or more rows with journal lines 6 Drill down to Global Consolidation System transactions
When drilling down you have the following options
Double click any cell on the row that you wish to drill down on
61
Select any cell in the row that you want to drill down on and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar
Highlight a range of rows and click the applicable drill down button on the GL Wand
toolbar to drill down on multiple lines at once
Highlight non contiguous rows using the ldquoCtrlrdquo button and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar to drill down on multiple lines which are not adjacent to each other
It is possible to drill from a Get Balance formula directly to the journal or sub ledger
information Similarly you can drill from a detailed balance (on the Balance worksheet)
directly to the sub ledger information If you select these options GL Wand will execute the
interim drill steps automatically Be careful when performing a drill down directly to the
journal or sub ledger detail level as these drill down operations may return many records
GL Wand will automatically group the drill down to journals and sub ledger information using
Excel‟s group and outline functionality This will allow you expand and collapse the data to
show just a portion of the report Headings are also inserted on the journal and sub-ledger drill down to make the report easier to read
On the sub-ledger drill down the heading includes a number in brackets eg ldquo(23) Journal
Name 123rdquo The number indicates which Excel row these sub-ledger lines originated from on
the ldquoJournalsrdquo sheet
You can use the remove drill down report headings button to strip out the headings on
the journal and sub-ledger drill down sheets
A couple of important things to note about drill downs
GL Wand will first count the number of rows that will be retrieved by the drill down
operation
If the row count is more than 1000 you will receive a warning message asking you if
you want to continue
If the row count is more than the defined limit (see Query Limit) you will receive a
warning and the drill down will be cancelled
If the row count is more than the number of rows available in your version of Excel
you will receive an error and the drill down will be cancelled
When you drill down to journal details the ldquoBalance Typerdquo parameter controls how
much detail is returned If this parameter is ldquoPTDrdquo only the current period‟s journals
are returned If this parameter is ldquoYTDrdquo then all the journals for the year are returned and likewise ldquoQTDrdquo will show the journal for the quarter
Ensure that the worksheet is calculated before performing any drill down functions Also
ensure that the cell contains a ldquoGet Balancerdquo function with valid parameter information
A new drill down workbook will be created each time you perform a drill down operation from
a Get Balance function Once you are finished with a drill down workbook simply close it
without saving
You cannot drill down to journal detail on translated balances
Oracle Global Consolidation System
Drill down to Oracle Global Consolidation System (GCS) transactions is also supported
These items will appear on the journal drill down report with a source and category of
62
ldquoConsolidationrdquo If you execute a normal drill down to Sub Ledger on these transactions a
new GL Wand drill workbook will be created and the drill down to the subsidiary set of books will be executed
In order to drill down on a GCS transaction you must be logged on the parent as well as the
subsidiary set of books This can be done using the Multiple Sets of Books logon option
Summary Balance Drill Down
On the drill down Criteria sheet toggle the summarization option to ldquoYrdquo for any segment that
you which to summaries by GL Wand creates a summary trial balance report and
summarizes by the selected segments The report can still be expanded to show the detailed
lines and you can still drill down to journals from these lines
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
45
You can also open the Get Balance formula in the Excel formula wizard form using the fx
button on the formula bar or by selecting the ldquoInsert Functionrdquo menu item on the Excel menu bar
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Type ldquoCTDrdquo
(Custom to Date) you can specify a custom period selection For
example ldquoFeb-07-Aug-07rdquo will add all the movement for the entered
period range You may enter multiple lists or ranges of periods and can use wild cards as well eg ldquoJan-0rdquo or ldquo-07rdquo
When used in conjunction with the special Balance Types ldquoJEDrdquo
ldquoJEDUrdquo or ldquoJEDPrdquo (Journal Effective Date) the period parameter
becomes a date parameter eg ldquo01012007-0501200710012007rdquo
The format that your date is in is important The ldquo-ldquo character is
used in GL Wand to denote a range of values and therefore it cannot
be used as a date delimiter eg 01-01-2007 would not be valid So
take care if your Windows regional setting use the ldquo-ldquo as a date
delimiter For JED type calculations we recommend that you use the
ldquordquo as a date delimiter and that you always format the date as text
in Excel otherwise Excel will convert the date based on your regional
setting
Balance Type YTD QTD PTD PJTD CTD JED JEDP or JEDU all in upper case
YTD ndash Summarizes the full years balance
QTD ndash Summarizes the balance for the quarter
46
PTD ndash Includes just the current period‟s movement
PJTD ndash Project to date
CTD ndash Summarizes the custom period criteria entered
JED ndash Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for both posted and unposted journals
JEDP - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for posted journals only
JEDU - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered dates for unposted journals only
Currency Code The currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
Translated Flag Enter E T or C Use E to retrieve the entered amount and T for the
translated amount Use C to report on the converted amount ie
the functional currency equivalent of a foreign currency amount
Only E is valid if requesting a balance for the functional currency of the current Set of Books
You must ensure that you have run the currency translation process
in Oracle for the selected currency and period before reporting on
translated balances If you enter T to request the translated balance
and there is no current translated balance available in the system a zero is returned
Oracle Release 12 provides a new feature to allow reporting on the
values entered in the functional currency only ie excludes any
foreign currency transactions converted to the functional currency
Therefore in Release 12 if you use the E (entered) flag in
conjunction with the functional currency any converted amounts will
be excluded To report on the total balance (including values entered
in functional currency and values converted to the functional
currency) use the new ldquoTotalrdquo option This option is only available if
you log on to a release 12 Oracle instance
Actual Flag A ndash Actual B ndash Budget E ndash Encumbrance
Bud Encumb Name If you enter B or E above enter the exact budget name or
encumbrance type here Otherwise simply enter ldquordquo for actual
balances
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter the segment value here You must enter it as a text value
including any leading zeros eg enter segment value ldquo10rdquo as ldquo0010rdquo
if this segment is configured as four characters with leading zeros in Oracle
You may enter your segment values in a variety of flexible ways
including parents child values ranges wildcards excludes etc See
the explanation below on valid values for this parameter
To include all values simply enter ldquordquo Please note as from GL Wand
3850 you can no longer leave the segment blank a value is
required
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
47
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Options This parameter is used to modify the results returned by the Get
Balance function from the standard behavior Currently two options are supported
Source ndash Limit the results to a specific journal source
Category ndash Limit the results to a specific journal category
The criteria needs to be entered as follows - ldquoSource=Manualrdquo or
ldquoCategory=Adjustmentrdquo To specify both a source and category use
the ldquo|rdquo as a delimiter eg ldquoSource=Manual|Category=Adjustmentrdquo
You can specify multiple values by separating them with ldquordquo eg
ldquoSource=PayablesReceivablesrdquo
When creating Get Balance formulas always use ldquordquo to denote all values as this allows more
efficient SQL to be generated Do not use a range like ldquo000-ZZZrdquo as they will require
unnecessary processing
The segment value parameters can be entered as
a single value representing a child or parent account eg ldquo1500rdquo might represent a
parent account
a range of values eg entering ldquo1500-1600rdquo in one of the segment parameters will
sum all the segment values between 1500 and 1600 for that segment
a list of segment values eg entering ldquo150015101590rdquo in one of the segment
parameters will sum the specific segment values entered If any of the segment
values are parents GL Wand will sum the hierarchy for that parent
wild card entries eg 100 will sum 1100 1200 1300 1400 etc or entering the
value 1 will sum all values that start with 1
values to be included and then specific exclusions eg ldquo1000-2000~1500rdquo will sum
the values between 1000 and 2000 but will skip 1500
a combination of any of the above eg 1000-2000237123752560-
25803000~32004000~4161-4169 In this way you can build up your own calculation definition in the segment parameter
Please note ndash there are two additional methods for specifying segment criteria in the Get
Balance function The one allows you to specify account combinations and the other
allows the use of segment descriptive flexfields Please see the Special Get Balance
Criteria section in order to use these options
Segment Description
Returns the segment description for the chosen segment value
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
48
Example =Get_Segment_Description(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
Returns the next or previous segment value
Parameter Description
Last Value The starting segment value
Segment The segment number
Level Enter a P to return the next or previous parent value enter a C to
return the next or previous child value or leave the parameter blank
to return the next or previous segment value irrespective of whether
it is a parent or child
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example = Next_Segment_Value(ldquo1000rdquo3P)
Parent Flag
Returns the parent flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is a
parent
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Parent_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Enabled Flag
Returns the enabled flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is
enabled
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example = Enabled_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
49
Account Type
Returns the account type for the chosen segment value This function is only applicable for
the natural account segment and will return the value Asset Liability etc
Parameter Description
Account Value The account segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Account_Type(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Period Name
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number Optionally the returned value can be a certain number of periods into the future or past
Parameter Description
PeriodYear The year that you want the period name for
PeriodNumber The period number that you want the period name for
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Offset Optionally enter an offset to return the period name which is n
periods before or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3
periods into the future or -1 to return the previous period
Example =Period_Name(20063)
Set of Books Name
Returns the set of books name for the chosen set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Set_of_Books_Name()
Segment Descriptive Flexfield
Returns the segment values descriptive flexfield for the selected criteria
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
50
Segment The segment number
AttributeNo Identify which attribute you want to report on The segment values
descriptive flexfield has 50 possible attribute values The applicable
attributes will depend on your configuration and whether this
Descriptive Flexfield is used by your organization
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Segment_DFF(ldquo100rdquo25) retrieves the 5th attribute on the segment values
descriptive flexfield for segment value 100 on segment 2
Period Offset
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for
this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
Offset Enter an offset to return the period name which is n periods before
or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3 periods into the
future or -1 to return the previous period
RetRange Enter TRUE (or 1) to return the result as a range eg entering
period Mar-07 with an offset of -2 and the RetRange set to true will
return ldquoJan-07-Mar-07rdquo This can be used in conjunction with the
CTD (Custom to Date) balance type in the Get Balance function to
create rolling period reporting
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Period_Offset(Jan-07-2TRUE)
Split Text
Splits delimited text and returns a specific portion based on an offset Especially useful to
split account combinations but can be used to split any text
Parameter Description
Value Some text which has been concatenated using a delimiter eg an
account combination like ldquo011007000rdquo
Offset Identify which portion of the text to return
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Split_Text(0110070002) will return the ldquo100rdquo portion of the text
51
Combine Text
Combines selected text separated by a delimiter Especially useful to combine segment
values to create a delimited account combinations but can be used to combine any text
Parameter Description
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter segment values that you wish to combine into an account
combination
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Combine_Text(011007000) will return ldquo011007000rdquo
Functional Currency
Returns the functional currency for the set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Functional_Currency()
Get Daily Rate
Returns the daily exchange rate for the entered criteria
Parameter Description
FromCurrency The ldquoFromrdquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case
eg ldquoUSDrdquo
ToCurrency The ldquoTordquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
ConversionType The conversion type as configured in Oracle Spelling and case must
be identical to the Oracle configuration
ConversionDate The conversion date This must be in Excel date format Either refer
to a cell which contains a date or use one of the Excel date functions
to return a date in the parameter
Example =Get_Daily_Rate(USDGBPReportingDATE(200911))
Function return values
The GL Wand functions will return a variety of results depending on a number of factors If
all the information is entered correctly and there are no restrictions on access to the data or
the GL Wand itself the result should be the General Ledger balance segment value segment description etc However the following are also possible return values
glwDemo ndash this means that you are using GL Wand without a valid trial key entered
into the GL Wand License Key profile option When trying GL Wand without a valid
52
trial key you are only allowed to use the first 20 rows and 20 columns of the first
sheet in the workbook Any formula entered outside this range will not calculate a
value but will only return the word ldquoglwDemordquo This is called evaluation mode A
trial key needs to be requested from within GL Wand and entered into the profile
option to allow full access to all functionality
glwNoAccess ndash When you log on you will be prompted for your applications user name
and password and will then need to select a responsibility to log on to Any security
rules that have been linked to the selected responsibility will be enforced on the GL
Wand data If you attempt to access a balance on a general ledger account that you
do not have access to the function will return the word ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo Please see
the ldquoAudit Get Balancerdquo section for information on how to identify the security rule that is being contravened
Please note that Oracles Hierarchical Security is not supported
glwError ndash If you enter invalid information in a parameter for a GL Wand function the
GL Wand error value will be returned This may happen when you for example
enter an invalid budget name or period name in the Get Balance function or when you
enter an invalid segment number in the next segment value function This error value
will also be returned when you are not logged on The details of the return value will
indicate where the problem exists eg glwError (Logon) glwError (Balance Type)
glwError (Translated Flag) glwError (Actual Flag) glwError (Missing segment)
glwError (Data error) glwError (Range) glwError (Period)
glwPending ndash This value will be returned during the calculation process Whenever a
cell requires calculation and the process has not been completed yet the cell will
contain the value ldquoglwPendingrdquo
glwEditing ndash Displays in the Excel function arguments window when editing a Get Balance formula
Discovering versus Functions
You may have noticed that you can achieve similar results by using the discover tools and
using the functions For example you could use the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button to retrieve the
next segment value or you could use the ldquoNext Segment Valuerdquo function to return the same result The difference between these two approaches is as follows
Com
paris
on b
etw
een D
iscoverin
g a
nd
Functio
ns
Discovering Functions
Results returned as text string to Excel
cell
Value is calculated based on
parameters
Value is static Value is dynamic
Never changes Recalculated when sheet refreshed
Lower performance overhead Higher performance overhead
Discover Down Next Segment Value
Discover Up Previous Segment Value
Discover Left Next Segment Value
Discover Right Previous Segment Value
Discover Properties
Segment Description
Parent flag
53
Enabled Flag
Account Type
Discover Child Ranges No equivalent
Toggle Discover Level
Parameters of next segment value
determine whether parents children or
both are returned
Use the discover buttons with ldquoPeriodrdquo
selected in the segment drop down Period Name
Balance Extract is similar to Get
Balance though the static values it
produces are refreshable
Get Balance
Special Get Balance Criteria
GL Wand supports two special types of criteria in the Get Balance function namely ldquoAccount
Combinationsrdquo and ldquoSegment Descriptive Flexfieldrdquo criteria These two forms of the Get
Balance criteria have very specific syntax which must be carefully adhered to in order to
achieve the correct results You also have the ability to expand account combinations for a
selection that uses the ldquoAccount Combinationrdquo criteria
Account Combinations
In the past the Get Balance function only supported individual segment values eg segment
2 = 100 or 200 and segment 3 = 1000 or 2000 This would result in GL Wand returning all the possible combinations of those segment 2 and 3 values
Now you have the ability to specify account combinations using the new Get Balance syntax
This means that you can create new complex criteria for your Get Balance formula eg
(segment 2 = 100 and segment 3 = 1000) or (segment 2 = 200 and segment 3 = 2000)
With these criteria GL Wand will no longer return all the possible combinations but rather only the combinations you specify
In order to specify account combinations in a Get Balance function you must tell GL Wand
which segments you are combining You do this by entering a special value into the segment
eg if you want to combine criteria for segment 2 and segment 3 you would enter the
following in the parameter for segment 2 ldquoUse_Seg3rdquo This tells GL Wand that that it must
find the criteria for segment 2 inside the segment 3 parameter In the segment 3 parameter
you now enter the criteria for both segment 2 and segment 3 separated by the special
delimiter character eg ldquo1001000rdquo This tells GL Wand that you are looking for accounts where segment 2 is 100 and segment 3 is 1000 An example could look like this
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg3100100020020000000000)
It is possible to combine multiple segments as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg5Use_Seg5Use_Seg510010000000000)
54
You simply point each applicable segment to the parameter where the account combination
using the special ldquoUse_SegXrdquo syntax Then inside the target parameter you combine the fully qualified account combination for the applicable segments delimited with a ldquordquo character
When you specify your account combination you have full flexibility to use ranges lists wild
cards parents and exclude criteria For example this criteria will fetch all the values where
segment 2 is between 100 and 200 and segment 3 is between 1000 and 2000 And in
addition to that it will include the values where segment 2 is 250 (a parent) and segment 3
starts with 33 but will exclude the specific value where segment 2 is 250 and segment 3 is
3320
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA01Use_Seg31001000-200200025033~25033200000000)
You also have the flexibility to group different parts of the account combination together For
example this criteria combines the values for segment 1 and 3 together and combines segment 2 and 4 together
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA
Use_Seg3Use_Seg401100002115010000002001050000)
These new Get Balance syntax options provide you with tremendous flexibility when building your GL Wand reports
Expand Account Combinations
The expand feature allows you to extract all the detailed child segment values that roll up to
the criteria that the user specifies The expand feature has been extended to support account combinations
In order to expand an account combination you would do the following
Ensure that the correct set of books is selected in the drop down list on the GL Wand
toolbar
Select the cell containing the account combination criteria eg ldquo1007000rdquo Click the expand button
GL Wand will now identify that the selected cell contains an account combination rather than
a single segment value You will now be presented with a window to identify which segments from your chart of accounts are represented in the account combination
55
Select the correct segments and click ldquoOKrdquo GL Wand will now extract all the child
combinations that roll up to the criteria that you entered and insert them into the Excel sheet
The other options are as follows
Fix ndash if you tick this option for a segment GL Wand will ldquopegrdquo that segment using the
selected value (this option only makes sense for a parent segment value) You might
for example want to expand all the account combinations used in a particular parent
cost centre Simply ldquoFixrdquo the cost centre segment and GL Wand will return all the
account combinations used within that parent cost centre
Exclude disabled account combination ndash tick this option to only return account combinations that are currently enabled and have not been end dated
The expand account combinations feature can be used as a normal GL Wand ldquoExpandrdquo in
order to extract the detail behind a total but it is also very useful to extract existing account combinations from your Oracle system
This feature can be used very effectively with the Split Text and Combine Text functions
Segment Descriptive Flexfields
In order to extract balances using the descriptive flexfields stored on the segment values
you need to use special syntax in the Get Balance function The syntax works as follows
1ABC
You wrap the descriptive flexfield using curly brackets
The first character after the open bracket identifies which descriptive flexfield
attribute is being referred to
You then separate the descriptive flexfield attribute from the actual value using a ldquordquo You then specify the criteria for this attribute
An example Get Balance function would look as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC10000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield on segment 2 is equal to the value ldquoABCrdquo
It is possible to specify criteria for multiple descriptive flexfields as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC2XX10000000000)
Simply wrap each descriptive flexfield value in its own and identify the attribute number
At this stage the descriptive flexfield criteria is restricted to a single value or a single range
of values Lists of values and multiple ranges are not supported A range can be specified
using the special range delimiter ldquo|rdquo (pipe character) This character is different to the range
character that is used for normal Get Balance segment parameters The reason is that the
normal range delimiter ldquo-ldquo may easily be used in a segment descriptive flexfields and
therefore is not suitable In future you will be able to configure your own range delimiter
56
character which will provide the best flexibility The range criteria can be specified as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011100|20010000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield
on segment 2 is between 100 and 200 Date values are also supported in this criteria and GL Wand will correctly derive the ldquobetweenrdquo criteria for a date
Calculating
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what cells are refreshed from
Oracle They are used in conjunction with the GL Wand calculation option (onoff) You can stop a calculation at any time by clicking cancel
- Calculate Range (Alt+Ctl+R)
- Calculate Sheet (Alt+Ctl+S)
- Calculate All (Alt+Ctl+A)
- GL Wand calculation on
- GL Wand calculation off
Calculate Range Sheet or All
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what is recalculated
To calculate a range of cells simply
1 Highlight the range
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Rangerdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+R shortcut key
3 Select multiple ranges using the ctrl button (as normal in Excel)
4 Select a range and then select multiple Excel worksheets to calculate the same range on
each sheet
Please note do not use the calculate range option to recalculate the entire sheet ie by
selecting all the cells on the sheet This will take unnecessarily longer Rather use the
calculate sheet option
To calculate a sheet simply
1 Select the applicable sheet
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Sheetrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+S shortcut key
3 Selecting multiple sheets will calculate each of the selected sheets
To calculate all open workbooks simply
1 Click the ldquoCalculate Allrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+A shortcut key
57
GL Wand calculation on or off
You can use the GL Wand calculation toggle button to control when requests for calculations
are sent to the Oracle server
If you toggle GL Wand calculation ldquoOffrdquo calculation requests are not sent to the Oracle server which means you
you can manipulate a worksheet
change cell values
enter new formulae and
perform any other task that would normally cause Excel to recalculate
and the applicable functions will only return the ldquoglwPendingrdquo status and will not
actually calculate a result
This is useful during report development
To calculate the results simply click one of the three calculation buttons ldquoCalculate Range
Sheet or Allrdquo
If you leave the GL Wand calculation option ldquoOnrdquo the applicable functions will be recalculated whenever Excel initiates a calculation process eg
when changing the contents of the cell
changing one of the functions input values deleting a column or row in the worksheet etc
Please note that the GL Wand calculation option has nothing to do with Excel‟s automatic
and manual calculation The GL Wand calculation option controls only the calculation of the
applicable GL Wand functions All other calculations are controlled as normal by the Excel
automatic and manual calculation option
Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
When you perform a recalculation a window will appear to show the progress of the
calculation
58
If you would like to cancel the calculation process simply click the ldquoCancelrdquo button
Please note that GL Wand will need to wait for the next reply from Oracle before the
connection can be closed Therefore it may take some time before the calculation stops and
the window closes
Snapshot
- Snapshot
The snapshot tool can be used to take a snapshot of your GL Wand report This tool will
remove all the GL Wand functions from the workbook and will replace them with the values that the function returned
The results are similar to using the Excel ldquopaste valuesrdquo functionality However this process will only replace GL Wand formulas All other Excel formulas will be left as they were
Please note that you cannot take a snapshot of a protected worksheet rather output the
sheet to PDF format for archive and distribution purposes
When producing a snapshot GL Wand will request a name for the new workbook You can
select an existing workbook and GL Wand will give you the option to append the snapshot
results to the existing workbook or overwrite the existing workbook You therefore have the
option of producing various snapshot reports and combining them into one new workbook in a single operation rather than producing a separate workbook for each snapshot
Hide zeros
- Hide zeros in selected range
Select a report range that contains rows where all the numbers are zero Click the hide zeros
button and GL Wand will hide all the rows in the selected range where all the cells containing
numbers are zero This is very useful for formatting a report which includes many rows
where for example a number of accounts are not used in a particular cost centre or have no
59
balances in a certain period At the click of a button you can hide all the rows that contain only zeros
Select the entire report range when using the hide zeros function GL Wand checks the
selected range for zeros when determining which rows to hide
Excel automatically forces a recalculation of Get Balance formulas when you hide rows on a
report This is normal Excel functionality
This feature can be used on any Excel worksheet and is not limited to GL Wand reports
Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Undo the last hide zeros operation
Click this button to automatically undo the last hide zeros operation
Drill downs
- Drill to default Balance layout
- Drill to default Journal layout
- Drill to default Sub Ledger layout
The drill down options allow you to extract additional detail about a specific ldquoGet Balancerdquo function
1 Select a cell that contains a valid Get Balance function
2 Click on the drill to balance button
3 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
4 The criteria sheet will be populated with the criteria from the Get Balance function
5 The drill down to balance detail will be executed showing all the detailed accounts that make up the total in the Get Balance function
60
See the Create Drill Criteria Sheet section for more details and options on the drill down criteria sheet
Budget variance analysis If you select two cells on the GL Wand report eg one cell with
actual values and one with budget numbers GL Wand will perform a drill down on the Get
Balance function and display the actual and budget values next to each other and a
calculated variance
You now have a variety of options which can be performed from the drill down workbook
1 Modify the parameters on the criteria sheet and perform a new drill to balance Drop
down lists are provided for most of the parameters see the Create Drill Criteria Sheet for
more details
2 Create a summary drill down report
3 If you have performed a balance drill down you can select the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet and then
click drill down to journal details after selecting one or more rows with accounts
4 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo sheet and then click the button to drill down to the full journal
after selecting one or more rows with journal lines The full journal with all the contra
entries for the selected journal lines will be displayed
5 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo or ldquoJournal-Fullrdquo sheet and then click sub-ledger drill down after
selecting one or more rows with journal lines 6 Drill down to Global Consolidation System transactions
When drilling down you have the following options
Double click any cell on the row that you wish to drill down on
61
Select any cell in the row that you want to drill down on and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar
Highlight a range of rows and click the applicable drill down button on the GL Wand
toolbar to drill down on multiple lines at once
Highlight non contiguous rows using the ldquoCtrlrdquo button and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar to drill down on multiple lines which are not adjacent to each other
It is possible to drill from a Get Balance formula directly to the journal or sub ledger
information Similarly you can drill from a detailed balance (on the Balance worksheet)
directly to the sub ledger information If you select these options GL Wand will execute the
interim drill steps automatically Be careful when performing a drill down directly to the
journal or sub ledger detail level as these drill down operations may return many records
GL Wand will automatically group the drill down to journals and sub ledger information using
Excel‟s group and outline functionality This will allow you expand and collapse the data to
show just a portion of the report Headings are also inserted on the journal and sub-ledger drill down to make the report easier to read
On the sub-ledger drill down the heading includes a number in brackets eg ldquo(23) Journal
Name 123rdquo The number indicates which Excel row these sub-ledger lines originated from on
the ldquoJournalsrdquo sheet
You can use the remove drill down report headings button to strip out the headings on
the journal and sub-ledger drill down sheets
A couple of important things to note about drill downs
GL Wand will first count the number of rows that will be retrieved by the drill down
operation
If the row count is more than 1000 you will receive a warning message asking you if
you want to continue
If the row count is more than the defined limit (see Query Limit) you will receive a
warning and the drill down will be cancelled
If the row count is more than the number of rows available in your version of Excel
you will receive an error and the drill down will be cancelled
When you drill down to journal details the ldquoBalance Typerdquo parameter controls how
much detail is returned If this parameter is ldquoPTDrdquo only the current period‟s journals
are returned If this parameter is ldquoYTDrdquo then all the journals for the year are returned and likewise ldquoQTDrdquo will show the journal for the quarter
Ensure that the worksheet is calculated before performing any drill down functions Also
ensure that the cell contains a ldquoGet Balancerdquo function with valid parameter information
A new drill down workbook will be created each time you perform a drill down operation from
a Get Balance function Once you are finished with a drill down workbook simply close it
without saving
You cannot drill down to journal detail on translated balances
Oracle Global Consolidation System
Drill down to Oracle Global Consolidation System (GCS) transactions is also supported
These items will appear on the journal drill down report with a source and category of
62
ldquoConsolidationrdquo If you execute a normal drill down to Sub Ledger on these transactions a
new GL Wand drill workbook will be created and the drill down to the subsidiary set of books will be executed
In order to drill down on a GCS transaction you must be logged on the parent as well as the
subsidiary set of books This can be done using the Multiple Sets of Books logon option
Summary Balance Drill Down
On the drill down Criteria sheet toggle the summarization option to ldquoYrdquo for any segment that
you which to summaries by GL Wand creates a summary trial balance report and
summarizes by the selected segments The report can still be expanded to show the detailed
lines and you can still drill down to journals from these lines
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
46
PTD ndash Includes just the current period‟s movement
PJTD ndash Project to date
CTD ndash Summarizes the custom period criteria entered
JED ndash Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for both posted and unposted journals
JEDP - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered
dates for posted journals only
JEDU - Summarizes the journal movements for the entered dates for unposted journals only
Currency Code The currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
Translated Flag Enter E T or C Use E to retrieve the entered amount and T for the
translated amount Use C to report on the converted amount ie
the functional currency equivalent of a foreign currency amount
Only E is valid if requesting a balance for the functional currency of the current Set of Books
You must ensure that you have run the currency translation process
in Oracle for the selected currency and period before reporting on
translated balances If you enter T to request the translated balance
and there is no current translated balance available in the system a zero is returned
Oracle Release 12 provides a new feature to allow reporting on the
values entered in the functional currency only ie excludes any
foreign currency transactions converted to the functional currency
Therefore in Release 12 if you use the E (entered) flag in
conjunction with the functional currency any converted amounts will
be excluded To report on the total balance (including values entered
in functional currency and values converted to the functional
currency) use the new ldquoTotalrdquo option This option is only available if
you log on to a release 12 Oracle instance
Actual Flag A ndash Actual B ndash Budget E ndash Encumbrance
Bud Encumb Name If you enter B or E above enter the exact budget name or
encumbrance type here Otherwise simply enter ldquordquo for actual
balances
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter the segment value here You must enter it as a text value
including any leading zeros eg enter segment value ldquo10rdquo as ldquo0010rdquo
if this segment is configured as four characters with leading zeros in Oracle
You may enter your segment values in a variety of flexible ways
including parents child values ranges wildcards excludes etc See
the explanation below on valid values for this parameter
To include all values simply enter ldquordquo Please note as from GL Wand
3850 you can no longer leave the segment blank a value is
required
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
47
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Options This parameter is used to modify the results returned by the Get
Balance function from the standard behavior Currently two options are supported
Source ndash Limit the results to a specific journal source
Category ndash Limit the results to a specific journal category
The criteria needs to be entered as follows - ldquoSource=Manualrdquo or
ldquoCategory=Adjustmentrdquo To specify both a source and category use
the ldquo|rdquo as a delimiter eg ldquoSource=Manual|Category=Adjustmentrdquo
You can specify multiple values by separating them with ldquordquo eg
ldquoSource=PayablesReceivablesrdquo
When creating Get Balance formulas always use ldquordquo to denote all values as this allows more
efficient SQL to be generated Do not use a range like ldquo000-ZZZrdquo as they will require
unnecessary processing
The segment value parameters can be entered as
a single value representing a child or parent account eg ldquo1500rdquo might represent a
parent account
a range of values eg entering ldquo1500-1600rdquo in one of the segment parameters will
sum all the segment values between 1500 and 1600 for that segment
a list of segment values eg entering ldquo150015101590rdquo in one of the segment
parameters will sum the specific segment values entered If any of the segment
values are parents GL Wand will sum the hierarchy for that parent
wild card entries eg 100 will sum 1100 1200 1300 1400 etc or entering the
value 1 will sum all values that start with 1
values to be included and then specific exclusions eg ldquo1000-2000~1500rdquo will sum
the values between 1000 and 2000 but will skip 1500
a combination of any of the above eg 1000-2000237123752560-
25803000~32004000~4161-4169 In this way you can build up your own calculation definition in the segment parameter
Please note ndash there are two additional methods for specifying segment criteria in the Get
Balance function The one allows you to specify account combinations and the other
allows the use of segment descriptive flexfields Please see the Special Get Balance
Criteria section in order to use these options
Segment Description
Returns the segment description for the chosen segment value
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
48
Example =Get_Segment_Description(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
Returns the next or previous segment value
Parameter Description
Last Value The starting segment value
Segment The segment number
Level Enter a P to return the next or previous parent value enter a C to
return the next or previous child value or leave the parameter blank
to return the next or previous segment value irrespective of whether
it is a parent or child
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example = Next_Segment_Value(ldquo1000rdquo3P)
Parent Flag
Returns the parent flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is a
parent
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Parent_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Enabled Flag
Returns the enabled flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is
enabled
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example = Enabled_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
49
Account Type
Returns the account type for the chosen segment value This function is only applicable for
the natural account segment and will return the value Asset Liability etc
Parameter Description
Account Value The account segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Account_Type(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Period Name
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number Optionally the returned value can be a certain number of periods into the future or past
Parameter Description
PeriodYear The year that you want the period name for
PeriodNumber The period number that you want the period name for
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Offset Optionally enter an offset to return the period name which is n
periods before or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3
periods into the future or -1 to return the previous period
Example =Period_Name(20063)
Set of Books Name
Returns the set of books name for the chosen set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Set_of_Books_Name()
Segment Descriptive Flexfield
Returns the segment values descriptive flexfield for the selected criteria
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
50
Segment The segment number
AttributeNo Identify which attribute you want to report on The segment values
descriptive flexfield has 50 possible attribute values The applicable
attributes will depend on your configuration and whether this
Descriptive Flexfield is used by your organization
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Segment_DFF(ldquo100rdquo25) retrieves the 5th attribute on the segment values
descriptive flexfield for segment value 100 on segment 2
Period Offset
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for
this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
Offset Enter an offset to return the period name which is n periods before
or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3 periods into the
future or -1 to return the previous period
RetRange Enter TRUE (or 1) to return the result as a range eg entering
period Mar-07 with an offset of -2 and the RetRange set to true will
return ldquoJan-07-Mar-07rdquo This can be used in conjunction with the
CTD (Custom to Date) balance type in the Get Balance function to
create rolling period reporting
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Period_Offset(Jan-07-2TRUE)
Split Text
Splits delimited text and returns a specific portion based on an offset Especially useful to
split account combinations but can be used to split any text
Parameter Description
Value Some text which has been concatenated using a delimiter eg an
account combination like ldquo011007000rdquo
Offset Identify which portion of the text to return
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Split_Text(0110070002) will return the ldquo100rdquo portion of the text
51
Combine Text
Combines selected text separated by a delimiter Especially useful to combine segment
values to create a delimited account combinations but can be used to combine any text
Parameter Description
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter segment values that you wish to combine into an account
combination
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Combine_Text(011007000) will return ldquo011007000rdquo
Functional Currency
Returns the functional currency for the set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Functional_Currency()
Get Daily Rate
Returns the daily exchange rate for the entered criteria
Parameter Description
FromCurrency The ldquoFromrdquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case
eg ldquoUSDrdquo
ToCurrency The ldquoTordquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
ConversionType The conversion type as configured in Oracle Spelling and case must
be identical to the Oracle configuration
ConversionDate The conversion date This must be in Excel date format Either refer
to a cell which contains a date or use one of the Excel date functions
to return a date in the parameter
Example =Get_Daily_Rate(USDGBPReportingDATE(200911))
Function return values
The GL Wand functions will return a variety of results depending on a number of factors If
all the information is entered correctly and there are no restrictions on access to the data or
the GL Wand itself the result should be the General Ledger balance segment value segment description etc However the following are also possible return values
glwDemo ndash this means that you are using GL Wand without a valid trial key entered
into the GL Wand License Key profile option When trying GL Wand without a valid
52
trial key you are only allowed to use the first 20 rows and 20 columns of the first
sheet in the workbook Any formula entered outside this range will not calculate a
value but will only return the word ldquoglwDemordquo This is called evaluation mode A
trial key needs to be requested from within GL Wand and entered into the profile
option to allow full access to all functionality
glwNoAccess ndash When you log on you will be prompted for your applications user name
and password and will then need to select a responsibility to log on to Any security
rules that have been linked to the selected responsibility will be enforced on the GL
Wand data If you attempt to access a balance on a general ledger account that you
do not have access to the function will return the word ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo Please see
the ldquoAudit Get Balancerdquo section for information on how to identify the security rule that is being contravened
Please note that Oracles Hierarchical Security is not supported
glwError ndash If you enter invalid information in a parameter for a GL Wand function the
GL Wand error value will be returned This may happen when you for example
enter an invalid budget name or period name in the Get Balance function or when you
enter an invalid segment number in the next segment value function This error value
will also be returned when you are not logged on The details of the return value will
indicate where the problem exists eg glwError (Logon) glwError (Balance Type)
glwError (Translated Flag) glwError (Actual Flag) glwError (Missing segment)
glwError (Data error) glwError (Range) glwError (Period)
glwPending ndash This value will be returned during the calculation process Whenever a
cell requires calculation and the process has not been completed yet the cell will
contain the value ldquoglwPendingrdquo
glwEditing ndash Displays in the Excel function arguments window when editing a Get Balance formula
Discovering versus Functions
You may have noticed that you can achieve similar results by using the discover tools and
using the functions For example you could use the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button to retrieve the
next segment value or you could use the ldquoNext Segment Valuerdquo function to return the same result The difference between these two approaches is as follows
Com
paris
on b
etw
een D
iscoverin
g a
nd
Functio
ns
Discovering Functions
Results returned as text string to Excel
cell
Value is calculated based on
parameters
Value is static Value is dynamic
Never changes Recalculated when sheet refreshed
Lower performance overhead Higher performance overhead
Discover Down Next Segment Value
Discover Up Previous Segment Value
Discover Left Next Segment Value
Discover Right Previous Segment Value
Discover Properties
Segment Description
Parent flag
53
Enabled Flag
Account Type
Discover Child Ranges No equivalent
Toggle Discover Level
Parameters of next segment value
determine whether parents children or
both are returned
Use the discover buttons with ldquoPeriodrdquo
selected in the segment drop down Period Name
Balance Extract is similar to Get
Balance though the static values it
produces are refreshable
Get Balance
Special Get Balance Criteria
GL Wand supports two special types of criteria in the Get Balance function namely ldquoAccount
Combinationsrdquo and ldquoSegment Descriptive Flexfieldrdquo criteria These two forms of the Get
Balance criteria have very specific syntax which must be carefully adhered to in order to
achieve the correct results You also have the ability to expand account combinations for a
selection that uses the ldquoAccount Combinationrdquo criteria
Account Combinations
In the past the Get Balance function only supported individual segment values eg segment
2 = 100 or 200 and segment 3 = 1000 or 2000 This would result in GL Wand returning all the possible combinations of those segment 2 and 3 values
Now you have the ability to specify account combinations using the new Get Balance syntax
This means that you can create new complex criteria for your Get Balance formula eg
(segment 2 = 100 and segment 3 = 1000) or (segment 2 = 200 and segment 3 = 2000)
With these criteria GL Wand will no longer return all the possible combinations but rather only the combinations you specify
In order to specify account combinations in a Get Balance function you must tell GL Wand
which segments you are combining You do this by entering a special value into the segment
eg if you want to combine criteria for segment 2 and segment 3 you would enter the
following in the parameter for segment 2 ldquoUse_Seg3rdquo This tells GL Wand that that it must
find the criteria for segment 2 inside the segment 3 parameter In the segment 3 parameter
you now enter the criteria for both segment 2 and segment 3 separated by the special
delimiter character eg ldquo1001000rdquo This tells GL Wand that you are looking for accounts where segment 2 is 100 and segment 3 is 1000 An example could look like this
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg3100100020020000000000)
It is possible to combine multiple segments as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg5Use_Seg5Use_Seg510010000000000)
54
You simply point each applicable segment to the parameter where the account combination
using the special ldquoUse_SegXrdquo syntax Then inside the target parameter you combine the fully qualified account combination for the applicable segments delimited with a ldquordquo character
When you specify your account combination you have full flexibility to use ranges lists wild
cards parents and exclude criteria For example this criteria will fetch all the values where
segment 2 is between 100 and 200 and segment 3 is between 1000 and 2000 And in
addition to that it will include the values where segment 2 is 250 (a parent) and segment 3
starts with 33 but will exclude the specific value where segment 2 is 250 and segment 3 is
3320
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA01Use_Seg31001000-200200025033~25033200000000)
You also have the flexibility to group different parts of the account combination together For
example this criteria combines the values for segment 1 and 3 together and combines segment 2 and 4 together
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA
Use_Seg3Use_Seg401100002115010000002001050000)
These new Get Balance syntax options provide you with tremendous flexibility when building your GL Wand reports
Expand Account Combinations
The expand feature allows you to extract all the detailed child segment values that roll up to
the criteria that the user specifies The expand feature has been extended to support account combinations
In order to expand an account combination you would do the following
Ensure that the correct set of books is selected in the drop down list on the GL Wand
toolbar
Select the cell containing the account combination criteria eg ldquo1007000rdquo Click the expand button
GL Wand will now identify that the selected cell contains an account combination rather than
a single segment value You will now be presented with a window to identify which segments from your chart of accounts are represented in the account combination
55
Select the correct segments and click ldquoOKrdquo GL Wand will now extract all the child
combinations that roll up to the criteria that you entered and insert them into the Excel sheet
The other options are as follows
Fix ndash if you tick this option for a segment GL Wand will ldquopegrdquo that segment using the
selected value (this option only makes sense for a parent segment value) You might
for example want to expand all the account combinations used in a particular parent
cost centre Simply ldquoFixrdquo the cost centre segment and GL Wand will return all the
account combinations used within that parent cost centre
Exclude disabled account combination ndash tick this option to only return account combinations that are currently enabled and have not been end dated
The expand account combinations feature can be used as a normal GL Wand ldquoExpandrdquo in
order to extract the detail behind a total but it is also very useful to extract existing account combinations from your Oracle system
This feature can be used very effectively with the Split Text and Combine Text functions
Segment Descriptive Flexfields
In order to extract balances using the descriptive flexfields stored on the segment values
you need to use special syntax in the Get Balance function The syntax works as follows
1ABC
You wrap the descriptive flexfield using curly brackets
The first character after the open bracket identifies which descriptive flexfield
attribute is being referred to
You then separate the descriptive flexfield attribute from the actual value using a ldquordquo You then specify the criteria for this attribute
An example Get Balance function would look as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC10000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield on segment 2 is equal to the value ldquoABCrdquo
It is possible to specify criteria for multiple descriptive flexfields as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC2XX10000000000)
Simply wrap each descriptive flexfield value in its own and identify the attribute number
At this stage the descriptive flexfield criteria is restricted to a single value or a single range
of values Lists of values and multiple ranges are not supported A range can be specified
using the special range delimiter ldquo|rdquo (pipe character) This character is different to the range
character that is used for normal Get Balance segment parameters The reason is that the
normal range delimiter ldquo-ldquo may easily be used in a segment descriptive flexfields and
therefore is not suitable In future you will be able to configure your own range delimiter
56
character which will provide the best flexibility The range criteria can be specified as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011100|20010000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield
on segment 2 is between 100 and 200 Date values are also supported in this criteria and GL Wand will correctly derive the ldquobetweenrdquo criteria for a date
Calculating
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what cells are refreshed from
Oracle They are used in conjunction with the GL Wand calculation option (onoff) You can stop a calculation at any time by clicking cancel
- Calculate Range (Alt+Ctl+R)
- Calculate Sheet (Alt+Ctl+S)
- Calculate All (Alt+Ctl+A)
- GL Wand calculation on
- GL Wand calculation off
Calculate Range Sheet or All
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what is recalculated
To calculate a range of cells simply
1 Highlight the range
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Rangerdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+R shortcut key
3 Select multiple ranges using the ctrl button (as normal in Excel)
4 Select a range and then select multiple Excel worksheets to calculate the same range on
each sheet
Please note do not use the calculate range option to recalculate the entire sheet ie by
selecting all the cells on the sheet This will take unnecessarily longer Rather use the
calculate sheet option
To calculate a sheet simply
1 Select the applicable sheet
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Sheetrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+S shortcut key
3 Selecting multiple sheets will calculate each of the selected sheets
To calculate all open workbooks simply
1 Click the ldquoCalculate Allrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+A shortcut key
57
GL Wand calculation on or off
You can use the GL Wand calculation toggle button to control when requests for calculations
are sent to the Oracle server
If you toggle GL Wand calculation ldquoOffrdquo calculation requests are not sent to the Oracle server which means you
you can manipulate a worksheet
change cell values
enter new formulae and
perform any other task that would normally cause Excel to recalculate
and the applicable functions will only return the ldquoglwPendingrdquo status and will not
actually calculate a result
This is useful during report development
To calculate the results simply click one of the three calculation buttons ldquoCalculate Range
Sheet or Allrdquo
If you leave the GL Wand calculation option ldquoOnrdquo the applicable functions will be recalculated whenever Excel initiates a calculation process eg
when changing the contents of the cell
changing one of the functions input values deleting a column or row in the worksheet etc
Please note that the GL Wand calculation option has nothing to do with Excel‟s automatic
and manual calculation The GL Wand calculation option controls only the calculation of the
applicable GL Wand functions All other calculations are controlled as normal by the Excel
automatic and manual calculation option
Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
When you perform a recalculation a window will appear to show the progress of the
calculation
58
If you would like to cancel the calculation process simply click the ldquoCancelrdquo button
Please note that GL Wand will need to wait for the next reply from Oracle before the
connection can be closed Therefore it may take some time before the calculation stops and
the window closes
Snapshot
- Snapshot
The snapshot tool can be used to take a snapshot of your GL Wand report This tool will
remove all the GL Wand functions from the workbook and will replace them with the values that the function returned
The results are similar to using the Excel ldquopaste valuesrdquo functionality However this process will only replace GL Wand formulas All other Excel formulas will be left as they were
Please note that you cannot take a snapshot of a protected worksheet rather output the
sheet to PDF format for archive and distribution purposes
When producing a snapshot GL Wand will request a name for the new workbook You can
select an existing workbook and GL Wand will give you the option to append the snapshot
results to the existing workbook or overwrite the existing workbook You therefore have the
option of producing various snapshot reports and combining them into one new workbook in a single operation rather than producing a separate workbook for each snapshot
Hide zeros
- Hide zeros in selected range
Select a report range that contains rows where all the numbers are zero Click the hide zeros
button and GL Wand will hide all the rows in the selected range where all the cells containing
numbers are zero This is very useful for formatting a report which includes many rows
where for example a number of accounts are not used in a particular cost centre or have no
59
balances in a certain period At the click of a button you can hide all the rows that contain only zeros
Select the entire report range when using the hide zeros function GL Wand checks the
selected range for zeros when determining which rows to hide
Excel automatically forces a recalculation of Get Balance formulas when you hide rows on a
report This is normal Excel functionality
This feature can be used on any Excel worksheet and is not limited to GL Wand reports
Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Undo the last hide zeros operation
Click this button to automatically undo the last hide zeros operation
Drill downs
- Drill to default Balance layout
- Drill to default Journal layout
- Drill to default Sub Ledger layout
The drill down options allow you to extract additional detail about a specific ldquoGet Balancerdquo function
1 Select a cell that contains a valid Get Balance function
2 Click on the drill to balance button
3 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
4 The criteria sheet will be populated with the criteria from the Get Balance function
5 The drill down to balance detail will be executed showing all the detailed accounts that make up the total in the Get Balance function
60
See the Create Drill Criteria Sheet section for more details and options on the drill down criteria sheet
Budget variance analysis If you select two cells on the GL Wand report eg one cell with
actual values and one with budget numbers GL Wand will perform a drill down on the Get
Balance function and display the actual and budget values next to each other and a
calculated variance
You now have a variety of options which can be performed from the drill down workbook
1 Modify the parameters on the criteria sheet and perform a new drill to balance Drop
down lists are provided for most of the parameters see the Create Drill Criteria Sheet for
more details
2 Create a summary drill down report
3 If you have performed a balance drill down you can select the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet and then
click drill down to journal details after selecting one or more rows with accounts
4 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo sheet and then click the button to drill down to the full journal
after selecting one or more rows with journal lines The full journal with all the contra
entries for the selected journal lines will be displayed
5 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo or ldquoJournal-Fullrdquo sheet and then click sub-ledger drill down after
selecting one or more rows with journal lines 6 Drill down to Global Consolidation System transactions
When drilling down you have the following options
Double click any cell on the row that you wish to drill down on
61
Select any cell in the row that you want to drill down on and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar
Highlight a range of rows and click the applicable drill down button on the GL Wand
toolbar to drill down on multiple lines at once
Highlight non contiguous rows using the ldquoCtrlrdquo button and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar to drill down on multiple lines which are not adjacent to each other
It is possible to drill from a Get Balance formula directly to the journal or sub ledger
information Similarly you can drill from a detailed balance (on the Balance worksheet)
directly to the sub ledger information If you select these options GL Wand will execute the
interim drill steps automatically Be careful when performing a drill down directly to the
journal or sub ledger detail level as these drill down operations may return many records
GL Wand will automatically group the drill down to journals and sub ledger information using
Excel‟s group and outline functionality This will allow you expand and collapse the data to
show just a portion of the report Headings are also inserted on the journal and sub-ledger drill down to make the report easier to read
On the sub-ledger drill down the heading includes a number in brackets eg ldquo(23) Journal
Name 123rdquo The number indicates which Excel row these sub-ledger lines originated from on
the ldquoJournalsrdquo sheet
You can use the remove drill down report headings button to strip out the headings on
the journal and sub-ledger drill down sheets
A couple of important things to note about drill downs
GL Wand will first count the number of rows that will be retrieved by the drill down
operation
If the row count is more than 1000 you will receive a warning message asking you if
you want to continue
If the row count is more than the defined limit (see Query Limit) you will receive a
warning and the drill down will be cancelled
If the row count is more than the number of rows available in your version of Excel
you will receive an error and the drill down will be cancelled
When you drill down to journal details the ldquoBalance Typerdquo parameter controls how
much detail is returned If this parameter is ldquoPTDrdquo only the current period‟s journals
are returned If this parameter is ldquoYTDrdquo then all the journals for the year are returned and likewise ldquoQTDrdquo will show the journal for the quarter
Ensure that the worksheet is calculated before performing any drill down functions Also
ensure that the cell contains a ldquoGet Balancerdquo function with valid parameter information
A new drill down workbook will be created each time you perform a drill down operation from
a Get Balance function Once you are finished with a drill down workbook simply close it
without saving
You cannot drill down to journal detail on translated balances
Oracle Global Consolidation System
Drill down to Oracle Global Consolidation System (GCS) transactions is also supported
These items will appear on the journal drill down report with a source and category of
62
ldquoConsolidationrdquo If you execute a normal drill down to Sub Ledger on these transactions a
new GL Wand drill workbook will be created and the drill down to the subsidiary set of books will be executed
In order to drill down on a GCS transaction you must be logged on the parent as well as the
subsidiary set of books This can be done using the Multiple Sets of Books logon option
Summary Balance Drill Down
On the drill down Criteria sheet toggle the summarization option to ldquoYrdquo for any segment that
you which to summaries by GL Wand creates a summary trial balance report and
summarizes by the selected segments The report can still be expanded to show the detailed
lines and you can still drill down to journals from these lines
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
47
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Options This parameter is used to modify the results returned by the Get
Balance function from the standard behavior Currently two options are supported
Source ndash Limit the results to a specific journal source
Category ndash Limit the results to a specific journal category
The criteria needs to be entered as follows - ldquoSource=Manualrdquo or
ldquoCategory=Adjustmentrdquo To specify both a source and category use
the ldquo|rdquo as a delimiter eg ldquoSource=Manual|Category=Adjustmentrdquo
You can specify multiple values by separating them with ldquordquo eg
ldquoSource=PayablesReceivablesrdquo
When creating Get Balance formulas always use ldquordquo to denote all values as this allows more
efficient SQL to be generated Do not use a range like ldquo000-ZZZrdquo as they will require
unnecessary processing
The segment value parameters can be entered as
a single value representing a child or parent account eg ldquo1500rdquo might represent a
parent account
a range of values eg entering ldquo1500-1600rdquo in one of the segment parameters will
sum all the segment values between 1500 and 1600 for that segment
a list of segment values eg entering ldquo150015101590rdquo in one of the segment
parameters will sum the specific segment values entered If any of the segment
values are parents GL Wand will sum the hierarchy for that parent
wild card entries eg 100 will sum 1100 1200 1300 1400 etc or entering the
value 1 will sum all values that start with 1
values to be included and then specific exclusions eg ldquo1000-2000~1500rdquo will sum
the values between 1000 and 2000 but will skip 1500
a combination of any of the above eg 1000-2000237123752560-
25803000~32004000~4161-4169 In this way you can build up your own calculation definition in the segment parameter
Please note ndash there are two additional methods for specifying segment criteria in the Get
Balance function The one allows you to specify account combinations and the other
allows the use of segment descriptive flexfields Please see the Special Get Balance
Criteria section in order to use these options
Segment Description
Returns the segment description for the chosen segment value
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
48
Example =Get_Segment_Description(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
Returns the next or previous segment value
Parameter Description
Last Value The starting segment value
Segment The segment number
Level Enter a P to return the next or previous parent value enter a C to
return the next or previous child value or leave the parameter blank
to return the next or previous segment value irrespective of whether
it is a parent or child
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example = Next_Segment_Value(ldquo1000rdquo3P)
Parent Flag
Returns the parent flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is a
parent
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Parent_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Enabled Flag
Returns the enabled flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is
enabled
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example = Enabled_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
49
Account Type
Returns the account type for the chosen segment value This function is only applicable for
the natural account segment and will return the value Asset Liability etc
Parameter Description
Account Value The account segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Account_Type(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Period Name
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number Optionally the returned value can be a certain number of periods into the future or past
Parameter Description
PeriodYear The year that you want the period name for
PeriodNumber The period number that you want the period name for
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Offset Optionally enter an offset to return the period name which is n
periods before or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3
periods into the future or -1 to return the previous period
Example =Period_Name(20063)
Set of Books Name
Returns the set of books name for the chosen set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Set_of_Books_Name()
Segment Descriptive Flexfield
Returns the segment values descriptive flexfield for the selected criteria
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
50
Segment The segment number
AttributeNo Identify which attribute you want to report on The segment values
descriptive flexfield has 50 possible attribute values The applicable
attributes will depend on your configuration and whether this
Descriptive Flexfield is used by your organization
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Segment_DFF(ldquo100rdquo25) retrieves the 5th attribute on the segment values
descriptive flexfield for segment value 100 on segment 2
Period Offset
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for
this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
Offset Enter an offset to return the period name which is n periods before
or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3 periods into the
future or -1 to return the previous period
RetRange Enter TRUE (or 1) to return the result as a range eg entering
period Mar-07 with an offset of -2 and the RetRange set to true will
return ldquoJan-07-Mar-07rdquo This can be used in conjunction with the
CTD (Custom to Date) balance type in the Get Balance function to
create rolling period reporting
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Period_Offset(Jan-07-2TRUE)
Split Text
Splits delimited text and returns a specific portion based on an offset Especially useful to
split account combinations but can be used to split any text
Parameter Description
Value Some text which has been concatenated using a delimiter eg an
account combination like ldquo011007000rdquo
Offset Identify which portion of the text to return
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Split_Text(0110070002) will return the ldquo100rdquo portion of the text
51
Combine Text
Combines selected text separated by a delimiter Especially useful to combine segment
values to create a delimited account combinations but can be used to combine any text
Parameter Description
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter segment values that you wish to combine into an account
combination
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Combine_Text(011007000) will return ldquo011007000rdquo
Functional Currency
Returns the functional currency for the set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Functional_Currency()
Get Daily Rate
Returns the daily exchange rate for the entered criteria
Parameter Description
FromCurrency The ldquoFromrdquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case
eg ldquoUSDrdquo
ToCurrency The ldquoTordquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
ConversionType The conversion type as configured in Oracle Spelling and case must
be identical to the Oracle configuration
ConversionDate The conversion date This must be in Excel date format Either refer
to a cell which contains a date or use one of the Excel date functions
to return a date in the parameter
Example =Get_Daily_Rate(USDGBPReportingDATE(200911))
Function return values
The GL Wand functions will return a variety of results depending on a number of factors If
all the information is entered correctly and there are no restrictions on access to the data or
the GL Wand itself the result should be the General Ledger balance segment value segment description etc However the following are also possible return values
glwDemo ndash this means that you are using GL Wand without a valid trial key entered
into the GL Wand License Key profile option When trying GL Wand without a valid
52
trial key you are only allowed to use the first 20 rows and 20 columns of the first
sheet in the workbook Any formula entered outside this range will not calculate a
value but will only return the word ldquoglwDemordquo This is called evaluation mode A
trial key needs to be requested from within GL Wand and entered into the profile
option to allow full access to all functionality
glwNoAccess ndash When you log on you will be prompted for your applications user name
and password and will then need to select a responsibility to log on to Any security
rules that have been linked to the selected responsibility will be enforced on the GL
Wand data If you attempt to access a balance on a general ledger account that you
do not have access to the function will return the word ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo Please see
the ldquoAudit Get Balancerdquo section for information on how to identify the security rule that is being contravened
Please note that Oracles Hierarchical Security is not supported
glwError ndash If you enter invalid information in a parameter for a GL Wand function the
GL Wand error value will be returned This may happen when you for example
enter an invalid budget name or period name in the Get Balance function or when you
enter an invalid segment number in the next segment value function This error value
will also be returned when you are not logged on The details of the return value will
indicate where the problem exists eg glwError (Logon) glwError (Balance Type)
glwError (Translated Flag) glwError (Actual Flag) glwError (Missing segment)
glwError (Data error) glwError (Range) glwError (Period)
glwPending ndash This value will be returned during the calculation process Whenever a
cell requires calculation and the process has not been completed yet the cell will
contain the value ldquoglwPendingrdquo
glwEditing ndash Displays in the Excel function arguments window when editing a Get Balance formula
Discovering versus Functions
You may have noticed that you can achieve similar results by using the discover tools and
using the functions For example you could use the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button to retrieve the
next segment value or you could use the ldquoNext Segment Valuerdquo function to return the same result The difference between these two approaches is as follows
Com
paris
on b
etw
een D
iscoverin
g a
nd
Functio
ns
Discovering Functions
Results returned as text string to Excel
cell
Value is calculated based on
parameters
Value is static Value is dynamic
Never changes Recalculated when sheet refreshed
Lower performance overhead Higher performance overhead
Discover Down Next Segment Value
Discover Up Previous Segment Value
Discover Left Next Segment Value
Discover Right Previous Segment Value
Discover Properties
Segment Description
Parent flag
53
Enabled Flag
Account Type
Discover Child Ranges No equivalent
Toggle Discover Level
Parameters of next segment value
determine whether parents children or
both are returned
Use the discover buttons with ldquoPeriodrdquo
selected in the segment drop down Period Name
Balance Extract is similar to Get
Balance though the static values it
produces are refreshable
Get Balance
Special Get Balance Criteria
GL Wand supports two special types of criteria in the Get Balance function namely ldquoAccount
Combinationsrdquo and ldquoSegment Descriptive Flexfieldrdquo criteria These two forms of the Get
Balance criteria have very specific syntax which must be carefully adhered to in order to
achieve the correct results You also have the ability to expand account combinations for a
selection that uses the ldquoAccount Combinationrdquo criteria
Account Combinations
In the past the Get Balance function only supported individual segment values eg segment
2 = 100 or 200 and segment 3 = 1000 or 2000 This would result in GL Wand returning all the possible combinations of those segment 2 and 3 values
Now you have the ability to specify account combinations using the new Get Balance syntax
This means that you can create new complex criteria for your Get Balance formula eg
(segment 2 = 100 and segment 3 = 1000) or (segment 2 = 200 and segment 3 = 2000)
With these criteria GL Wand will no longer return all the possible combinations but rather only the combinations you specify
In order to specify account combinations in a Get Balance function you must tell GL Wand
which segments you are combining You do this by entering a special value into the segment
eg if you want to combine criteria for segment 2 and segment 3 you would enter the
following in the parameter for segment 2 ldquoUse_Seg3rdquo This tells GL Wand that that it must
find the criteria for segment 2 inside the segment 3 parameter In the segment 3 parameter
you now enter the criteria for both segment 2 and segment 3 separated by the special
delimiter character eg ldquo1001000rdquo This tells GL Wand that you are looking for accounts where segment 2 is 100 and segment 3 is 1000 An example could look like this
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg3100100020020000000000)
It is possible to combine multiple segments as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg5Use_Seg5Use_Seg510010000000000)
54
You simply point each applicable segment to the parameter where the account combination
using the special ldquoUse_SegXrdquo syntax Then inside the target parameter you combine the fully qualified account combination for the applicable segments delimited with a ldquordquo character
When you specify your account combination you have full flexibility to use ranges lists wild
cards parents and exclude criteria For example this criteria will fetch all the values where
segment 2 is between 100 and 200 and segment 3 is between 1000 and 2000 And in
addition to that it will include the values where segment 2 is 250 (a parent) and segment 3
starts with 33 but will exclude the specific value where segment 2 is 250 and segment 3 is
3320
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA01Use_Seg31001000-200200025033~25033200000000)
You also have the flexibility to group different parts of the account combination together For
example this criteria combines the values for segment 1 and 3 together and combines segment 2 and 4 together
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA
Use_Seg3Use_Seg401100002115010000002001050000)
These new Get Balance syntax options provide you with tremendous flexibility when building your GL Wand reports
Expand Account Combinations
The expand feature allows you to extract all the detailed child segment values that roll up to
the criteria that the user specifies The expand feature has been extended to support account combinations
In order to expand an account combination you would do the following
Ensure that the correct set of books is selected in the drop down list on the GL Wand
toolbar
Select the cell containing the account combination criteria eg ldquo1007000rdquo Click the expand button
GL Wand will now identify that the selected cell contains an account combination rather than
a single segment value You will now be presented with a window to identify which segments from your chart of accounts are represented in the account combination
55
Select the correct segments and click ldquoOKrdquo GL Wand will now extract all the child
combinations that roll up to the criteria that you entered and insert them into the Excel sheet
The other options are as follows
Fix ndash if you tick this option for a segment GL Wand will ldquopegrdquo that segment using the
selected value (this option only makes sense for a parent segment value) You might
for example want to expand all the account combinations used in a particular parent
cost centre Simply ldquoFixrdquo the cost centre segment and GL Wand will return all the
account combinations used within that parent cost centre
Exclude disabled account combination ndash tick this option to only return account combinations that are currently enabled and have not been end dated
The expand account combinations feature can be used as a normal GL Wand ldquoExpandrdquo in
order to extract the detail behind a total but it is also very useful to extract existing account combinations from your Oracle system
This feature can be used very effectively with the Split Text and Combine Text functions
Segment Descriptive Flexfields
In order to extract balances using the descriptive flexfields stored on the segment values
you need to use special syntax in the Get Balance function The syntax works as follows
1ABC
You wrap the descriptive flexfield using curly brackets
The first character after the open bracket identifies which descriptive flexfield
attribute is being referred to
You then separate the descriptive flexfield attribute from the actual value using a ldquordquo You then specify the criteria for this attribute
An example Get Balance function would look as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC10000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield on segment 2 is equal to the value ldquoABCrdquo
It is possible to specify criteria for multiple descriptive flexfields as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC2XX10000000000)
Simply wrap each descriptive flexfield value in its own and identify the attribute number
At this stage the descriptive flexfield criteria is restricted to a single value or a single range
of values Lists of values and multiple ranges are not supported A range can be specified
using the special range delimiter ldquo|rdquo (pipe character) This character is different to the range
character that is used for normal Get Balance segment parameters The reason is that the
normal range delimiter ldquo-ldquo may easily be used in a segment descriptive flexfields and
therefore is not suitable In future you will be able to configure your own range delimiter
56
character which will provide the best flexibility The range criteria can be specified as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011100|20010000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield
on segment 2 is between 100 and 200 Date values are also supported in this criteria and GL Wand will correctly derive the ldquobetweenrdquo criteria for a date
Calculating
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what cells are refreshed from
Oracle They are used in conjunction with the GL Wand calculation option (onoff) You can stop a calculation at any time by clicking cancel
- Calculate Range (Alt+Ctl+R)
- Calculate Sheet (Alt+Ctl+S)
- Calculate All (Alt+Ctl+A)
- GL Wand calculation on
- GL Wand calculation off
Calculate Range Sheet or All
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what is recalculated
To calculate a range of cells simply
1 Highlight the range
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Rangerdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+R shortcut key
3 Select multiple ranges using the ctrl button (as normal in Excel)
4 Select a range and then select multiple Excel worksheets to calculate the same range on
each sheet
Please note do not use the calculate range option to recalculate the entire sheet ie by
selecting all the cells on the sheet This will take unnecessarily longer Rather use the
calculate sheet option
To calculate a sheet simply
1 Select the applicable sheet
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Sheetrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+S shortcut key
3 Selecting multiple sheets will calculate each of the selected sheets
To calculate all open workbooks simply
1 Click the ldquoCalculate Allrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+A shortcut key
57
GL Wand calculation on or off
You can use the GL Wand calculation toggle button to control when requests for calculations
are sent to the Oracle server
If you toggle GL Wand calculation ldquoOffrdquo calculation requests are not sent to the Oracle server which means you
you can manipulate a worksheet
change cell values
enter new formulae and
perform any other task that would normally cause Excel to recalculate
and the applicable functions will only return the ldquoglwPendingrdquo status and will not
actually calculate a result
This is useful during report development
To calculate the results simply click one of the three calculation buttons ldquoCalculate Range
Sheet or Allrdquo
If you leave the GL Wand calculation option ldquoOnrdquo the applicable functions will be recalculated whenever Excel initiates a calculation process eg
when changing the contents of the cell
changing one of the functions input values deleting a column or row in the worksheet etc
Please note that the GL Wand calculation option has nothing to do with Excel‟s automatic
and manual calculation The GL Wand calculation option controls only the calculation of the
applicable GL Wand functions All other calculations are controlled as normal by the Excel
automatic and manual calculation option
Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
When you perform a recalculation a window will appear to show the progress of the
calculation
58
If you would like to cancel the calculation process simply click the ldquoCancelrdquo button
Please note that GL Wand will need to wait for the next reply from Oracle before the
connection can be closed Therefore it may take some time before the calculation stops and
the window closes
Snapshot
- Snapshot
The snapshot tool can be used to take a snapshot of your GL Wand report This tool will
remove all the GL Wand functions from the workbook and will replace them with the values that the function returned
The results are similar to using the Excel ldquopaste valuesrdquo functionality However this process will only replace GL Wand formulas All other Excel formulas will be left as they were
Please note that you cannot take a snapshot of a protected worksheet rather output the
sheet to PDF format for archive and distribution purposes
When producing a snapshot GL Wand will request a name for the new workbook You can
select an existing workbook and GL Wand will give you the option to append the snapshot
results to the existing workbook or overwrite the existing workbook You therefore have the
option of producing various snapshot reports and combining them into one new workbook in a single operation rather than producing a separate workbook for each snapshot
Hide zeros
- Hide zeros in selected range
Select a report range that contains rows where all the numbers are zero Click the hide zeros
button and GL Wand will hide all the rows in the selected range where all the cells containing
numbers are zero This is very useful for formatting a report which includes many rows
where for example a number of accounts are not used in a particular cost centre or have no
59
balances in a certain period At the click of a button you can hide all the rows that contain only zeros
Select the entire report range when using the hide zeros function GL Wand checks the
selected range for zeros when determining which rows to hide
Excel automatically forces a recalculation of Get Balance formulas when you hide rows on a
report This is normal Excel functionality
This feature can be used on any Excel worksheet and is not limited to GL Wand reports
Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Undo the last hide zeros operation
Click this button to automatically undo the last hide zeros operation
Drill downs
- Drill to default Balance layout
- Drill to default Journal layout
- Drill to default Sub Ledger layout
The drill down options allow you to extract additional detail about a specific ldquoGet Balancerdquo function
1 Select a cell that contains a valid Get Balance function
2 Click on the drill to balance button
3 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
4 The criteria sheet will be populated with the criteria from the Get Balance function
5 The drill down to balance detail will be executed showing all the detailed accounts that make up the total in the Get Balance function
60
See the Create Drill Criteria Sheet section for more details and options on the drill down criteria sheet
Budget variance analysis If you select two cells on the GL Wand report eg one cell with
actual values and one with budget numbers GL Wand will perform a drill down on the Get
Balance function and display the actual and budget values next to each other and a
calculated variance
You now have a variety of options which can be performed from the drill down workbook
1 Modify the parameters on the criteria sheet and perform a new drill to balance Drop
down lists are provided for most of the parameters see the Create Drill Criteria Sheet for
more details
2 Create a summary drill down report
3 If you have performed a balance drill down you can select the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet and then
click drill down to journal details after selecting one or more rows with accounts
4 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo sheet and then click the button to drill down to the full journal
after selecting one or more rows with journal lines The full journal with all the contra
entries for the selected journal lines will be displayed
5 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo or ldquoJournal-Fullrdquo sheet and then click sub-ledger drill down after
selecting one or more rows with journal lines 6 Drill down to Global Consolidation System transactions
When drilling down you have the following options
Double click any cell on the row that you wish to drill down on
61
Select any cell in the row that you want to drill down on and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar
Highlight a range of rows and click the applicable drill down button on the GL Wand
toolbar to drill down on multiple lines at once
Highlight non contiguous rows using the ldquoCtrlrdquo button and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar to drill down on multiple lines which are not adjacent to each other
It is possible to drill from a Get Balance formula directly to the journal or sub ledger
information Similarly you can drill from a detailed balance (on the Balance worksheet)
directly to the sub ledger information If you select these options GL Wand will execute the
interim drill steps automatically Be careful when performing a drill down directly to the
journal or sub ledger detail level as these drill down operations may return many records
GL Wand will automatically group the drill down to journals and sub ledger information using
Excel‟s group and outline functionality This will allow you expand and collapse the data to
show just a portion of the report Headings are also inserted on the journal and sub-ledger drill down to make the report easier to read
On the sub-ledger drill down the heading includes a number in brackets eg ldquo(23) Journal
Name 123rdquo The number indicates which Excel row these sub-ledger lines originated from on
the ldquoJournalsrdquo sheet
You can use the remove drill down report headings button to strip out the headings on
the journal and sub-ledger drill down sheets
A couple of important things to note about drill downs
GL Wand will first count the number of rows that will be retrieved by the drill down
operation
If the row count is more than 1000 you will receive a warning message asking you if
you want to continue
If the row count is more than the defined limit (see Query Limit) you will receive a
warning and the drill down will be cancelled
If the row count is more than the number of rows available in your version of Excel
you will receive an error and the drill down will be cancelled
When you drill down to journal details the ldquoBalance Typerdquo parameter controls how
much detail is returned If this parameter is ldquoPTDrdquo only the current period‟s journals
are returned If this parameter is ldquoYTDrdquo then all the journals for the year are returned and likewise ldquoQTDrdquo will show the journal for the quarter
Ensure that the worksheet is calculated before performing any drill down functions Also
ensure that the cell contains a ldquoGet Balancerdquo function with valid parameter information
A new drill down workbook will be created each time you perform a drill down operation from
a Get Balance function Once you are finished with a drill down workbook simply close it
without saving
You cannot drill down to journal detail on translated balances
Oracle Global Consolidation System
Drill down to Oracle Global Consolidation System (GCS) transactions is also supported
These items will appear on the journal drill down report with a source and category of
62
ldquoConsolidationrdquo If you execute a normal drill down to Sub Ledger on these transactions a
new GL Wand drill workbook will be created and the drill down to the subsidiary set of books will be executed
In order to drill down on a GCS transaction you must be logged on the parent as well as the
subsidiary set of books This can be done using the Multiple Sets of Books logon option
Summary Balance Drill Down
On the drill down Criteria sheet toggle the summarization option to ldquoYrdquo for any segment that
you which to summaries by GL Wand creates a summary trial balance report and
summarizes by the selected segments The report can still be expanded to show the detailed
lines and you can still drill down to journals from these lines
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
48
Example =Get_Segment_Description(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
Returns the next or previous segment value
Parameter Description
Last Value The starting segment value
Segment The segment number
Level Enter a P to return the next or previous parent value enter a C to
return the next or previous child value or leave the parameter blank
to return the next or previous segment value irrespective of whether
it is a parent or child
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example = Next_Segment_Value(ldquo1000rdquo3P)
Parent Flag
Returns the parent flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is a
parent
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Parent_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Enabled Flag
Returns the enabled flag for the chosen segment value Y means that the segment value is
enabled
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example = Enabled_Flag(ldquo1000rdquo3)
49
Account Type
Returns the account type for the chosen segment value This function is only applicable for
the natural account segment and will return the value Asset Liability etc
Parameter Description
Account Value The account segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Account_Type(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Period Name
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number Optionally the returned value can be a certain number of periods into the future or past
Parameter Description
PeriodYear The year that you want the period name for
PeriodNumber The period number that you want the period name for
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Offset Optionally enter an offset to return the period name which is n
periods before or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3
periods into the future or -1 to return the previous period
Example =Period_Name(20063)
Set of Books Name
Returns the set of books name for the chosen set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Set_of_Books_Name()
Segment Descriptive Flexfield
Returns the segment values descriptive flexfield for the selected criteria
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
50
Segment The segment number
AttributeNo Identify which attribute you want to report on The segment values
descriptive flexfield has 50 possible attribute values The applicable
attributes will depend on your configuration and whether this
Descriptive Flexfield is used by your organization
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Segment_DFF(ldquo100rdquo25) retrieves the 5th attribute on the segment values
descriptive flexfield for segment value 100 on segment 2
Period Offset
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for
this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
Offset Enter an offset to return the period name which is n periods before
or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3 periods into the
future or -1 to return the previous period
RetRange Enter TRUE (or 1) to return the result as a range eg entering
period Mar-07 with an offset of -2 and the RetRange set to true will
return ldquoJan-07-Mar-07rdquo This can be used in conjunction with the
CTD (Custom to Date) balance type in the Get Balance function to
create rolling period reporting
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Period_Offset(Jan-07-2TRUE)
Split Text
Splits delimited text and returns a specific portion based on an offset Especially useful to
split account combinations but can be used to split any text
Parameter Description
Value Some text which has been concatenated using a delimiter eg an
account combination like ldquo011007000rdquo
Offset Identify which portion of the text to return
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Split_Text(0110070002) will return the ldquo100rdquo portion of the text
51
Combine Text
Combines selected text separated by a delimiter Especially useful to combine segment
values to create a delimited account combinations but can be used to combine any text
Parameter Description
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter segment values that you wish to combine into an account
combination
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Combine_Text(011007000) will return ldquo011007000rdquo
Functional Currency
Returns the functional currency for the set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Functional_Currency()
Get Daily Rate
Returns the daily exchange rate for the entered criteria
Parameter Description
FromCurrency The ldquoFromrdquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case
eg ldquoUSDrdquo
ToCurrency The ldquoTordquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
ConversionType The conversion type as configured in Oracle Spelling and case must
be identical to the Oracle configuration
ConversionDate The conversion date This must be in Excel date format Either refer
to a cell which contains a date or use one of the Excel date functions
to return a date in the parameter
Example =Get_Daily_Rate(USDGBPReportingDATE(200911))
Function return values
The GL Wand functions will return a variety of results depending on a number of factors If
all the information is entered correctly and there are no restrictions on access to the data or
the GL Wand itself the result should be the General Ledger balance segment value segment description etc However the following are also possible return values
glwDemo ndash this means that you are using GL Wand without a valid trial key entered
into the GL Wand License Key profile option When trying GL Wand without a valid
52
trial key you are only allowed to use the first 20 rows and 20 columns of the first
sheet in the workbook Any formula entered outside this range will not calculate a
value but will only return the word ldquoglwDemordquo This is called evaluation mode A
trial key needs to be requested from within GL Wand and entered into the profile
option to allow full access to all functionality
glwNoAccess ndash When you log on you will be prompted for your applications user name
and password and will then need to select a responsibility to log on to Any security
rules that have been linked to the selected responsibility will be enforced on the GL
Wand data If you attempt to access a balance on a general ledger account that you
do not have access to the function will return the word ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo Please see
the ldquoAudit Get Balancerdquo section for information on how to identify the security rule that is being contravened
Please note that Oracles Hierarchical Security is not supported
glwError ndash If you enter invalid information in a parameter for a GL Wand function the
GL Wand error value will be returned This may happen when you for example
enter an invalid budget name or period name in the Get Balance function or when you
enter an invalid segment number in the next segment value function This error value
will also be returned when you are not logged on The details of the return value will
indicate where the problem exists eg glwError (Logon) glwError (Balance Type)
glwError (Translated Flag) glwError (Actual Flag) glwError (Missing segment)
glwError (Data error) glwError (Range) glwError (Period)
glwPending ndash This value will be returned during the calculation process Whenever a
cell requires calculation and the process has not been completed yet the cell will
contain the value ldquoglwPendingrdquo
glwEditing ndash Displays in the Excel function arguments window when editing a Get Balance formula
Discovering versus Functions
You may have noticed that you can achieve similar results by using the discover tools and
using the functions For example you could use the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button to retrieve the
next segment value or you could use the ldquoNext Segment Valuerdquo function to return the same result The difference between these two approaches is as follows
Com
paris
on b
etw
een D
iscoverin
g a
nd
Functio
ns
Discovering Functions
Results returned as text string to Excel
cell
Value is calculated based on
parameters
Value is static Value is dynamic
Never changes Recalculated when sheet refreshed
Lower performance overhead Higher performance overhead
Discover Down Next Segment Value
Discover Up Previous Segment Value
Discover Left Next Segment Value
Discover Right Previous Segment Value
Discover Properties
Segment Description
Parent flag
53
Enabled Flag
Account Type
Discover Child Ranges No equivalent
Toggle Discover Level
Parameters of next segment value
determine whether parents children or
both are returned
Use the discover buttons with ldquoPeriodrdquo
selected in the segment drop down Period Name
Balance Extract is similar to Get
Balance though the static values it
produces are refreshable
Get Balance
Special Get Balance Criteria
GL Wand supports two special types of criteria in the Get Balance function namely ldquoAccount
Combinationsrdquo and ldquoSegment Descriptive Flexfieldrdquo criteria These two forms of the Get
Balance criteria have very specific syntax which must be carefully adhered to in order to
achieve the correct results You also have the ability to expand account combinations for a
selection that uses the ldquoAccount Combinationrdquo criteria
Account Combinations
In the past the Get Balance function only supported individual segment values eg segment
2 = 100 or 200 and segment 3 = 1000 or 2000 This would result in GL Wand returning all the possible combinations of those segment 2 and 3 values
Now you have the ability to specify account combinations using the new Get Balance syntax
This means that you can create new complex criteria for your Get Balance formula eg
(segment 2 = 100 and segment 3 = 1000) or (segment 2 = 200 and segment 3 = 2000)
With these criteria GL Wand will no longer return all the possible combinations but rather only the combinations you specify
In order to specify account combinations in a Get Balance function you must tell GL Wand
which segments you are combining You do this by entering a special value into the segment
eg if you want to combine criteria for segment 2 and segment 3 you would enter the
following in the parameter for segment 2 ldquoUse_Seg3rdquo This tells GL Wand that that it must
find the criteria for segment 2 inside the segment 3 parameter In the segment 3 parameter
you now enter the criteria for both segment 2 and segment 3 separated by the special
delimiter character eg ldquo1001000rdquo This tells GL Wand that you are looking for accounts where segment 2 is 100 and segment 3 is 1000 An example could look like this
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg3100100020020000000000)
It is possible to combine multiple segments as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg5Use_Seg5Use_Seg510010000000000)
54
You simply point each applicable segment to the parameter where the account combination
using the special ldquoUse_SegXrdquo syntax Then inside the target parameter you combine the fully qualified account combination for the applicable segments delimited with a ldquordquo character
When you specify your account combination you have full flexibility to use ranges lists wild
cards parents and exclude criteria For example this criteria will fetch all the values where
segment 2 is between 100 and 200 and segment 3 is between 1000 and 2000 And in
addition to that it will include the values where segment 2 is 250 (a parent) and segment 3
starts with 33 but will exclude the specific value where segment 2 is 250 and segment 3 is
3320
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA01Use_Seg31001000-200200025033~25033200000000)
You also have the flexibility to group different parts of the account combination together For
example this criteria combines the values for segment 1 and 3 together and combines segment 2 and 4 together
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA
Use_Seg3Use_Seg401100002115010000002001050000)
These new Get Balance syntax options provide you with tremendous flexibility when building your GL Wand reports
Expand Account Combinations
The expand feature allows you to extract all the detailed child segment values that roll up to
the criteria that the user specifies The expand feature has been extended to support account combinations
In order to expand an account combination you would do the following
Ensure that the correct set of books is selected in the drop down list on the GL Wand
toolbar
Select the cell containing the account combination criteria eg ldquo1007000rdquo Click the expand button
GL Wand will now identify that the selected cell contains an account combination rather than
a single segment value You will now be presented with a window to identify which segments from your chart of accounts are represented in the account combination
55
Select the correct segments and click ldquoOKrdquo GL Wand will now extract all the child
combinations that roll up to the criteria that you entered and insert them into the Excel sheet
The other options are as follows
Fix ndash if you tick this option for a segment GL Wand will ldquopegrdquo that segment using the
selected value (this option only makes sense for a parent segment value) You might
for example want to expand all the account combinations used in a particular parent
cost centre Simply ldquoFixrdquo the cost centre segment and GL Wand will return all the
account combinations used within that parent cost centre
Exclude disabled account combination ndash tick this option to only return account combinations that are currently enabled and have not been end dated
The expand account combinations feature can be used as a normal GL Wand ldquoExpandrdquo in
order to extract the detail behind a total but it is also very useful to extract existing account combinations from your Oracle system
This feature can be used very effectively with the Split Text and Combine Text functions
Segment Descriptive Flexfields
In order to extract balances using the descriptive flexfields stored on the segment values
you need to use special syntax in the Get Balance function The syntax works as follows
1ABC
You wrap the descriptive flexfield using curly brackets
The first character after the open bracket identifies which descriptive flexfield
attribute is being referred to
You then separate the descriptive flexfield attribute from the actual value using a ldquordquo You then specify the criteria for this attribute
An example Get Balance function would look as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC10000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield on segment 2 is equal to the value ldquoABCrdquo
It is possible to specify criteria for multiple descriptive flexfields as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC2XX10000000000)
Simply wrap each descriptive flexfield value in its own and identify the attribute number
At this stage the descriptive flexfield criteria is restricted to a single value or a single range
of values Lists of values and multiple ranges are not supported A range can be specified
using the special range delimiter ldquo|rdquo (pipe character) This character is different to the range
character that is used for normal Get Balance segment parameters The reason is that the
normal range delimiter ldquo-ldquo may easily be used in a segment descriptive flexfields and
therefore is not suitable In future you will be able to configure your own range delimiter
56
character which will provide the best flexibility The range criteria can be specified as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011100|20010000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield
on segment 2 is between 100 and 200 Date values are also supported in this criteria and GL Wand will correctly derive the ldquobetweenrdquo criteria for a date
Calculating
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what cells are refreshed from
Oracle They are used in conjunction with the GL Wand calculation option (onoff) You can stop a calculation at any time by clicking cancel
- Calculate Range (Alt+Ctl+R)
- Calculate Sheet (Alt+Ctl+S)
- Calculate All (Alt+Ctl+A)
- GL Wand calculation on
- GL Wand calculation off
Calculate Range Sheet or All
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what is recalculated
To calculate a range of cells simply
1 Highlight the range
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Rangerdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+R shortcut key
3 Select multiple ranges using the ctrl button (as normal in Excel)
4 Select a range and then select multiple Excel worksheets to calculate the same range on
each sheet
Please note do not use the calculate range option to recalculate the entire sheet ie by
selecting all the cells on the sheet This will take unnecessarily longer Rather use the
calculate sheet option
To calculate a sheet simply
1 Select the applicable sheet
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Sheetrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+S shortcut key
3 Selecting multiple sheets will calculate each of the selected sheets
To calculate all open workbooks simply
1 Click the ldquoCalculate Allrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+A shortcut key
57
GL Wand calculation on or off
You can use the GL Wand calculation toggle button to control when requests for calculations
are sent to the Oracle server
If you toggle GL Wand calculation ldquoOffrdquo calculation requests are not sent to the Oracle server which means you
you can manipulate a worksheet
change cell values
enter new formulae and
perform any other task that would normally cause Excel to recalculate
and the applicable functions will only return the ldquoglwPendingrdquo status and will not
actually calculate a result
This is useful during report development
To calculate the results simply click one of the three calculation buttons ldquoCalculate Range
Sheet or Allrdquo
If you leave the GL Wand calculation option ldquoOnrdquo the applicable functions will be recalculated whenever Excel initiates a calculation process eg
when changing the contents of the cell
changing one of the functions input values deleting a column or row in the worksheet etc
Please note that the GL Wand calculation option has nothing to do with Excel‟s automatic
and manual calculation The GL Wand calculation option controls only the calculation of the
applicable GL Wand functions All other calculations are controlled as normal by the Excel
automatic and manual calculation option
Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
When you perform a recalculation a window will appear to show the progress of the
calculation
58
If you would like to cancel the calculation process simply click the ldquoCancelrdquo button
Please note that GL Wand will need to wait for the next reply from Oracle before the
connection can be closed Therefore it may take some time before the calculation stops and
the window closes
Snapshot
- Snapshot
The snapshot tool can be used to take a snapshot of your GL Wand report This tool will
remove all the GL Wand functions from the workbook and will replace them with the values that the function returned
The results are similar to using the Excel ldquopaste valuesrdquo functionality However this process will only replace GL Wand formulas All other Excel formulas will be left as they were
Please note that you cannot take a snapshot of a protected worksheet rather output the
sheet to PDF format for archive and distribution purposes
When producing a snapshot GL Wand will request a name for the new workbook You can
select an existing workbook and GL Wand will give you the option to append the snapshot
results to the existing workbook or overwrite the existing workbook You therefore have the
option of producing various snapshot reports and combining them into one new workbook in a single operation rather than producing a separate workbook for each snapshot
Hide zeros
- Hide zeros in selected range
Select a report range that contains rows where all the numbers are zero Click the hide zeros
button and GL Wand will hide all the rows in the selected range where all the cells containing
numbers are zero This is very useful for formatting a report which includes many rows
where for example a number of accounts are not used in a particular cost centre or have no
59
balances in a certain period At the click of a button you can hide all the rows that contain only zeros
Select the entire report range when using the hide zeros function GL Wand checks the
selected range for zeros when determining which rows to hide
Excel automatically forces a recalculation of Get Balance formulas when you hide rows on a
report This is normal Excel functionality
This feature can be used on any Excel worksheet and is not limited to GL Wand reports
Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Undo the last hide zeros operation
Click this button to automatically undo the last hide zeros operation
Drill downs
- Drill to default Balance layout
- Drill to default Journal layout
- Drill to default Sub Ledger layout
The drill down options allow you to extract additional detail about a specific ldquoGet Balancerdquo function
1 Select a cell that contains a valid Get Balance function
2 Click on the drill to balance button
3 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
4 The criteria sheet will be populated with the criteria from the Get Balance function
5 The drill down to balance detail will be executed showing all the detailed accounts that make up the total in the Get Balance function
60
See the Create Drill Criteria Sheet section for more details and options on the drill down criteria sheet
Budget variance analysis If you select two cells on the GL Wand report eg one cell with
actual values and one with budget numbers GL Wand will perform a drill down on the Get
Balance function and display the actual and budget values next to each other and a
calculated variance
You now have a variety of options which can be performed from the drill down workbook
1 Modify the parameters on the criteria sheet and perform a new drill to balance Drop
down lists are provided for most of the parameters see the Create Drill Criteria Sheet for
more details
2 Create a summary drill down report
3 If you have performed a balance drill down you can select the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet and then
click drill down to journal details after selecting one or more rows with accounts
4 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo sheet and then click the button to drill down to the full journal
after selecting one or more rows with journal lines The full journal with all the contra
entries for the selected journal lines will be displayed
5 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo or ldquoJournal-Fullrdquo sheet and then click sub-ledger drill down after
selecting one or more rows with journal lines 6 Drill down to Global Consolidation System transactions
When drilling down you have the following options
Double click any cell on the row that you wish to drill down on
61
Select any cell in the row that you want to drill down on and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar
Highlight a range of rows and click the applicable drill down button on the GL Wand
toolbar to drill down on multiple lines at once
Highlight non contiguous rows using the ldquoCtrlrdquo button and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar to drill down on multiple lines which are not adjacent to each other
It is possible to drill from a Get Balance formula directly to the journal or sub ledger
information Similarly you can drill from a detailed balance (on the Balance worksheet)
directly to the sub ledger information If you select these options GL Wand will execute the
interim drill steps automatically Be careful when performing a drill down directly to the
journal or sub ledger detail level as these drill down operations may return many records
GL Wand will automatically group the drill down to journals and sub ledger information using
Excel‟s group and outline functionality This will allow you expand and collapse the data to
show just a portion of the report Headings are also inserted on the journal and sub-ledger drill down to make the report easier to read
On the sub-ledger drill down the heading includes a number in brackets eg ldquo(23) Journal
Name 123rdquo The number indicates which Excel row these sub-ledger lines originated from on
the ldquoJournalsrdquo sheet
You can use the remove drill down report headings button to strip out the headings on
the journal and sub-ledger drill down sheets
A couple of important things to note about drill downs
GL Wand will first count the number of rows that will be retrieved by the drill down
operation
If the row count is more than 1000 you will receive a warning message asking you if
you want to continue
If the row count is more than the defined limit (see Query Limit) you will receive a
warning and the drill down will be cancelled
If the row count is more than the number of rows available in your version of Excel
you will receive an error and the drill down will be cancelled
When you drill down to journal details the ldquoBalance Typerdquo parameter controls how
much detail is returned If this parameter is ldquoPTDrdquo only the current period‟s journals
are returned If this parameter is ldquoYTDrdquo then all the journals for the year are returned and likewise ldquoQTDrdquo will show the journal for the quarter
Ensure that the worksheet is calculated before performing any drill down functions Also
ensure that the cell contains a ldquoGet Balancerdquo function with valid parameter information
A new drill down workbook will be created each time you perform a drill down operation from
a Get Balance function Once you are finished with a drill down workbook simply close it
without saving
You cannot drill down to journal detail on translated balances
Oracle Global Consolidation System
Drill down to Oracle Global Consolidation System (GCS) transactions is also supported
These items will appear on the journal drill down report with a source and category of
62
ldquoConsolidationrdquo If you execute a normal drill down to Sub Ledger on these transactions a
new GL Wand drill workbook will be created and the drill down to the subsidiary set of books will be executed
In order to drill down on a GCS transaction you must be logged on the parent as well as the
subsidiary set of books This can be done using the Multiple Sets of Books logon option
Summary Balance Drill Down
On the drill down Criteria sheet toggle the summarization option to ldquoYrdquo for any segment that
you which to summaries by GL Wand creates a summary trial balance report and
summarizes by the selected segments The report can still be expanded to show the detailed
lines and you can still drill down to journals from these lines
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
49
Account Type
Returns the account type for the chosen segment value This function is only applicable for
the natural account segment and will return the value Asset Liability etc
Parameter Description
Account Value The account segment value
Segment The segment number
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Account_Type(ldquo1000rdquo3)
Period Name
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number Optionally the returned value can be a certain number of periods into the future or past
Parameter Description
PeriodYear The year that you want the period name for
PeriodNumber The period number that you want the period name for
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Offset Optionally enter an offset to return the period name which is n
periods before or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3
periods into the future or -1 to return the previous period
Example =Period_Name(20063)
Set of Books Name
Returns the set of books name for the chosen set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Set_of_Books_Name()
Segment Descriptive Flexfield
Returns the segment values descriptive flexfield for the selected criteria
Parameter Description
Segment Value The segment value
50
Segment The segment number
AttributeNo Identify which attribute you want to report on The segment values
descriptive flexfield has 50 possible attribute values The applicable
attributes will depend on your configuration and whether this
Descriptive Flexfield is used by your organization
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Segment_DFF(ldquo100rdquo25) retrieves the 5th attribute on the segment values
descriptive flexfield for segment value 100 on segment 2
Period Offset
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for
this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
Offset Enter an offset to return the period name which is n periods before
or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3 periods into the
future or -1 to return the previous period
RetRange Enter TRUE (or 1) to return the result as a range eg entering
period Mar-07 with an offset of -2 and the RetRange set to true will
return ldquoJan-07-Mar-07rdquo This can be used in conjunction with the
CTD (Custom to Date) balance type in the Get Balance function to
create rolling period reporting
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Period_Offset(Jan-07-2TRUE)
Split Text
Splits delimited text and returns a specific portion based on an offset Especially useful to
split account combinations but can be used to split any text
Parameter Description
Value Some text which has been concatenated using a delimiter eg an
account combination like ldquo011007000rdquo
Offset Identify which portion of the text to return
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Split_Text(0110070002) will return the ldquo100rdquo portion of the text
51
Combine Text
Combines selected text separated by a delimiter Especially useful to combine segment
values to create a delimited account combinations but can be used to combine any text
Parameter Description
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter segment values that you wish to combine into an account
combination
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Combine_Text(011007000) will return ldquo011007000rdquo
Functional Currency
Returns the functional currency for the set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Functional_Currency()
Get Daily Rate
Returns the daily exchange rate for the entered criteria
Parameter Description
FromCurrency The ldquoFromrdquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case
eg ldquoUSDrdquo
ToCurrency The ldquoTordquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
ConversionType The conversion type as configured in Oracle Spelling and case must
be identical to the Oracle configuration
ConversionDate The conversion date This must be in Excel date format Either refer
to a cell which contains a date or use one of the Excel date functions
to return a date in the parameter
Example =Get_Daily_Rate(USDGBPReportingDATE(200911))
Function return values
The GL Wand functions will return a variety of results depending on a number of factors If
all the information is entered correctly and there are no restrictions on access to the data or
the GL Wand itself the result should be the General Ledger balance segment value segment description etc However the following are also possible return values
glwDemo ndash this means that you are using GL Wand without a valid trial key entered
into the GL Wand License Key profile option When trying GL Wand without a valid
52
trial key you are only allowed to use the first 20 rows and 20 columns of the first
sheet in the workbook Any formula entered outside this range will not calculate a
value but will only return the word ldquoglwDemordquo This is called evaluation mode A
trial key needs to be requested from within GL Wand and entered into the profile
option to allow full access to all functionality
glwNoAccess ndash When you log on you will be prompted for your applications user name
and password and will then need to select a responsibility to log on to Any security
rules that have been linked to the selected responsibility will be enforced on the GL
Wand data If you attempt to access a balance on a general ledger account that you
do not have access to the function will return the word ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo Please see
the ldquoAudit Get Balancerdquo section for information on how to identify the security rule that is being contravened
Please note that Oracles Hierarchical Security is not supported
glwError ndash If you enter invalid information in a parameter for a GL Wand function the
GL Wand error value will be returned This may happen when you for example
enter an invalid budget name or period name in the Get Balance function or when you
enter an invalid segment number in the next segment value function This error value
will also be returned when you are not logged on The details of the return value will
indicate where the problem exists eg glwError (Logon) glwError (Balance Type)
glwError (Translated Flag) glwError (Actual Flag) glwError (Missing segment)
glwError (Data error) glwError (Range) glwError (Period)
glwPending ndash This value will be returned during the calculation process Whenever a
cell requires calculation and the process has not been completed yet the cell will
contain the value ldquoglwPendingrdquo
glwEditing ndash Displays in the Excel function arguments window when editing a Get Balance formula
Discovering versus Functions
You may have noticed that you can achieve similar results by using the discover tools and
using the functions For example you could use the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button to retrieve the
next segment value or you could use the ldquoNext Segment Valuerdquo function to return the same result The difference between these two approaches is as follows
Com
paris
on b
etw
een D
iscoverin
g a
nd
Functio
ns
Discovering Functions
Results returned as text string to Excel
cell
Value is calculated based on
parameters
Value is static Value is dynamic
Never changes Recalculated when sheet refreshed
Lower performance overhead Higher performance overhead
Discover Down Next Segment Value
Discover Up Previous Segment Value
Discover Left Next Segment Value
Discover Right Previous Segment Value
Discover Properties
Segment Description
Parent flag
53
Enabled Flag
Account Type
Discover Child Ranges No equivalent
Toggle Discover Level
Parameters of next segment value
determine whether parents children or
both are returned
Use the discover buttons with ldquoPeriodrdquo
selected in the segment drop down Period Name
Balance Extract is similar to Get
Balance though the static values it
produces are refreshable
Get Balance
Special Get Balance Criteria
GL Wand supports two special types of criteria in the Get Balance function namely ldquoAccount
Combinationsrdquo and ldquoSegment Descriptive Flexfieldrdquo criteria These two forms of the Get
Balance criteria have very specific syntax which must be carefully adhered to in order to
achieve the correct results You also have the ability to expand account combinations for a
selection that uses the ldquoAccount Combinationrdquo criteria
Account Combinations
In the past the Get Balance function only supported individual segment values eg segment
2 = 100 or 200 and segment 3 = 1000 or 2000 This would result in GL Wand returning all the possible combinations of those segment 2 and 3 values
Now you have the ability to specify account combinations using the new Get Balance syntax
This means that you can create new complex criteria for your Get Balance formula eg
(segment 2 = 100 and segment 3 = 1000) or (segment 2 = 200 and segment 3 = 2000)
With these criteria GL Wand will no longer return all the possible combinations but rather only the combinations you specify
In order to specify account combinations in a Get Balance function you must tell GL Wand
which segments you are combining You do this by entering a special value into the segment
eg if you want to combine criteria for segment 2 and segment 3 you would enter the
following in the parameter for segment 2 ldquoUse_Seg3rdquo This tells GL Wand that that it must
find the criteria for segment 2 inside the segment 3 parameter In the segment 3 parameter
you now enter the criteria for both segment 2 and segment 3 separated by the special
delimiter character eg ldquo1001000rdquo This tells GL Wand that you are looking for accounts where segment 2 is 100 and segment 3 is 1000 An example could look like this
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg3100100020020000000000)
It is possible to combine multiple segments as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg5Use_Seg5Use_Seg510010000000000)
54
You simply point each applicable segment to the parameter where the account combination
using the special ldquoUse_SegXrdquo syntax Then inside the target parameter you combine the fully qualified account combination for the applicable segments delimited with a ldquordquo character
When you specify your account combination you have full flexibility to use ranges lists wild
cards parents and exclude criteria For example this criteria will fetch all the values where
segment 2 is between 100 and 200 and segment 3 is between 1000 and 2000 And in
addition to that it will include the values where segment 2 is 250 (a parent) and segment 3
starts with 33 but will exclude the specific value where segment 2 is 250 and segment 3 is
3320
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA01Use_Seg31001000-200200025033~25033200000000)
You also have the flexibility to group different parts of the account combination together For
example this criteria combines the values for segment 1 and 3 together and combines segment 2 and 4 together
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA
Use_Seg3Use_Seg401100002115010000002001050000)
These new Get Balance syntax options provide you with tremendous flexibility when building your GL Wand reports
Expand Account Combinations
The expand feature allows you to extract all the detailed child segment values that roll up to
the criteria that the user specifies The expand feature has been extended to support account combinations
In order to expand an account combination you would do the following
Ensure that the correct set of books is selected in the drop down list on the GL Wand
toolbar
Select the cell containing the account combination criteria eg ldquo1007000rdquo Click the expand button
GL Wand will now identify that the selected cell contains an account combination rather than
a single segment value You will now be presented with a window to identify which segments from your chart of accounts are represented in the account combination
55
Select the correct segments and click ldquoOKrdquo GL Wand will now extract all the child
combinations that roll up to the criteria that you entered and insert them into the Excel sheet
The other options are as follows
Fix ndash if you tick this option for a segment GL Wand will ldquopegrdquo that segment using the
selected value (this option only makes sense for a parent segment value) You might
for example want to expand all the account combinations used in a particular parent
cost centre Simply ldquoFixrdquo the cost centre segment and GL Wand will return all the
account combinations used within that parent cost centre
Exclude disabled account combination ndash tick this option to only return account combinations that are currently enabled and have not been end dated
The expand account combinations feature can be used as a normal GL Wand ldquoExpandrdquo in
order to extract the detail behind a total but it is also very useful to extract existing account combinations from your Oracle system
This feature can be used very effectively with the Split Text and Combine Text functions
Segment Descriptive Flexfields
In order to extract balances using the descriptive flexfields stored on the segment values
you need to use special syntax in the Get Balance function The syntax works as follows
1ABC
You wrap the descriptive flexfield using curly brackets
The first character after the open bracket identifies which descriptive flexfield
attribute is being referred to
You then separate the descriptive flexfield attribute from the actual value using a ldquordquo You then specify the criteria for this attribute
An example Get Balance function would look as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC10000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield on segment 2 is equal to the value ldquoABCrdquo
It is possible to specify criteria for multiple descriptive flexfields as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC2XX10000000000)
Simply wrap each descriptive flexfield value in its own and identify the attribute number
At this stage the descriptive flexfield criteria is restricted to a single value or a single range
of values Lists of values and multiple ranges are not supported A range can be specified
using the special range delimiter ldquo|rdquo (pipe character) This character is different to the range
character that is used for normal Get Balance segment parameters The reason is that the
normal range delimiter ldquo-ldquo may easily be used in a segment descriptive flexfields and
therefore is not suitable In future you will be able to configure your own range delimiter
56
character which will provide the best flexibility The range criteria can be specified as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011100|20010000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield
on segment 2 is between 100 and 200 Date values are also supported in this criteria and GL Wand will correctly derive the ldquobetweenrdquo criteria for a date
Calculating
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what cells are refreshed from
Oracle They are used in conjunction with the GL Wand calculation option (onoff) You can stop a calculation at any time by clicking cancel
- Calculate Range (Alt+Ctl+R)
- Calculate Sheet (Alt+Ctl+S)
- Calculate All (Alt+Ctl+A)
- GL Wand calculation on
- GL Wand calculation off
Calculate Range Sheet or All
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what is recalculated
To calculate a range of cells simply
1 Highlight the range
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Rangerdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+R shortcut key
3 Select multiple ranges using the ctrl button (as normal in Excel)
4 Select a range and then select multiple Excel worksheets to calculate the same range on
each sheet
Please note do not use the calculate range option to recalculate the entire sheet ie by
selecting all the cells on the sheet This will take unnecessarily longer Rather use the
calculate sheet option
To calculate a sheet simply
1 Select the applicable sheet
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Sheetrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+S shortcut key
3 Selecting multiple sheets will calculate each of the selected sheets
To calculate all open workbooks simply
1 Click the ldquoCalculate Allrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+A shortcut key
57
GL Wand calculation on or off
You can use the GL Wand calculation toggle button to control when requests for calculations
are sent to the Oracle server
If you toggle GL Wand calculation ldquoOffrdquo calculation requests are not sent to the Oracle server which means you
you can manipulate a worksheet
change cell values
enter new formulae and
perform any other task that would normally cause Excel to recalculate
and the applicable functions will only return the ldquoglwPendingrdquo status and will not
actually calculate a result
This is useful during report development
To calculate the results simply click one of the three calculation buttons ldquoCalculate Range
Sheet or Allrdquo
If you leave the GL Wand calculation option ldquoOnrdquo the applicable functions will be recalculated whenever Excel initiates a calculation process eg
when changing the contents of the cell
changing one of the functions input values deleting a column or row in the worksheet etc
Please note that the GL Wand calculation option has nothing to do with Excel‟s automatic
and manual calculation The GL Wand calculation option controls only the calculation of the
applicable GL Wand functions All other calculations are controlled as normal by the Excel
automatic and manual calculation option
Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
When you perform a recalculation a window will appear to show the progress of the
calculation
58
If you would like to cancel the calculation process simply click the ldquoCancelrdquo button
Please note that GL Wand will need to wait for the next reply from Oracle before the
connection can be closed Therefore it may take some time before the calculation stops and
the window closes
Snapshot
- Snapshot
The snapshot tool can be used to take a snapshot of your GL Wand report This tool will
remove all the GL Wand functions from the workbook and will replace them with the values that the function returned
The results are similar to using the Excel ldquopaste valuesrdquo functionality However this process will only replace GL Wand formulas All other Excel formulas will be left as they were
Please note that you cannot take a snapshot of a protected worksheet rather output the
sheet to PDF format for archive and distribution purposes
When producing a snapshot GL Wand will request a name for the new workbook You can
select an existing workbook and GL Wand will give you the option to append the snapshot
results to the existing workbook or overwrite the existing workbook You therefore have the
option of producing various snapshot reports and combining them into one new workbook in a single operation rather than producing a separate workbook for each snapshot
Hide zeros
- Hide zeros in selected range
Select a report range that contains rows where all the numbers are zero Click the hide zeros
button and GL Wand will hide all the rows in the selected range where all the cells containing
numbers are zero This is very useful for formatting a report which includes many rows
where for example a number of accounts are not used in a particular cost centre or have no
59
balances in a certain period At the click of a button you can hide all the rows that contain only zeros
Select the entire report range when using the hide zeros function GL Wand checks the
selected range for zeros when determining which rows to hide
Excel automatically forces a recalculation of Get Balance formulas when you hide rows on a
report This is normal Excel functionality
This feature can be used on any Excel worksheet and is not limited to GL Wand reports
Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Undo the last hide zeros operation
Click this button to automatically undo the last hide zeros operation
Drill downs
- Drill to default Balance layout
- Drill to default Journal layout
- Drill to default Sub Ledger layout
The drill down options allow you to extract additional detail about a specific ldquoGet Balancerdquo function
1 Select a cell that contains a valid Get Balance function
2 Click on the drill to balance button
3 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
4 The criteria sheet will be populated with the criteria from the Get Balance function
5 The drill down to balance detail will be executed showing all the detailed accounts that make up the total in the Get Balance function
60
See the Create Drill Criteria Sheet section for more details and options on the drill down criteria sheet
Budget variance analysis If you select two cells on the GL Wand report eg one cell with
actual values and one with budget numbers GL Wand will perform a drill down on the Get
Balance function and display the actual and budget values next to each other and a
calculated variance
You now have a variety of options which can be performed from the drill down workbook
1 Modify the parameters on the criteria sheet and perform a new drill to balance Drop
down lists are provided for most of the parameters see the Create Drill Criteria Sheet for
more details
2 Create a summary drill down report
3 If you have performed a balance drill down you can select the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet and then
click drill down to journal details after selecting one or more rows with accounts
4 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo sheet and then click the button to drill down to the full journal
after selecting one or more rows with journal lines The full journal with all the contra
entries for the selected journal lines will be displayed
5 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo or ldquoJournal-Fullrdquo sheet and then click sub-ledger drill down after
selecting one or more rows with journal lines 6 Drill down to Global Consolidation System transactions
When drilling down you have the following options
Double click any cell on the row that you wish to drill down on
61
Select any cell in the row that you want to drill down on and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar
Highlight a range of rows and click the applicable drill down button on the GL Wand
toolbar to drill down on multiple lines at once
Highlight non contiguous rows using the ldquoCtrlrdquo button and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar to drill down on multiple lines which are not adjacent to each other
It is possible to drill from a Get Balance formula directly to the journal or sub ledger
information Similarly you can drill from a detailed balance (on the Balance worksheet)
directly to the sub ledger information If you select these options GL Wand will execute the
interim drill steps automatically Be careful when performing a drill down directly to the
journal or sub ledger detail level as these drill down operations may return many records
GL Wand will automatically group the drill down to journals and sub ledger information using
Excel‟s group and outline functionality This will allow you expand and collapse the data to
show just a portion of the report Headings are also inserted on the journal and sub-ledger drill down to make the report easier to read
On the sub-ledger drill down the heading includes a number in brackets eg ldquo(23) Journal
Name 123rdquo The number indicates which Excel row these sub-ledger lines originated from on
the ldquoJournalsrdquo sheet
You can use the remove drill down report headings button to strip out the headings on
the journal and sub-ledger drill down sheets
A couple of important things to note about drill downs
GL Wand will first count the number of rows that will be retrieved by the drill down
operation
If the row count is more than 1000 you will receive a warning message asking you if
you want to continue
If the row count is more than the defined limit (see Query Limit) you will receive a
warning and the drill down will be cancelled
If the row count is more than the number of rows available in your version of Excel
you will receive an error and the drill down will be cancelled
When you drill down to journal details the ldquoBalance Typerdquo parameter controls how
much detail is returned If this parameter is ldquoPTDrdquo only the current period‟s journals
are returned If this parameter is ldquoYTDrdquo then all the journals for the year are returned and likewise ldquoQTDrdquo will show the journal for the quarter
Ensure that the worksheet is calculated before performing any drill down functions Also
ensure that the cell contains a ldquoGet Balancerdquo function with valid parameter information
A new drill down workbook will be created each time you perform a drill down operation from
a Get Balance function Once you are finished with a drill down workbook simply close it
without saving
You cannot drill down to journal detail on translated balances
Oracle Global Consolidation System
Drill down to Oracle Global Consolidation System (GCS) transactions is also supported
These items will appear on the journal drill down report with a source and category of
62
ldquoConsolidationrdquo If you execute a normal drill down to Sub Ledger on these transactions a
new GL Wand drill workbook will be created and the drill down to the subsidiary set of books will be executed
In order to drill down on a GCS transaction you must be logged on the parent as well as the
subsidiary set of books This can be done using the Multiple Sets of Books logon option
Summary Balance Drill Down
On the drill down Criteria sheet toggle the summarization option to ldquoYrdquo for any segment that
you which to summaries by GL Wand creates a summary trial balance report and
summarizes by the selected segments The report can still be expanded to show the detailed
lines and you can still drill down to journals from these lines
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
50
Segment The segment number
AttributeNo Identify which attribute you want to report on The segment values
descriptive flexfield has 50 possible attribute values The applicable
attributes will depend on your configuration and whether this
Descriptive Flexfield is used by your organization
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
IndepValue For dependant segments enter the independent value that the
segment value relates to
Example =Segment_DFF(ldquo100rdquo25) retrieves the 5th attribute on the segment values
descriptive flexfield for segment value 100 on segment 2
Period Offset
Returns the period name for the chosen year and period number
Parameter Description
Period The period name as configured in Oracle This parameter must be
entered in exactly the same format as the period names in Oracle
For example if your period names are configured as follows ldquoJan-07rdquo
in Oracle and you enter ldquoJan-2007rdquo or ldquoJanuary-07rdquo or ldquojan-07rdquo for
this parameter GL Wand will not return any data
Offset Enter an offset to return the period name which is n periods before
or after the entered criteria eg enter 3 to return 3 periods into the
future or -1 to return the previous period
RetRange Enter TRUE (or 1) to return the result as a range eg entering
period Mar-07 with an offset of -2 and the RetRange set to true will
return ldquoJan-07-Mar-07rdquo This can be used in conjunction with the
CTD (Custom to Date) balance type in the Get Balance function to
create rolling period reporting
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Period_Offset(Jan-07-2TRUE)
Split Text
Splits delimited text and returns a specific portion based on an offset Especially useful to
split account combinations but can be used to split any text
Parameter Description
Value Some text which has been concatenated using a delimiter eg an
account combination like ldquo011007000rdquo
Offset Identify which portion of the text to return
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Split_Text(0110070002) will return the ldquo100rdquo portion of the text
51
Combine Text
Combines selected text separated by a delimiter Especially useful to combine segment
values to create a delimited account combinations but can be used to combine any text
Parameter Description
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter segment values that you wish to combine into an account
combination
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Combine_Text(011007000) will return ldquo011007000rdquo
Functional Currency
Returns the functional currency for the set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Functional_Currency()
Get Daily Rate
Returns the daily exchange rate for the entered criteria
Parameter Description
FromCurrency The ldquoFromrdquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case
eg ldquoUSDrdquo
ToCurrency The ldquoTordquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
ConversionType The conversion type as configured in Oracle Spelling and case must
be identical to the Oracle configuration
ConversionDate The conversion date This must be in Excel date format Either refer
to a cell which contains a date or use one of the Excel date functions
to return a date in the parameter
Example =Get_Daily_Rate(USDGBPReportingDATE(200911))
Function return values
The GL Wand functions will return a variety of results depending on a number of factors If
all the information is entered correctly and there are no restrictions on access to the data or
the GL Wand itself the result should be the General Ledger balance segment value segment description etc However the following are also possible return values
glwDemo ndash this means that you are using GL Wand without a valid trial key entered
into the GL Wand License Key profile option When trying GL Wand without a valid
52
trial key you are only allowed to use the first 20 rows and 20 columns of the first
sheet in the workbook Any formula entered outside this range will not calculate a
value but will only return the word ldquoglwDemordquo This is called evaluation mode A
trial key needs to be requested from within GL Wand and entered into the profile
option to allow full access to all functionality
glwNoAccess ndash When you log on you will be prompted for your applications user name
and password and will then need to select a responsibility to log on to Any security
rules that have been linked to the selected responsibility will be enforced on the GL
Wand data If you attempt to access a balance on a general ledger account that you
do not have access to the function will return the word ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo Please see
the ldquoAudit Get Balancerdquo section for information on how to identify the security rule that is being contravened
Please note that Oracles Hierarchical Security is not supported
glwError ndash If you enter invalid information in a parameter for a GL Wand function the
GL Wand error value will be returned This may happen when you for example
enter an invalid budget name or period name in the Get Balance function or when you
enter an invalid segment number in the next segment value function This error value
will also be returned when you are not logged on The details of the return value will
indicate where the problem exists eg glwError (Logon) glwError (Balance Type)
glwError (Translated Flag) glwError (Actual Flag) glwError (Missing segment)
glwError (Data error) glwError (Range) glwError (Period)
glwPending ndash This value will be returned during the calculation process Whenever a
cell requires calculation and the process has not been completed yet the cell will
contain the value ldquoglwPendingrdquo
glwEditing ndash Displays in the Excel function arguments window when editing a Get Balance formula
Discovering versus Functions
You may have noticed that you can achieve similar results by using the discover tools and
using the functions For example you could use the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button to retrieve the
next segment value or you could use the ldquoNext Segment Valuerdquo function to return the same result The difference between these two approaches is as follows
Com
paris
on b
etw
een D
iscoverin
g a
nd
Functio
ns
Discovering Functions
Results returned as text string to Excel
cell
Value is calculated based on
parameters
Value is static Value is dynamic
Never changes Recalculated when sheet refreshed
Lower performance overhead Higher performance overhead
Discover Down Next Segment Value
Discover Up Previous Segment Value
Discover Left Next Segment Value
Discover Right Previous Segment Value
Discover Properties
Segment Description
Parent flag
53
Enabled Flag
Account Type
Discover Child Ranges No equivalent
Toggle Discover Level
Parameters of next segment value
determine whether parents children or
both are returned
Use the discover buttons with ldquoPeriodrdquo
selected in the segment drop down Period Name
Balance Extract is similar to Get
Balance though the static values it
produces are refreshable
Get Balance
Special Get Balance Criteria
GL Wand supports two special types of criteria in the Get Balance function namely ldquoAccount
Combinationsrdquo and ldquoSegment Descriptive Flexfieldrdquo criteria These two forms of the Get
Balance criteria have very specific syntax which must be carefully adhered to in order to
achieve the correct results You also have the ability to expand account combinations for a
selection that uses the ldquoAccount Combinationrdquo criteria
Account Combinations
In the past the Get Balance function only supported individual segment values eg segment
2 = 100 or 200 and segment 3 = 1000 or 2000 This would result in GL Wand returning all the possible combinations of those segment 2 and 3 values
Now you have the ability to specify account combinations using the new Get Balance syntax
This means that you can create new complex criteria for your Get Balance formula eg
(segment 2 = 100 and segment 3 = 1000) or (segment 2 = 200 and segment 3 = 2000)
With these criteria GL Wand will no longer return all the possible combinations but rather only the combinations you specify
In order to specify account combinations in a Get Balance function you must tell GL Wand
which segments you are combining You do this by entering a special value into the segment
eg if you want to combine criteria for segment 2 and segment 3 you would enter the
following in the parameter for segment 2 ldquoUse_Seg3rdquo This tells GL Wand that that it must
find the criteria for segment 2 inside the segment 3 parameter In the segment 3 parameter
you now enter the criteria for both segment 2 and segment 3 separated by the special
delimiter character eg ldquo1001000rdquo This tells GL Wand that you are looking for accounts where segment 2 is 100 and segment 3 is 1000 An example could look like this
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg3100100020020000000000)
It is possible to combine multiple segments as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg5Use_Seg5Use_Seg510010000000000)
54
You simply point each applicable segment to the parameter where the account combination
using the special ldquoUse_SegXrdquo syntax Then inside the target parameter you combine the fully qualified account combination for the applicable segments delimited with a ldquordquo character
When you specify your account combination you have full flexibility to use ranges lists wild
cards parents and exclude criteria For example this criteria will fetch all the values where
segment 2 is between 100 and 200 and segment 3 is between 1000 and 2000 And in
addition to that it will include the values where segment 2 is 250 (a parent) and segment 3
starts with 33 but will exclude the specific value where segment 2 is 250 and segment 3 is
3320
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA01Use_Seg31001000-200200025033~25033200000000)
You also have the flexibility to group different parts of the account combination together For
example this criteria combines the values for segment 1 and 3 together and combines segment 2 and 4 together
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA
Use_Seg3Use_Seg401100002115010000002001050000)
These new Get Balance syntax options provide you with tremendous flexibility when building your GL Wand reports
Expand Account Combinations
The expand feature allows you to extract all the detailed child segment values that roll up to
the criteria that the user specifies The expand feature has been extended to support account combinations
In order to expand an account combination you would do the following
Ensure that the correct set of books is selected in the drop down list on the GL Wand
toolbar
Select the cell containing the account combination criteria eg ldquo1007000rdquo Click the expand button
GL Wand will now identify that the selected cell contains an account combination rather than
a single segment value You will now be presented with a window to identify which segments from your chart of accounts are represented in the account combination
55
Select the correct segments and click ldquoOKrdquo GL Wand will now extract all the child
combinations that roll up to the criteria that you entered and insert them into the Excel sheet
The other options are as follows
Fix ndash if you tick this option for a segment GL Wand will ldquopegrdquo that segment using the
selected value (this option only makes sense for a parent segment value) You might
for example want to expand all the account combinations used in a particular parent
cost centre Simply ldquoFixrdquo the cost centre segment and GL Wand will return all the
account combinations used within that parent cost centre
Exclude disabled account combination ndash tick this option to only return account combinations that are currently enabled and have not been end dated
The expand account combinations feature can be used as a normal GL Wand ldquoExpandrdquo in
order to extract the detail behind a total but it is also very useful to extract existing account combinations from your Oracle system
This feature can be used very effectively with the Split Text and Combine Text functions
Segment Descriptive Flexfields
In order to extract balances using the descriptive flexfields stored on the segment values
you need to use special syntax in the Get Balance function The syntax works as follows
1ABC
You wrap the descriptive flexfield using curly brackets
The first character after the open bracket identifies which descriptive flexfield
attribute is being referred to
You then separate the descriptive flexfield attribute from the actual value using a ldquordquo You then specify the criteria for this attribute
An example Get Balance function would look as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC10000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield on segment 2 is equal to the value ldquoABCrdquo
It is possible to specify criteria for multiple descriptive flexfields as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC2XX10000000000)
Simply wrap each descriptive flexfield value in its own and identify the attribute number
At this stage the descriptive flexfield criteria is restricted to a single value or a single range
of values Lists of values and multiple ranges are not supported A range can be specified
using the special range delimiter ldquo|rdquo (pipe character) This character is different to the range
character that is used for normal Get Balance segment parameters The reason is that the
normal range delimiter ldquo-ldquo may easily be used in a segment descriptive flexfields and
therefore is not suitable In future you will be able to configure your own range delimiter
56
character which will provide the best flexibility The range criteria can be specified as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011100|20010000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield
on segment 2 is between 100 and 200 Date values are also supported in this criteria and GL Wand will correctly derive the ldquobetweenrdquo criteria for a date
Calculating
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what cells are refreshed from
Oracle They are used in conjunction with the GL Wand calculation option (onoff) You can stop a calculation at any time by clicking cancel
- Calculate Range (Alt+Ctl+R)
- Calculate Sheet (Alt+Ctl+S)
- Calculate All (Alt+Ctl+A)
- GL Wand calculation on
- GL Wand calculation off
Calculate Range Sheet or All
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what is recalculated
To calculate a range of cells simply
1 Highlight the range
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Rangerdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+R shortcut key
3 Select multiple ranges using the ctrl button (as normal in Excel)
4 Select a range and then select multiple Excel worksheets to calculate the same range on
each sheet
Please note do not use the calculate range option to recalculate the entire sheet ie by
selecting all the cells on the sheet This will take unnecessarily longer Rather use the
calculate sheet option
To calculate a sheet simply
1 Select the applicable sheet
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Sheetrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+S shortcut key
3 Selecting multiple sheets will calculate each of the selected sheets
To calculate all open workbooks simply
1 Click the ldquoCalculate Allrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+A shortcut key
57
GL Wand calculation on or off
You can use the GL Wand calculation toggle button to control when requests for calculations
are sent to the Oracle server
If you toggle GL Wand calculation ldquoOffrdquo calculation requests are not sent to the Oracle server which means you
you can manipulate a worksheet
change cell values
enter new formulae and
perform any other task that would normally cause Excel to recalculate
and the applicable functions will only return the ldquoglwPendingrdquo status and will not
actually calculate a result
This is useful during report development
To calculate the results simply click one of the three calculation buttons ldquoCalculate Range
Sheet or Allrdquo
If you leave the GL Wand calculation option ldquoOnrdquo the applicable functions will be recalculated whenever Excel initiates a calculation process eg
when changing the contents of the cell
changing one of the functions input values deleting a column or row in the worksheet etc
Please note that the GL Wand calculation option has nothing to do with Excel‟s automatic
and manual calculation The GL Wand calculation option controls only the calculation of the
applicable GL Wand functions All other calculations are controlled as normal by the Excel
automatic and manual calculation option
Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
When you perform a recalculation a window will appear to show the progress of the
calculation
58
If you would like to cancel the calculation process simply click the ldquoCancelrdquo button
Please note that GL Wand will need to wait for the next reply from Oracle before the
connection can be closed Therefore it may take some time before the calculation stops and
the window closes
Snapshot
- Snapshot
The snapshot tool can be used to take a snapshot of your GL Wand report This tool will
remove all the GL Wand functions from the workbook and will replace them with the values that the function returned
The results are similar to using the Excel ldquopaste valuesrdquo functionality However this process will only replace GL Wand formulas All other Excel formulas will be left as they were
Please note that you cannot take a snapshot of a protected worksheet rather output the
sheet to PDF format for archive and distribution purposes
When producing a snapshot GL Wand will request a name for the new workbook You can
select an existing workbook and GL Wand will give you the option to append the snapshot
results to the existing workbook or overwrite the existing workbook You therefore have the
option of producing various snapshot reports and combining them into one new workbook in a single operation rather than producing a separate workbook for each snapshot
Hide zeros
- Hide zeros in selected range
Select a report range that contains rows where all the numbers are zero Click the hide zeros
button and GL Wand will hide all the rows in the selected range where all the cells containing
numbers are zero This is very useful for formatting a report which includes many rows
where for example a number of accounts are not used in a particular cost centre or have no
59
balances in a certain period At the click of a button you can hide all the rows that contain only zeros
Select the entire report range when using the hide zeros function GL Wand checks the
selected range for zeros when determining which rows to hide
Excel automatically forces a recalculation of Get Balance formulas when you hide rows on a
report This is normal Excel functionality
This feature can be used on any Excel worksheet and is not limited to GL Wand reports
Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Undo the last hide zeros operation
Click this button to automatically undo the last hide zeros operation
Drill downs
- Drill to default Balance layout
- Drill to default Journal layout
- Drill to default Sub Ledger layout
The drill down options allow you to extract additional detail about a specific ldquoGet Balancerdquo function
1 Select a cell that contains a valid Get Balance function
2 Click on the drill to balance button
3 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
4 The criteria sheet will be populated with the criteria from the Get Balance function
5 The drill down to balance detail will be executed showing all the detailed accounts that make up the total in the Get Balance function
60
See the Create Drill Criteria Sheet section for more details and options on the drill down criteria sheet
Budget variance analysis If you select two cells on the GL Wand report eg one cell with
actual values and one with budget numbers GL Wand will perform a drill down on the Get
Balance function and display the actual and budget values next to each other and a
calculated variance
You now have a variety of options which can be performed from the drill down workbook
1 Modify the parameters on the criteria sheet and perform a new drill to balance Drop
down lists are provided for most of the parameters see the Create Drill Criteria Sheet for
more details
2 Create a summary drill down report
3 If you have performed a balance drill down you can select the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet and then
click drill down to journal details after selecting one or more rows with accounts
4 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo sheet and then click the button to drill down to the full journal
after selecting one or more rows with journal lines The full journal with all the contra
entries for the selected journal lines will be displayed
5 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo or ldquoJournal-Fullrdquo sheet and then click sub-ledger drill down after
selecting one or more rows with journal lines 6 Drill down to Global Consolidation System transactions
When drilling down you have the following options
Double click any cell on the row that you wish to drill down on
61
Select any cell in the row that you want to drill down on and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar
Highlight a range of rows and click the applicable drill down button on the GL Wand
toolbar to drill down on multiple lines at once
Highlight non contiguous rows using the ldquoCtrlrdquo button and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar to drill down on multiple lines which are not adjacent to each other
It is possible to drill from a Get Balance formula directly to the journal or sub ledger
information Similarly you can drill from a detailed balance (on the Balance worksheet)
directly to the sub ledger information If you select these options GL Wand will execute the
interim drill steps automatically Be careful when performing a drill down directly to the
journal or sub ledger detail level as these drill down operations may return many records
GL Wand will automatically group the drill down to journals and sub ledger information using
Excel‟s group and outline functionality This will allow you expand and collapse the data to
show just a portion of the report Headings are also inserted on the journal and sub-ledger drill down to make the report easier to read
On the sub-ledger drill down the heading includes a number in brackets eg ldquo(23) Journal
Name 123rdquo The number indicates which Excel row these sub-ledger lines originated from on
the ldquoJournalsrdquo sheet
You can use the remove drill down report headings button to strip out the headings on
the journal and sub-ledger drill down sheets
A couple of important things to note about drill downs
GL Wand will first count the number of rows that will be retrieved by the drill down
operation
If the row count is more than 1000 you will receive a warning message asking you if
you want to continue
If the row count is more than the defined limit (see Query Limit) you will receive a
warning and the drill down will be cancelled
If the row count is more than the number of rows available in your version of Excel
you will receive an error and the drill down will be cancelled
When you drill down to journal details the ldquoBalance Typerdquo parameter controls how
much detail is returned If this parameter is ldquoPTDrdquo only the current period‟s journals
are returned If this parameter is ldquoYTDrdquo then all the journals for the year are returned and likewise ldquoQTDrdquo will show the journal for the quarter
Ensure that the worksheet is calculated before performing any drill down functions Also
ensure that the cell contains a ldquoGet Balancerdquo function with valid parameter information
A new drill down workbook will be created each time you perform a drill down operation from
a Get Balance function Once you are finished with a drill down workbook simply close it
without saving
You cannot drill down to journal detail on translated balances
Oracle Global Consolidation System
Drill down to Oracle Global Consolidation System (GCS) transactions is also supported
These items will appear on the journal drill down report with a source and category of
62
ldquoConsolidationrdquo If you execute a normal drill down to Sub Ledger on these transactions a
new GL Wand drill workbook will be created and the drill down to the subsidiary set of books will be executed
In order to drill down on a GCS transaction you must be logged on the parent as well as the
subsidiary set of books This can be done using the Multiple Sets of Books logon option
Summary Balance Drill Down
On the drill down Criteria sheet toggle the summarization option to ldquoYrdquo for any segment that
you which to summaries by GL Wand creates a summary trial balance report and
summarizes by the selected segments The report can still be expanded to show the detailed
lines and you can still drill down to journals from these lines
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
51
Combine Text
Combines selected text separated by a delimiter Especially useful to combine segment
values to create a delimited account combinations but can be used to combine any text
Parameter Description
Segment1 through
Segment20
Enter segment values that you wish to combine into an account
combination
Delimiter Defaults to ldquordquo if you leave this parameter blank but you can override
it to any delimiter
Example =Combine_Text(011007000) will return ldquo011007000rdquo
Functional Currency
Returns the functional currency for the set of books
Parameter Description
Book Optionally enter a set of books id to bind the formula to a specific
set of books If this parameter is omitted the set of books currently
selected in the Set of Books dropdown list will be used
Example =Functional_Currency()
Get Daily Rate
Returns the daily exchange rate for the entered criteria
Parameter Description
FromCurrency The ldquoFromrdquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case
eg ldquoUSDrdquo
ToCurrency The ldquoTordquo currency code as configured in Oracle all in upper case eg
ldquoUSDrdquo
ConversionType The conversion type as configured in Oracle Spelling and case must
be identical to the Oracle configuration
ConversionDate The conversion date This must be in Excel date format Either refer
to a cell which contains a date or use one of the Excel date functions
to return a date in the parameter
Example =Get_Daily_Rate(USDGBPReportingDATE(200911))
Function return values
The GL Wand functions will return a variety of results depending on a number of factors If
all the information is entered correctly and there are no restrictions on access to the data or
the GL Wand itself the result should be the General Ledger balance segment value segment description etc However the following are also possible return values
glwDemo ndash this means that you are using GL Wand without a valid trial key entered
into the GL Wand License Key profile option When trying GL Wand without a valid
52
trial key you are only allowed to use the first 20 rows and 20 columns of the first
sheet in the workbook Any formula entered outside this range will not calculate a
value but will only return the word ldquoglwDemordquo This is called evaluation mode A
trial key needs to be requested from within GL Wand and entered into the profile
option to allow full access to all functionality
glwNoAccess ndash When you log on you will be prompted for your applications user name
and password and will then need to select a responsibility to log on to Any security
rules that have been linked to the selected responsibility will be enforced on the GL
Wand data If you attempt to access a balance on a general ledger account that you
do not have access to the function will return the word ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo Please see
the ldquoAudit Get Balancerdquo section for information on how to identify the security rule that is being contravened
Please note that Oracles Hierarchical Security is not supported
glwError ndash If you enter invalid information in a parameter for a GL Wand function the
GL Wand error value will be returned This may happen when you for example
enter an invalid budget name or period name in the Get Balance function or when you
enter an invalid segment number in the next segment value function This error value
will also be returned when you are not logged on The details of the return value will
indicate where the problem exists eg glwError (Logon) glwError (Balance Type)
glwError (Translated Flag) glwError (Actual Flag) glwError (Missing segment)
glwError (Data error) glwError (Range) glwError (Period)
glwPending ndash This value will be returned during the calculation process Whenever a
cell requires calculation and the process has not been completed yet the cell will
contain the value ldquoglwPendingrdquo
glwEditing ndash Displays in the Excel function arguments window when editing a Get Balance formula
Discovering versus Functions
You may have noticed that you can achieve similar results by using the discover tools and
using the functions For example you could use the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button to retrieve the
next segment value or you could use the ldquoNext Segment Valuerdquo function to return the same result The difference between these two approaches is as follows
Com
paris
on b
etw
een D
iscoverin
g a
nd
Functio
ns
Discovering Functions
Results returned as text string to Excel
cell
Value is calculated based on
parameters
Value is static Value is dynamic
Never changes Recalculated when sheet refreshed
Lower performance overhead Higher performance overhead
Discover Down Next Segment Value
Discover Up Previous Segment Value
Discover Left Next Segment Value
Discover Right Previous Segment Value
Discover Properties
Segment Description
Parent flag
53
Enabled Flag
Account Type
Discover Child Ranges No equivalent
Toggle Discover Level
Parameters of next segment value
determine whether parents children or
both are returned
Use the discover buttons with ldquoPeriodrdquo
selected in the segment drop down Period Name
Balance Extract is similar to Get
Balance though the static values it
produces are refreshable
Get Balance
Special Get Balance Criteria
GL Wand supports two special types of criteria in the Get Balance function namely ldquoAccount
Combinationsrdquo and ldquoSegment Descriptive Flexfieldrdquo criteria These two forms of the Get
Balance criteria have very specific syntax which must be carefully adhered to in order to
achieve the correct results You also have the ability to expand account combinations for a
selection that uses the ldquoAccount Combinationrdquo criteria
Account Combinations
In the past the Get Balance function only supported individual segment values eg segment
2 = 100 or 200 and segment 3 = 1000 or 2000 This would result in GL Wand returning all the possible combinations of those segment 2 and 3 values
Now you have the ability to specify account combinations using the new Get Balance syntax
This means that you can create new complex criteria for your Get Balance formula eg
(segment 2 = 100 and segment 3 = 1000) or (segment 2 = 200 and segment 3 = 2000)
With these criteria GL Wand will no longer return all the possible combinations but rather only the combinations you specify
In order to specify account combinations in a Get Balance function you must tell GL Wand
which segments you are combining You do this by entering a special value into the segment
eg if you want to combine criteria for segment 2 and segment 3 you would enter the
following in the parameter for segment 2 ldquoUse_Seg3rdquo This tells GL Wand that that it must
find the criteria for segment 2 inside the segment 3 parameter In the segment 3 parameter
you now enter the criteria for both segment 2 and segment 3 separated by the special
delimiter character eg ldquo1001000rdquo This tells GL Wand that you are looking for accounts where segment 2 is 100 and segment 3 is 1000 An example could look like this
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg3100100020020000000000)
It is possible to combine multiple segments as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg5Use_Seg5Use_Seg510010000000000)
54
You simply point each applicable segment to the parameter where the account combination
using the special ldquoUse_SegXrdquo syntax Then inside the target parameter you combine the fully qualified account combination for the applicable segments delimited with a ldquordquo character
When you specify your account combination you have full flexibility to use ranges lists wild
cards parents and exclude criteria For example this criteria will fetch all the values where
segment 2 is between 100 and 200 and segment 3 is between 1000 and 2000 And in
addition to that it will include the values where segment 2 is 250 (a parent) and segment 3
starts with 33 but will exclude the specific value where segment 2 is 250 and segment 3 is
3320
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA01Use_Seg31001000-200200025033~25033200000000)
You also have the flexibility to group different parts of the account combination together For
example this criteria combines the values for segment 1 and 3 together and combines segment 2 and 4 together
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA
Use_Seg3Use_Seg401100002115010000002001050000)
These new Get Balance syntax options provide you with tremendous flexibility when building your GL Wand reports
Expand Account Combinations
The expand feature allows you to extract all the detailed child segment values that roll up to
the criteria that the user specifies The expand feature has been extended to support account combinations
In order to expand an account combination you would do the following
Ensure that the correct set of books is selected in the drop down list on the GL Wand
toolbar
Select the cell containing the account combination criteria eg ldquo1007000rdquo Click the expand button
GL Wand will now identify that the selected cell contains an account combination rather than
a single segment value You will now be presented with a window to identify which segments from your chart of accounts are represented in the account combination
55
Select the correct segments and click ldquoOKrdquo GL Wand will now extract all the child
combinations that roll up to the criteria that you entered and insert them into the Excel sheet
The other options are as follows
Fix ndash if you tick this option for a segment GL Wand will ldquopegrdquo that segment using the
selected value (this option only makes sense for a parent segment value) You might
for example want to expand all the account combinations used in a particular parent
cost centre Simply ldquoFixrdquo the cost centre segment and GL Wand will return all the
account combinations used within that parent cost centre
Exclude disabled account combination ndash tick this option to only return account combinations that are currently enabled and have not been end dated
The expand account combinations feature can be used as a normal GL Wand ldquoExpandrdquo in
order to extract the detail behind a total but it is also very useful to extract existing account combinations from your Oracle system
This feature can be used very effectively with the Split Text and Combine Text functions
Segment Descriptive Flexfields
In order to extract balances using the descriptive flexfields stored on the segment values
you need to use special syntax in the Get Balance function The syntax works as follows
1ABC
You wrap the descriptive flexfield using curly brackets
The first character after the open bracket identifies which descriptive flexfield
attribute is being referred to
You then separate the descriptive flexfield attribute from the actual value using a ldquordquo You then specify the criteria for this attribute
An example Get Balance function would look as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC10000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield on segment 2 is equal to the value ldquoABCrdquo
It is possible to specify criteria for multiple descriptive flexfields as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC2XX10000000000)
Simply wrap each descriptive flexfield value in its own and identify the attribute number
At this stage the descriptive flexfield criteria is restricted to a single value or a single range
of values Lists of values and multiple ranges are not supported A range can be specified
using the special range delimiter ldquo|rdquo (pipe character) This character is different to the range
character that is used for normal Get Balance segment parameters The reason is that the
normal range delimiter ldquo-ldquo may easily be used in a segment descriptive flexfields and
therefore is not suitable In future you will be able to configure your own range delimiter
56
character which will provide the best flexibility The range criteria can be specified as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011100|20010000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield
on segment 2 is between 100 and 200 Date values are also supported in this criteria and GL Wand will correctly derive the ldquobetweenrdquo criteria for a date
Calculating
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what cells are refreshed from
Oracle They are used in conjunction with the GL Wand calculation option (onoff) You can stop a calculation at any time by clicking cancel
- Calculate Range (Alt+Ctl+R)
- Calculate Sheet (Alt+Ctl+S)
- Calculate All (Alt+Ctl+A)
- GL Wand calculation on
- GL Wand calculation off
Calculate Range Sheet or All
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what is recalculated
To calculate a range of cells simply
1 Highlight the range
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Rangerdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+R shortcut key
3 Select multiple ranges using the ctrl button (as normal in Excel)
4 Select a range and then select multiple Excel worksheets to calculate the same range on
each sheet
Please note do not use the calculate range option to recalculate the entire sheet ie by
selecting all the cells on the sheet This will take unnecessarily longer Rather use the
calculate sheet option
To calculate a sheet simply
1 Select the applicable sheet
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Sheetrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+S shortcut key
3 Selecting multiple sheets will calculate each of the selected sheets
To calculate all open workbooks simply
1 Click the ldquoCalculate Allrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+A shortcut key
57
GL Wand calculation on or off
You can use the GL Wand calculation toggle button to control when requests for calculations
are sent to the Oracle server
If you toggle GL Wand calculation ldquoOffrdquo calculation requests are not sent to the Oracle server which means you
you can manipulate a worksheet
change cell values
enter new formulae and
perform any other task that would normally cause Excel to recalculate
and the applicable functions will only return the ldquoglwPendingrdquo status and will not
actually calculate a result
This is useful during report development
To calculate the results simply click one of the three calculation buttons ldquoCalculate Range
Sheet or Allrdquo
If you leave the GL Wand calculation option ldquoOnrdquo the applicable functions will be recalculated whenever Excel initiates a calculation process eg
when changing the contents of the cell
changing one of the functions input values deleting a column or row in the worksheet etc
Please note that the GL Wand calculation option has nothing to do with Excel‟s automatic
and manual calculation The GL Wand calculation option controls only the calculation of the
applicable GL Wand functions All other calculations are controlled as normal by the Excel
automatic and manual calculation option
Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
When you perform a recalculation a window will appear to show the progress of the
calculation
58
If you would like to cancel the calculation process simply click the ldquoCancelrdquo button
Please note that GL Wand will need to wait for the next reply from Oracle before the
connection can be closed Therefore it may take some time before the calculation stops and
the window closes
Snapshot
- Snapshot
The snapshot tool can be used to take a snapshot of your GL Wand report This tool will
remove all the GL Wand functions from the workbook and will replace them with the values that the function returned
The results are similar to using the Excel ldquopaste valuesrdquo functionality However this process will only replace GL Wand formulas All other Excel formulas will be left as they were
Please note that you cannot take a snapshot of a protected worksheet rather output the
sheet to PDF format for archive and distribution purposes
When producing a snapshot GL Wand will request a name for the new workbook You can
select an existing workbook and GL Wand will give you the option to append the snapshot
results to the existing workbook or overwrite the existing workbook You therefore have the
option of producing various snapshot reports and combining them into one new workbook in a single operation rather than producing a separate workbook for each snapshot
Hide zeros
- Hide zeros in selected range
Select a report range that contains rows where all the numbers are zero Click the hide zeros
button and GL Wand will hide all the rows in the selected range where all the cells containing
numbers are zero This is very useful for formatting a report which includes many rows
where for example a number of accounts are not used in a particular cost centre or have no
59
balances in a certain period At the click of a button you can hide all the rows that contain only zeros
Select the entire report range when using the hide zeros function GL Wand checks the
selected range for zeros when determining which rows to hide
Excel automatically forces a recalculation of Get Balance formulas when you hide rows on a
report This is normal Excel functionality
This feature can be used on any Excel worksheet and is not limited to GL Wand reports
Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Undo the last hide zeros operation
Click this button to automatically undo the last hide zeros operation
Drill downs
- Drill to default Balance layout
- Drill to default Journal layout
- Drill to default Sub Ledger layout
The drill down options allow you to extract additional detail about a specific ldquoGet Balancerdquo function
1 Select a cell that contains a valid Get Balance function
2 Click on the drill to balance button
3 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
4 The criteria sheet will be populated with the criteria from the Get Balance function
5 The drill down to balance detail will be executed showing all the detailed accounts that make up the total in the Get Balance function
60
See the Create Drill Criteria Sheet section for more details and options on the drill down criteria sheet
Budget variance analysis If you select two cells on the GL Wand report eg one cell with
actual values and one with budget numbers GL Wand will perform a drill down on the Get
Balance function and display the actual and budget values next to each other and a
calculated variance
You now have a variety of options which can be performed from the drill down workbook
1 Modify the parameters on the criteria sheet and perform a new drill to balance Drop
down lists are provided for most of the parameters see the Create Drill Criteria Sheet for
more details
2 Create a summary drill down report
3 If you have performed a balance drill down you can select the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet and then
click drill down to journal details after selecting one or more rows with accounts
4 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo sheet and then click the button to drill down to the full journal
after selecting one or more rows with journal lines The full journal with all the contra
entries for the selected journal lines will be displayed
5 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo or ldquoJournal-Fullrdquo sheet and then click sub-ledger drill down after
selecting one or more rows with journal lines 6 Drill down to Global Consolidation System transactions
When drilling down you have the following options
Double click any cell on the row that you wish to drill down on
61
Select any cell in the row that you want to drill down on and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar
Highlight a range of rows and click the applicable drill down button on the GL Wand
toolbar to drill down on multiple lines at once
Highlight non contiguous rows using the ldquoCtrlrdquo button and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar to drill down on multiple lines which are not adjacent to each other
It is possible to drill from a Get Balance formula directly to the journal or sub ledger
information Similarly you can drill from a detailed balance (on the Balance worksheet)
directly to the sub ledger information If you select these options GL Wand will execute the
interim drill steps automatically Be careful when performing a drill down directly to the
journal or sub ledger detail level as these drill down operations may return many records
GL Wand will automatically group the drill down to journals and sub ledger information using
Excel‟s group and outline functionality This will allow you expand and collapse the data to
show just a portion of the report Headings are also inserted on the journal and sub-ledger drill down to make the report easier to read
On the sub-ledger drill down the heading includes a number in brackets eg ldquo(23) Journal
Name 123rdquo The number indicates which Excel row these sub-ledger lines originated from on
the ldquoJournalsrdquo sheet
You can use the remove drill down report headings button to strip out the headings on
the journal and sub-ledger drill down sheets
A couple of important things to note about drill downs
GL Wand will first count the number of rows that will be retrieved by the drill down
operation
If the row count is more than 1000 you will receive a warning message asking you if
you want to continue
If the row count is more than the defined limit (see Query Limit) you will receive a
warning and the drill down will be cancelled
If the row count is more than the number of rows available in your version of Excel
you will receive an error and the drill down will be cancelled
When you drill down to journal details the ldquoBalance Typerdquo parameter controls how
much detail is returned If this parameter is ldquoPTDrdquo only the current period‟s journals
are returned If this parameter is ldquoYTDrdquo then all the journals for the year are returned and likewise ldquoQTDrdquo will show the journal for the quarter
Ensure that the worksheet is calculated before performing any drill down functions Also
ensure that the cell contains a ldquoGet Balancerdquo function with valid parameter information
A new drill down workbook will be created each time you perform a drill down operation from
a Get Balance function Once you are finished with a drill down workbook simply close it
without saving
You cannot drill down to journal detail on translated balances
Oracle Global Consolidation System
Drill down to Oracle Global Consolidation System (GCS) transactions is also supported
These items will appear on the journal drill down report with a source and category of
62
ldquoConsolidationrdquo If you execute a normal drill down to Sub Ledger on these transactions a
new GL Wand drill workbook will be created and the drill down to the subsidiary set of books will be executed
In order to drill down on a GCS transaction you must be logged on the parent as well as the
subsidiary set of books This can be done using the Multiple Sets of Books logon option
Summary Balance Drill Down
On the drill down Criteria sheet toggle the summarization option to ldquoYrdquo for any segment that
you which to summaries by GL Wand creates a summary trial balance report and
summarizes by the selected segments The report can still be expanded to show the detailed
lines and you can still drill down to journals from these lines
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
52
trial key you are only allowed to use the first 20 rows and 20 columns of the first
sheet in the workbook Any formula entered outside this range will not calculate a
value but will only return the word ldquoglwDemordquo This is called evaluation mode A
trial key needs to be requested from within GL Wand and entered into the profile
option to allow full access to all functionality
glwNoAccess ndash When you log on you will be prompted for your applications user name
and password and will then need to select a responsibility to log on to Any security
rules that have been linked to the selected responsibility will be enforced on the GL
Wand data If you attempt to access a balance on a general ledger account that you
do not have access to the function will return the word ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo Please see
the ldquoAudit Get Balancerdquo section for information on how to identify the security rule that is being contravened
Please note that Oracles Hierarchical Security is not supported
glwError ndash If you enter invalid information in a parameter for a GL Wand function the
GL Wand error value will be returned This may happen when you for example
enter an invalid budget name or period name in the Get Balance function or when you
enter an invalid segment number in the next segment value function This error value
will also be returned when you are not logged on The details of the return value will
indicate where the problem exists eg glwError (Logon) glwError (Balance Type)
glwError (Translated Flag) glwError (Actual Flag) glwError (Missing segment)
glwError (Data error) glwError (Range) glwError (Period)
glwPending ndash This value will be returned during the calculation process Whenever a
cell requires calculation and the process has not been completed yet the cell will
contain the value ldquoglwPendingrdquo
glwEditing ndash Displays in the Excel function arguments window when editing a Get Balance formula
Discovering versus Functions
You may have noticed that you can achieve similar results by using the discover tools and
using the functions For example you could use the ldquoDiscover Downrdquo button to retrieve the
next segment value or you could use the ldquoNext Segment Valuerdquo function to return the same result The difference between these two approaches is as follows
Com
paris
on b
etw
een D
iscoverin
g a
nd
Functio
ns
Discovering Functions
Results returned as text string to Excel
cell
Value is calculated based on
parameters
Value is static Value is dynamic
Never changes Recalculated when sheet refreshed
Lower performance overhead Higher performance overhead
Discover Down Next Segment Value
Discover Up Previous Segment Value
Discover Left Next Segment Value
Discover Right Previous Segment Value
Discover Properties
Segment Description
Parent flag
53
Enabled Flag
Account Type
Discover Child Ranges No equivalent
Toggle Discover Level
Parameters of next segment value
determine whether parents children or
both are returned
Use the discover buttons with ldquoPeriodrdquo
selected in the segment drop down Period Name
Balance Extract is similar to Get
Balance though the static values it
produces are refreshable
Get Balance
Special Get Balance Criteria
GL Wand supports two special types of criteria in the Get Balance function namely ldquoAccount
Combinationsrdquo and ldquoSegment Descriptive Flexfieldrdquo criteria These two forms of the Get
Balance criteria have very specific syntax which must be carefully adhered to in order to
achieve the correct results You also have the ability to expand account combinations for a
selection that uses the ldquoAccount Combinationrdquo criteria
Account Combinations
In the past the Get Balance function only supported individual segment values eg segment
2 = 100 or 200 and segment 3 = 1000 or 2000 This would result in GL Wand returning all the possible combinations of those segment 2 and 3 values
Now you have the ability to specify account combinations using the new Get Balance syntax
This means that you can create new complex criteria for your Get Balance formula eg
(segment 2 = 100 and segment 3 = 1000) or (segment 2 = 200 and segment 3 = 2000)
With these criteria GL Wand will no longer return all the possible combinations but rather only the combinations you specify
In order to specify account combinations in a Get Balance function you must tell GL Wand
which segments you are combining You do this by entering a special value into the segment
eg if you want to combine criteria for segment 2 and segment 3 you would enter the
following in the parameter for segment 2 ldquoUse_Seg3rdquo This tells GL Wand that that it must
find the criteria for segment 2 inside the segment 3 parameter In the segment 3 parameter
you now enter the criteria for both segment 2 and segment 3 separated by the special
delimiter character eg ldquo1001000rdquo This tells GL Wand that you are looking for accounts where segment 2 is 100 and segment 3 is 1000 An example could look like this
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg3100100020020000000000)
It is possible to combine multiple segments as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg5Use_Seg5Use_Seg510010000000000)
54
You simply point each applicable segment to the parameter where the account combination
using the special ldquoUse_SegXrdquo syntax Then inside the target parameter you combine the fully qualified account combination for the applicable segments delimited with a ldquordquo character
When you specify your account combination you have full flexibility to use ranges lists wild
cards parents and exclude criteria For example this criteria will fetch all the values where
segment 2 is between 100 and 200 and segment 3 is between 1000 and 2000 And in
addition to that it will include the values where segment 2 is 250 (a parent) and segment 3
starts with 33 but will exclude the specific value where segment 2 is 250 and segment 3 is
3320
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA01Use_Seg31001000-200200025033~25033200000000)
You also have the flexibility to group different parts of the account combination together For
example this criteria combines the values for segment 1 and 3 together and combines segment 2 and 4 together
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA
Use_Seg3Use_Seg401100002115010000002001050000)
These new Get Balance syntax options provide you with tremendous flexibility when building your GL Wand reports
Expand Account Combinations
The expand feature allows you to extract all the detailed child segment values that roll up to
the criteria that the user specifies The expand feature has been extended to support account combinations
In order to expand an account combination you would do the following
Ensure that the correct set of books is selected in the drop down list on the GL Wand
toolbar
Select the cell containing the account combination criteria eg ldquo1007000rdquo Click the expand button
GL Wand will now identify that the selected cell contains an account combination rather than
a single segment value You will now be presented with a window to identify which segments from your chart of accounts are represented in the account combination
55
Select the correct segments and click ldquoOKrdquo GL Wand will now extract all the child
combinations that roll up to the criteria that you entered and insert them into the Excel sheet
The other options are as follows
Fix ndash if you tick this option for a segment GL Wand will ldquopegrdquo that segment using the
selected value (this option only makes sense for a parent segment value) You might
for example want to expand all the account combinations used in a particular parent
cost centre Simply ldquoFixrdquo the cost centre segment and GL Wand will return all the
account combinations used within that parent cost centre
Exclude disabled account combination ndash tick this option to only return account combinations that are currently enabled and have not been end dated
The expand account combinations feature can be used as a normal GL Wand ldquoExpandrdquo in
order to extract the detail behind a total but it is also very useful to extract existing account combinations from your Oracle system
This feature can be used very effectively with the Split Text and Combine Text functions
Segment Descriptive Flexfields
In order to extract balances using the descriptive flexfields stored on the segment values
you need to use special syntax in the Get Balance function The syntax works as follows
1ABC
You wrap the descriptive flexfield using curly brackets
The first character after the open bracket identifies which descriptive flexfield
attribute is being referred to
You then separate the descriptive flexfield attribute from the actual value using a ldquordquo You then specify the criteria for this attribute
An example Get Balance function would look as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC10000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield on segment 2 is equal to the value ldquoABCrdquo
It is possible to specify criteria for multiple descriptive flexfields as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC2XX10000000000)
Simply wrap each descriptive flexfield value in its own and identify the attribute number
At this stage the descriptive flexfield criteria is restricted to a single value or a single range
of values Lists of values and multiple ranges are not supported A range can be specified
using the special range delimiter ldquo|rdquo (pipe character) This character is different to the range
character that is used for normal Get Balance segment parameters The reason is that the
normal range delimiter ldquo-ldquo may easily be used in a segment descriptive flexfields and
therefore is not suitable In future you will be able to configure your own range delimiter
56
character which will provide the best flexibility The range criteria can be specified as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011100|20010000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield
on segment 2 is between 100 and 200 Date values are also supported in this criteria and GL Wand will correctly derive the ldquobetweenrdquo criteria for a date
Calculating
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what cells are refreshed from
Oracle They are used in conjunction with the GL Wand calculation option (onoff) You can stop a calculation at any time by clicking cancel
- Calculate Range (Alt+Ctl+R)
- Calculate Sheet (Alt+Ctl+S)
- Calculate All (Alt+Ctl+A)
- GL Wand calculation on
- GL Wand calculation off
Calculate Range Sheet or All
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what is recalculated
To calculate a range of cells simply
1 Highlight the range
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Rangerdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+R shortcut key
3 Select multiple ranges using the ctrl button (as normal in Excel)
4 Select a range and then select multiple Excel worksheets to calculate the same range on
each sheet
Please note do not use the calculate range option to recalculate the entire sheet ie by
selecting all the cells on the sheet This will take unnecessarily longer Rather use the
calculate sheet option
To calculate a sheet simply
1 Select the applicable sheet
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Sheetrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+S shortcut key
3 Selecting multiple sheets will calculate each of the selected sheets
To calculate all open workbooks simply
1 Click the ldquoCalculate Allrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+A shortcut key
57
GL Wand calculation on or off
You can use the GL Wand calculation toggle button to control when requests for calculations
are sent to the Oracle server
If you toggle GL Wand calculation ldquoOffrdquo calculation requests are not sent to the Oracle server which means you
you can manipulate a worksheet
change cell values
enter new formulae and
perform any other task that would normally cause Excel to recalculate
and the applicable functions will only return the ldquoglwPendingrdquo status and will not
actually calculate a result
This is useful during report development
To calculate the results simply click one of the three calculation buttons ldquoCalculate Range
Sheet or Allrdquo
If you leave the GL Wand calculation option ldquoOnrdquo the applicable functions will be recalculated whenever Excel initiates a calculation process eg
when changing the contents of the cell
changing one of the functions input values deleting a column or row in the worksheet etc
Please note that the GL Wand calculation option has nothing to do with Excel‟s automatic
and manual calculation The GL Wand calculation option controls only the calculation of the
applicable GL Wand functions All other calculations are controlled as normal by the Excel
automatic and manual calculation option
Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
When you perform a recalculation a window will appear to show the progress of the
calculation
58
If you would like to cancel the calculation process simply click the ldquoCancelrdquo button
Please note that GL Wand will need to wait for the next reply from Oracle before the
connection can be closed Therefore it may take some time before the calculation stops and
the window closes
Snapshot
- Snapshot
The snapshot tool can be used to take a snapshot of your GL Wand report This tool will
remove all the GL Wand functions from the workbook and will replace them with the values that the function returned
The results are similar to using the Excel ldquopaste valuesrdquo functionality However this process will only replace GL Wand formulas All other Excel formulas will be left as they were
Please note that you cannot take a snapshot of a protected worksheet rather output the
sheet to PDF format for archive and distribution purposes
When producing a snapshot GL Wand will request a name for the new workbook You can
select an existing workbook and GL Wand will give you the option to append the snapshot
results to the existing workbook or overwrite the existing workbook You therefore have the
option of producing various snapshot reports and combining them into one new workbook in a single operation rather than producing a separate workbook for each snapshot
Hide zeros
- Hide zeros in selected range
Select a report range that contains rows where all the numbers are zero Click the hide zeros
button and GL Wand will hide all the rows in the selected range where all the cells containing
numbers are zero This is very useful for formatting a report which includes many rows
where for example a number of accounts are not used in a particular cost centre or have no
59
balances in a certain period At the click of a button you can hide all the rows that contain only zeros
Select the entire report range when using the hide zeros function GL Wand checks the
selected range for zeros when determining which rows to hide
Excel automatically forces a recalculation of Get Balance formulas when you hide rows on a
report This is normal Excel functionality
This feature can be used on any Excel worksheet and is not limited to GL Wand reports
Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Undo the last hide zeros operation
Click this button to automatically undo the last hide zeros operation
Drill downs
- Drill to default Balance layout
- Drill to default Journal layout
- Drill to default Sub Ledger layout
The drill down options allow you to extract additional detail about a specific ldquoGet Balancerdquo function
1 Select a cell that contains a valid Get Balance function
2 Click on the drill to balance button
3 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
4 The criteria sheet will be populated with the criteria from the Get Balance function
5 The drill down to balance detail will be executed showing all the detailed accounts that make up the total in the Get Balance function
60
See the Create Drill Criteria Sheet section for more details and options on the drill down criteria sheet
Budget variance analysis If you select two cells on the GL Wand report eg one cell with
actual values and one with budget numbers GL Wand will perform a drill down on the Get
Balance function and display the actual and budget values next to each other and a
calculated variance
You now have a variety of options which can be performed from the drill down workbook
1 Modify the parameters on the criteria sheet and perform a new drill to balance Drop
down lists are provided for most of the parameters see the Create Drill Criteria Sheet for
more details
2 Create a summary drill down report
3 If you have performed a balance drill down you can select the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet and then
click drill down to journal details after selecting one or more rows with accounts
4 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo sheet and then click the button to drill down to the full journal
after selecting one or more rows with journal lines The full journal with all the contra
entries for the selected journal lines will be displayed
5 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo or ldquoJournal-Fullrdquo sheet and then click sub-ledger drill down after
selecting one or more rows with journal lines 6 Drill down to Global Consolidation System transactions
When drilling down you have the following options
Double click any cell on the row that you wish to drill down on
61
Select any cell in the row that you want to drill down on and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar
Highlight a range of rows and click the applicable drill down button on the GL Wand
toolbar to drill down on multiple lines at once
Highlight non contiguous rows using the ldquoCtrlrdquo button and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar to drill down on multiple lines which are not adjacent to each other
It is possible to drill from a Get Balance formula directly to the journal or sub ledger
information Similarly you can drill from a detailed balance (on the Balance worksheet)
directly to the sub ledger information If you select these options GL Wand will execute the
interim drill steps automatically Be careful when performing a drill down directly to the
journal or sub ledger detail level as these drill down operations may return many records
GL Wand will automatically group the drill down to journals and sub ledger information using
Excel‟s group and outline functionality This will allow you expand and collapse the data to
show just a portion of the report Headings are also inserted on the journal and sub-ledger drill down to make the report easier to read
On the sub-ledger drill down the heading includes a number in brackets eg ldquo(23) Journal
Name 123rdquo The number indicates which Excel row these sub-ledger lines originated from on
the ldquoJournalsrdquo sheet
You can use the remove drill down report headings button to strip out the headings on
the journal and sub-ledger drill down sheets
A couple of important things to note about drill downs
GL Wand will first count the number of rows that will be retrieved by the drill down
operation
If the row count is more than 1000 you will receive a warning message asking you if
you want to continue
If the row count is more than the defined limit (see Query Limit) you will receive a
warning and the drill down will be cancelled
If the row count is more than the number of rows available in your version of Excel
you will receive an error and the drill down will be cancelled
When you drill down to journal details the ldquoBalance Typerdquo parameter controls how
much detail is returned If this parameter is ldquoPTDrdquo only the current period‟s journals
are returned If this parameter is ldquoYTDrdquo then all the journals for the year are returned and likewise ldquoQTDrdquo will show the journal for the quarter
Ensure that the worksheet is calculated before performing any drill down functions Also
ensure that the cell contains a ldquoGet Balancerdquo function with valid parameter information
A new drill down workbook will be created each time you perform a drill down operation from
a Get Balance function Once you are finished with a drill down workbook simply close it
without saving
You cannot drill down to journal detail on translated balances
Oracle Global Consolidation System
Drill down to Oracle Global Consolidation System (GCS) transactions is also supported
These items will appear on the journal drill down report with a source and category of
62
ldquoConsolidationrdquo If you execute a normal drill down to Sub Ledger on these transactions a
new GL Wand drill workbook will be created and the drill down to the subsidiary set of books will be executed
In order to drill down on a GCS transaction you must be logged on the parent as well as the
subsidiary set of books This can be done using the Multiple Sets of Books logon option
Summary Balance Drill Down
On the drill down Criteria sheet toggle the summarization option to ldquoYrdquo for any segment that
you which to summaries by GL Wand creates a summary trial balance report and
summarizes by the selected segments The report can still be expanded to show the detailed
lines and you can still drill down to journals from these lines
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
53
Enabled Flag
Account Type
Discover Child Ranges No equivalent
Toggle Discover Level
Parameters of next segment value
determine whether parents children or
both are returned
Use the discover buttons with ldquoPeriodrdquo
selected in the segment drop down Period Name
Balance Extract is similar to Get
Balance though the static values it
produces are refreshable
Get Balance
Special Get Balance Criteria
GL Wand supports two special types of criteria in the Get Balance function namely ldquoAccount
Combinationsrdquo and ldquoSegment Descriptive Flexfieldrdquo criteria These two forms of the Get
Balance criteria have very specific syntax which must be carefully adhered to in order to
achieve the correct results You also have the ability to expand account combinations for a
selection that uses the ldquoAccount Combinationrdquo criteria
Account Combinations
In the past the Get Balance function only supported individual segment values eg segment
2 = 100 or 200 and segment 3 = 1000 or 2000 This would result in GL Wand returning all the possible combinations of those segment 2 and 3 values
Now you have the ability to specify account combinations using the new Get Balance syntax
This means that you can create new complex criteria for your Get Balance formula eg
(segment 2 = 100 and segment 3 = 1000) or (segment 2 = 200 and segment 3 = 2000)
With these criteria GL Wand will no longer return all the possible combinations but rather only the combinations you specify
In order to specify account combinations in a Get Balance function you must tell GL Wand
which segments you are combining You do this by entering a special value into the segment
eg if you want to combine criteria for segment 2 and segment 3 you would enter the
following in the parameter for segment 2 ldquoUse_Seg3rdquo This tells GL Wand that that it must
find the criteria for segment 2 inside the segment 3 parameter In the segment 3 parameter
you now enter the criteria for both segment 2 and segment 3 separated by the special
delimiter character eg ldquo1001000rdquo This tells GL Wand that you are looking for accounts where segment 2 is 100 and segment 3 is 1000 An example could look like this
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg3100100020020000000000)
It is possible to combine multiple segments as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA 01Use_Seg5Use_Seg5Use_Seg510010000000000)
54
You simply point each applicable segment to the parameter where the account combination
using the special ldquoUse_SegXrdquo syntax Then inside the target parameter you combine the fully qualified account combination for the applicable segments delimited with a ldquordquo character
When you specify your account combination you have full flexibility to use ranges lists wild
cards parents and exclude criteria For example this criteria will fetch all the values where
segment 2 is between 100 and 200 and segment 3 is between 1000 and 2000 And in
addition to that it will include the values where segment 2 is 250 (a parent) and segment 3
starts with 33 but will exclude the specific value where segment 2 is 250 and segment 3 is
3320
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA01Use_Seg31001000-200200025033~25033200000000)
You also have the flexibility to group different parts of the account combination together For
example this criteria combines the values for segment 1 and 3 together and combines segment 2 and 4 together
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA
Use_Seg3Use_Seg401100002115010000002001050000)
These new Get Balance syntax options provide you with tremendous flexibility when building your GL Wand reports
Expand Account Combinations
The expand feature allows you to extract all the detailed child segment values that roll up to
the criteria that the user specifies The expand feature has been extended to support account combinations
In order to expand an account combination you would do the following
Ensure that the correct set of books is selected in the drop down list on the GL Wand
toolbar
Select the cell containing the account combination criteria eg ldquo1007000rdquo Click the expand button
GL Wand will now identify that the selected cell contains an account combination rather than
a single segment value You will now be presented with a window to identify which segments from your chart of accounts are represented in the account combination
55
Select the correct segments and click ldquoOKrdquo GL Wand will now extract all the child
combinations that roll up to the criteria that you entered and insert them into the Excel sheet
The other options are as follows
Fix ndash if you tick this option for a segment GL Wand will ldquopegrdquo that segment using the
selected value (this option only makes sense for a parent segment value) You might
for example want to expand all the account combinations used in a particular parent
cost centre Simply ldquoFixrdquo the cost centre segment and GL Wand will return all the
account combinations used within that parent cost centre
Exclude disabled account combination ndash tick this option to only return account combinations that are currently enabled and have not been end dated
The expand account combinations feature can be used as a normal GL Wand ldquoExpandrdquo in
order to extract the detail behind a total but it is also very useful to extract existing account combinations from your Oracle system
This feature can be used very effectively with the Split Text and Combine Text functions
Segment Descriptive Flexfields
In order to extract balances using the descriptive flexfields stored on the segment values
you need to use special syntax in the Get Balance function The syntax works as follows
1ABC
You wrap the descriptive flexfield using curly brackets
The first character after the open bracket identifies which descriptive flexfield
attribute is being referred to
You then separate the descriptive flexfield attribute from the actual value using a ldquordquo You then specify the criteria for this attribute
An example Get Balance function would look as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC10000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield on segment 2 is equal to the value ldquoABCrdquo
It is possible to specify criteria for multiple descriptive flexfields as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC2XX10000000000)
Simply wrap each descriptive flexfield value in its own and identify the attribute number
At this stage the descriptive flexfield criteria is restricted to a single value or a single range
of values Lists of values and multiple ranges are not supported A range can be specified
using the special range delimiter ldquo|rdquo (pipe character) This character is different to the range
character that is used for normal Get Balance segment parameters The reason is that the
normal range delimiter ldquo-ldquo may easily be used in a segment descriptive flexfields and
therefore is not suitable In future you will be able to configure your own range delimiter
56
character which will provide the best flexibility The range criteria can be specified as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011100|20010000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield
on segment 2 is between 100 and 200 Date values are also supported in this criteria and GL Wand will correctly derive the ldquobetweenrdquo criteria for a date
Calculating
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what cells are refreshed from
Oracle They are used in conjunction with the GL Wand calculation option (onoff) You can stop a calculation at any time by clicking cancel
- Calculate Range (Alt+Ctl+R)
- Calculate Sheet (Alt+Ctl+S)
- Calculate All (Alt+Ctl+A)
- GL Wand calculation on
- GL Wand calculation off
Calculate Range Sheet or All
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what is recalculated
To calculate a range of cells simply
1 Highlight the range
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Rangerdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+R shortcut key
3 Select multiple ranges using the ctrl button (as normal in Excel)
4 Select a range and then select multiple Excel worksheets to calculate the same range on
each sheet
Please note do not use the calculate range option to recalculate the entire sheet ie by
selecting all the cells on the sheet This will take unnecessarily longer Rather use the
calculate sheet option
To calculate a sheet simply
1 Select the applicable sheet
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Sheetrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+S shortcut key
3 Selecting multiple sheets will calculate each of the selected sheets
To calculate all open workbooks simply
1 Click the ldquoCalculate Allrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+A shortcut key
57
GL Wand calculation on or off
You can use the GL Wand calculation toggle button to control when requests for calculations
are sent to the Oracle server
If you toggle GL Wand calculation ldquoOffrdquo calculation requests are not sent to the Oracle server which means you
you can manipulate a worksheet
change cell values
enter new formulae and
perform any other task that would normally cause Excel to recalculate
and the applicable functions will only return the ldquoglwPendingrdquo status and will not
actually calculate a result
This is useful during report development
To calculate the results simply click one of the three calculation buttons ldquoCalculate Range
Sheet or Allrdquo
If you leave the GL Wand calculation option ldquoOnrdquo the applicable functions will be recalculated whenever Excel initiates a calculation process eg
when changing the contents of the cell
changing one of the functions input values deleting a column or row in the worksheet etc
Please note that the GL Wand calculation option has nothing to do with Excel‟s automatic
and manual calculation The GL Wand calculation option controls only the calculation of the
applicable GL Wand functions All other calculations are controlled as normal by the Excel
automatic and manual calculation option
Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
When you perform a recalculation a window will appear to show the progress of the
calculation
58
If you would like to cancel the calculation process simply click the ldquoCancelrdquo button
Please note that GL Wand will need to wait for the next reply from Oracle before the
connection can be closed Therefore it may take some time before the calculation stops and
the window closes
Snapshot
- Snapshot
The snapshot tool can be used to take a snapshot of your GL Wand report This tool will
remove all the GL Wand functions from the workbook and will replace them with the values that the function returned
The results are similar to using the Excel ldquopaste valuesrdquo functionality However this process will only replace GL Wand formulas All other Excel formulas will be left as they were
Please note that you cannot take a snapshot of a protected worksheet rather output the
sheet to PDF format for archive and distribution purposes
When producing a snapshot GL Wand will request a name for the new workbook You can
select an existing workbook and GL Wand will give you the option to append the snapshot
results to the existing workbook or overwrite the existing workbook You therefore have the
option of producing various snapshot reports and combining them into one new workbook in a single operation rather than producing a separate workbook for each snapshot
Hide zeros
- Hide zeros in selected range
Select a report range that contains rows where all the numbers are zero Click the hide zeros
button and GL Wand will hide all the rows in the selected range where all the cells containing
numbers are zero This is very useful for formatting a report which includes many rows
where for example a number of accounts are not used in a particular cost centre or have no
59
balances in a certain period At the click of a button you can hide all the rows that contain only zeros
Select the entire report range when using the hide zeros function GL Wand checks the
selected range for zeros when determining which rows to hide
Excel automatically forces a recalculation of Get Balance formulas when you hide rows on a
report This is normal Excel functionality
This feature can be used on any Excel worksheet and is not limited to GL Wand reports
Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Undo the last hide zeros operation
Click this button to automatically undo the last hide zeros operation
Drill downs
- Drill to default Balance layout
- Drill to default Journal layout
- Drill to default Sub Ledger layout
The drill down options allow you to extract additional detail about a specific ldquoGet Balancerdquo function
1 Select a cell that contains a valid Get Balance function
2 Click on the drill to balance button
3 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
4 The criteria sheet will be populated with the criteria from the Get Balance function
5 The drill down to balance detail will be executed showing all the detailed accounts that make up the total in the Get Balance function
60
See the Create Drill Criteria Sheet section for more details and options on the drill down criteria sheet
Budget variance analysis If you select two cells on the GL Wand report eg one cell with
actual values and one with budget numbers GL Wand will perform a drill down on the Get
Balance function and display the actual and budget values next to each other and a
calculated variance
You now have a variety of options which can be performed from the drill down workbook
1 Modify the parameters on the criteria sheet and perform a new drill to balance Drop
down lists are provided for most of the parameters see the Create Drill Criteria Sheet for
more details
2 Create a summary drill down report
3 If you have performed a balance drill down you can select the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet and then
click drill down to journal details after selecting one or more rows with accounts
4 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo sheet and then click the button to drill down to the full journal
after selecting one or more rows with journal lines The full journal with all the contra
entries for the selected journal lines will be displayed
5 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo or ldquoJournal-Fullrdquo sheet and then click sub-ledger drill down after
selecting one or more rows with journal lines 6 Drill down to Global Consolidation System transactions
When drilling down you have the following options
Double click any cell on the row that you wish to drill down on
61
Select any cell in the row that you want to drill down on and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar
Highlight a range of rows and click the applicable drill down button on the GL Wand
toolbar to drill down on multiple lines at once
Highlight non contiguous rows using the ldquoCtrlrdquo button and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar to drill down on multiple lines which are not adjacent to each other
It is possible to drill from a Get Balance formula directly to the journal or sub ledger
information Similarly you can drill from a detailed balance (on the Balance worksheet)
directly to the sub ledger information If you select these options GL Wand will execute the
interim drill steps automatically Be careful when performing a drill down directly to the
journal or sub ledger detail level as these drill down operations may return many records
GL Wand will automatically group the drill down to journals and sub ledger information using
Excel‟s group and outline functionality This will allow you expand and collapse the data to
show just a portion of the report Headings are also inserted on the journal and sub-ledger drill down to make the report easier to read
On the sub-ledger drill down the heading includes a number in brackets eg ldquo(23) Journal
Name 123rdquo The number indicates which Excel row these sub-ledger lines originated from on
the ldquoJournalsrdquo sheet
You can use the remove drill down report headings button to strip out the headings on
the journal and sub-ledger drill down sheets
A couple of important things to note about drill downs
GL Wand will first count the number of rows that will be retrieved by the drill down
operation
If the row count is more than 1000 you will receive a warning message asking you if
you want to continue
If the row count is more than the defined limit (see Query Limit) you will receive a
warning and the drill down will be cancelled
If the row count is more than the number of rows available in your version of Excel
you will receive an error and the drill down will be cancelled
When you drill down to journal details the ldquoBalance Typerdquo parameter controls how
much detail is returned If this parameter is ldquoPTDrdquo only the current period‟s journals
are returned If this parameter is ldquoYTDrdquo then all the journals for the year are returned and likewise ldquoQTDrdquo will show the journal for the quarter
Ensure that the worksheet is calculated before performing any drill down functions Also
ensure that the cell contains a ldquoGet Balancerdquo function with valid parameter information
A new drill down workbook will be created each time you perform a drill down operation from
a Get Balance function Once you are finished with a drill down workbook simply close it
without saving
You cannot drill down to journal detail on translated balances
Oracle Global Consolidation System
Drill down to Oracle Global Consolidation System (GCS) transactions is also supported
These items will appear on the journal drill down report with a source and category of
62
ldquoConsolidationrdquo If you execute a normal drill down to Sub Ledger on these transactions a
new GL Wand drill workbook will be created and the drill down to the subsidiary set of books will be executed
In order to drill down on a GCS transaction you must be logged on the parent as well as the
subsidiary set of books This can be done using the Multiple Sets of Books logon option
Summary Balance Drill Down
On the drill down Criteria sheet toggle the summarization option to ldquoYrdquo for any segment that
you which to summaries by GL Wand creates a summary trial balance report and
summarizes by the selected segments The report can still be expanded to show the detailed
lines and you can still drill down to journals from these lines
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
54
You simply point each applicable segment to the parameter where the account combination
using the special ldquoUse_SegXrdquo syntax Then inside the target parameter you combine the fully qualified account combination for the applicable segments delimited with a ldquordquo character
When you specify your account combination you have full flexibility to use ranges lists wild
cards parents and exclude criteria For example this criteria will fetch all the values where
segment 2 is between 100 and 200 and segment 3 is between 1000 and 2000 And in
addition to that it will include the values where segment 2 is 250 (a parent) and segment 3
starts with 33 but will exclude the specific value where segment 2 is 250 and segment 3 is
3320
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA01Use_Seg31001000-200200025033~25033200000000)
You also have the flexibility to group different parts of the account combination together For
example this criteria combines the values for segment 1 and 3 together and combines segment 2 and 4 together
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA
Use_Seg3Use_Seg401100002115010000002001050000)
These new Get Balance syntax options provide you with tremendous flexibility when building your GL Wand reports
Expand Account Combinations
The expand feature allows you to extract all the detailed child segment values that roll up to
the criteria that the user specifies The expand feature has been extended to support account combinations
In order to expand an account combination you would do the following
Ensure that the correct set of books is selected in the drop down list on the GL Wand
toolbar
Select the cell containing the account combination criteria eg ldquo1007000rdquo Click the expand button
GL Wand will now identify that the selected cell contains an account combination rather than
a single segment value You will now be presented with a window to identify which segments from your chart of accounts are represented in the account combination
55
Select the correct segments and click ldquoOKrdquo GL Wand will now extract all the child
combinations that roll up to the criteria that you entered and insert them into the Excel sheet
The other options are as follows
Fix ndash if you tick this option for a segment GL Wand will ldquopegrdquo that segment using the
selected value (this option only makes sense for a parent segment value) You might
for example want to expand all the account combinations used in a particular parent
cost centre Simply ldquoFixrdquo the cost centre segment and GL Wand will return all the
account combinations used within that parent cost centre
Exclude disabled account combination ndash tick this option to only return account combinations that are currently enabled and have not been end dated
The expand account combinations feature can be used as a normal GL Wand ldquoExpandrdquo in
order to extract the detail behind a total but it is also very useful to extract existing account combinations from your Oracle system
This feature can be used very effectively with the Split Text and Combine Text functions
Segment Descriptive Flexfields
In order to extract balances using the descriptive flexfields stored on the segment values
you need to use special syntax in the Get Balance function The syntax works as follows
1ABC
You wrap the descriptive flexfield using curly brackets
The first character after the open bracket identifies which descriptive flexfield
attribute is being referred to
You then separate the descriptive flexfield attribute from the actual value using a ldquordquo You then specify the criteria for this attribute
An example Get Balance function would look as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC10000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield on segment 2 is equal to the value ldquoABCrdquo
It is possible to specify criteria for multiple descriptive flexfields as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC2XX10000000000)
Simply wrap each descriptive flexfield value in its own and identify the attribute number
At this stage the descriptive flexfield criteria is restricted to a single value or a single range
of values Lists of values and multiple ranges are not supported A range can be specified
using the special range delimiter ldquo|rdquo (pipe character) This character is different to the range
character that is used for normal Get Balance segment parameters The reason is that the
normal range delimiter ldquo-ldquo may easily be used in a segment descriptive flexfields and
therefore is not suitable In future you will be able to configure your own range delimiter
56
character which will provide the best flexibility The range criteria can be specified as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011100|20010000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield
on segment 2 is between 100 and 200 Date values are also supported in this criteria and GL Wand will correctly derive the ldquobetweenrdquo criteria for a date
Calculating
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what cells are refreshed from
Oracle They are used in conjunction with the GL Wand calculation option (onoff) You can stop a calculation at any time by clicking cancel
- Calculate Range (Alt+Ctl+R)
- Calculate Sheet (Alt+Ctl+S)
- Calculate All (Alt+Ctl+A)
- GL Wand calculation on
- GL Wand calculation off
Calculate Range Sheet or All
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what is recalculated
To calculate a range of cells simply
1 Highlight the range
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Rangerdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+R shortcut key
3 Select multiple ranges using the ctrl button (as normal in Excel)
4 Select a range and then select multiple Excel worksheets to calculate the same range on
each sheet
Please note do not use the calculate range option to recalculate the entire sheet ie by
selecting all the cells on the sheet This will take unnecessarily longer Rather use the
calculate sheet option
To calculate a sheet simply
1 Select the applicable sheet
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Sheetrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+S shortcut key
3 Selecting multiple sheets will calculate each of the selected sheets
To calculate all open workbooks simply
1 Click the ldquoCalculate Allrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+A shortcut key
57
GL Wand calculation on or off
You can use the GL Wand calculation toggle button to control when requests for calculations
are sent to the Oracle server
If you toggle GL Wand calculation ldquoOffrdquo calculation requests are not sent to the Oracle server which means you
you can manipulate a worksheet
change cell values
enter new formulae and
perform any other task that would normally cause Excel to recalculate
and the applicable functions will only return the ldquoglwPendingrdquo status and will not
actually calculate a result
This is useful during report development
To calculate the results simply click one of the three calculation buttons ldquoCalculate Range
Sheet or Allrdquo
If you leave the GL Wand calculation option ldquoOnrdquo the applicable functions will be recalculated whenever Excel initiates a calculation process eg
when changing the contents of the cell
changing one of the functions input values deleting a column or row in the worksheet etc
Please note that the GL Wand calculation option has nothing to do with Excel‟s automatic
and manual calculation The GL Wand calculation option controls only the calculation of the
applicable GL Wand functions All other calculations are controlled as normal by the Excel
automatic and manual calculation option
Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
When you perform a recalculation a window will appear to show the progress of the
calculation
58
If you would like to cancel the calculation process simply click the ldquoCancelrdquo button
Please note that GL Wand will need to wait for the next reply from Oracle before the
connection can be closed Therefore it may take some time before the calculation stops and
the window closes
Snapshot
- Snapshot
The snapshot tool can be used to take a snapshot of your GL Wand report This tool will
remove all the GL Wand functions from the workbook and will replace them with the values that the function returned
The results are similar to using the Excel ldquopaste valuesrdquo functionality However this process will only replace GL Wand formulas All other Excel formulas will be left as they were
Please note that you cannot take a snapshot of a protected worksheet rather output the
sheet to PDF format for archive and distribution purposes
When producing a snapshot GL Wand will request a name for the new workbook You can
select an existing workbook and GL Wand will give you the option to append the snapshot
results to the existing workbook or overwrite the existing workbook You therefore have the
option of producing various snapshot reports and combining them into one new workbook in a single operation rather than producing a separate workbook for each snapshot
Hide zeros
- Hide zeros in selected range
Select a report range that contains rows where all the numbers are zero Click the hide zeros
button and GL Wand will hide all the rows in the selected range where all the cells containing
numbers are zero This is very useful for formatting a report which includes many rows
where for example a number of accounts are not used in a particular cost centre or have no
59
balances in a certain period At the click of a button you can hide all the rows that contain only zeros
Select the entire report range when using the hide zeros function GL Wand checks the
selected range for zeros when determining which rows to hide
Excel automatically forces a recalculation of Get Balance formulas when you hide rows on a
report This is normal Excel functionality
This feature can be used on any Excel worksheet and is not limited to GL Wand reports
Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Undo the last hide zeros operation
Click this button to automatically undo the last hide zeros operation
Drill downs
- Drill to default Balance layout
- Drill to default Journal layout
- Drill to default Sub Ledger layout
The drill down options allow you to extract additional detail about a specific ldquoGet Balancerdquo function
1 Select a cell that contains a valid Get Balance function
2 Click on the drill to balance button
3 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
4 The criteria sheet will be populated with the criteria from the Get Balance function
5 The drill down to balance detail will be executed showing all the detailed accounts that make up the total in the Get Balance function
60
See the Create Drill Criteria Sheet section for more details and options on the drill down criteria sheet
Budget variance analysis If you select two cells on the GL Wand report eg one cell with
actual values and one with budget numbers GL Wand will perform a drill down on the Get
Balance function and display the actual and budget values next to each other and a
calculated variance
You now have a variety of options which can be performed from the drill down workbook
1 Modify the parameters on the criteria sheet and perform a new drill to balance Drop
down lists are provided for most of the parameters see the Create Drill Criteria Sheet for
more details
2 Create a summary drill down report
3 If you have performed a balance drill down you can select the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet and then
click drill down to journal details after selecting one or more rows with accounts
4 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo sheet and then click the button to drill down to the full journal
after selecting one or more rows with journal lines The full journal with all the contra
entries for the selected journal lines will be displayed
5 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo or ldquoJournal-Fullrdquo sheet and then click sub-ledger drill down after
selecting one or more rows with journal lines 6 Drill down to Global Consolidation System transactions
When drilling down you have the following options
Double click any cell on the row that you wish to drill down on
61
Select any cell in the row that you want to drill down on and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar
Highlight a range of rows and click the applicable drill down button on the GL Wand
toolbar to drill down on multiple lines at once
Highlight non contiguous rows using the ldquoCtrlrdquo button and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar to drill down on multiple lines which are not adjacent to each other
It is possible to drill from a Get Balance formula directly to the journal or sub ledger
information Similarly you can drill from a detailed balance (on the Balance worksheet)
directly to the sub ledger information If you select these options GL Wand will execute the
interim drill steps automatically Be careful when performing a drill down directly to the
journal or sub ledger detail level as these drill down operations may return many records
GL Wand will automatically group the drill down to journals and sub ledger information using
Excel‟s group and outline functionality This will allow you expand and collapse the data to
show just a portion of the report Headings are also inserted on the journal and sub-ledger drill down to make the report easier to read
On the sub-ledger drill down the heading includes a number in brackets eg ldquo(23) Journal
Name 123rdquo The number indicates which Excel row these sub-ledger lines originated from on
the ldquoJournalsrdquo sheet
You can use the remove drill down report headings button to strip out the headings on
the journal and sub-ledger drill down sheets
A couple of important things to note about drill downs
GL Wand will first count the number of rows that will be retrieved by the drill down
operation
If the row count is more than 1000 you will receive a warning message asking you if
you want to continue
If the row count is more than the defined limit (see Query Limit) you will receive a
warning and the drill down will be cancelled
If the row count is more than the number of rows available in your version of Excel
you will receive an error and the drill down will be cancelled
When you drill down to journal details the ldquoBalance Typerdquo parameter controls how
much detail is returned If this parameter is ldquoPTDrdquo only the current period‟s journals
are returned If this parameter is ldquoYTDrdquo then all the journals for the year are returned and likewise ldquoQTDrdquo will show the journal for the quarter
Ensure that the worksheet is calculated before performing any drill down functions Also
ensure that the cell contains a ldquoGet Balancerdquo function with valid parameter information
A new drill down workbook will be created each time you perform a drill down operation from
a Get Balance function Once you are finished with a drill down workbook simply close it
without saving
You cannot drill down to journal detail on translated balances
Oracle Global Consolidation System
Drill down to Oracle Global Consolidation System (GCS) transactions is also supported
These items will appear on the journal drill down report with a source and category of
62
ldquoConsolidationrdquo If you execute a normal drill down to Sub Ledger on these transactions a
new GL Wand drill workbook will be created and the drill down to the subsidiary set of books will be executed
In order to drill down on a GCS transaction you must be logged on the parent as well as the
subsidiary set of books This can be done using the Multiple Sets of Books logon option
Summary Balance Drill Down
On the drill down Criteria sheet toggle the summarization option to ldquoYrdquo for any segment that
you which to summaries by GL Wand creates a summary trial balance report and
summarizes by the selected segments The report can still be expanded to show the detailed
lines and you can still drill down to journals from these lines
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
55
Select the correct segments and click ldquoOKrdquo GL Wand will now extract all the child
combinations that roll up to the criteria that you entered and insert them into the Excel sheet
The other options are as follows
Fix ndash if you tick this option for a segment GL Wand will ldquopegrdquo that segment using the
selected value (this option only makes sense for a parent segment value) You might
for example want to expand all the account combinations used in a particular parent
cost centre Simply ldquoFixrdquo the cost centre segment and GL Wand will return all the
account combinations used within that parent cost centre
Exclude disabled account combination ndash tick this option to only return account combinations that are currently enabled and have not been end dated
The expand account combinations feature can be used as a normal GL Wand ldquoExpandrdquo in
order to extract the detail behind a total but it is also very useful to extract existing account combinations from your Oracle system
This feature can be used very effectively with the Split Text and Combine Text functions
Segment Descriptive Flexfields
In order to extract balances using the descriptive flexfields stored on the segment values
you need to use special syntax in the Get Balance function The syntax works as follows
1ABC
You wrap the descriptive flexfield using curly brackets
The first character after the open bracket identifies which descriptive flexfield
attribute is being referred to
You then separate the descriptive flexfield attribute from the actual value using a ldquordquo You then specify the criteria for this attribute
An example Get Balance function would look as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC10000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield on segment 2 is equal to the value ldquoABCrdquo
It is possible to specify criteria for multiple descriptive flexfields as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011ABC2XX10000000000)
Simply wrap each descriptive flexfield value in its own and identify the attribute number
At this stage the descriptive flexfield criteria is restricted to a single value or a single range
of values Lists of values and multiple ranges are not supported A range can be specified
using the special range delimiter ldquo|rdquo (pipe character) This character is different to the range
character that is used for normal Get Balance segment parameters The reason is that the
normal range delimiter ldquo-ldquo may easily be used in a segment descriptive flexfields and
therefore is not suitable In future you will be able to configure your own range delimiter
56
character which will provide the best flexibility The range criteria can be specified as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011100|20010000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield
on segment 2 is between 100 and 200 Date values are also supported in this criteria and GL Wand will correctly derive the ldquobetweenrdquo criteria for a date
Calculating
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what cells are refreshed from
Oracle They are used in conjunction with the GL Wand calculation option (onoff) You can stop a calculation at any time by clicking cancel
- Calculate Range (Alt+Ctl+R)
- Calculate Sheet (Alt+Ctl+S)
- Calculate All (Alt+Ctl+A)
- GL Wand calculation on
- GL Wand calculation off
Calculate Range Sheet or All
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what is recalculated
To calculate a range of cells simply
1 Highlight the range
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Rangerdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+R shortcut key
3 Select multiple ranges using the ctrl button (as normal in Excel)
4 Select a range and then select multiple Excel worksheets to calculate the same range on
each sheet
Please note do not use the calculate range option to recalculate the entire sheet ie by
selecting all the cells on the sheet This will take unnecessarily longer Rather use the
calculate sheet option
To calculate a sheet simply
1 Select the applicable sheet
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Sheetrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+S shortcut key
3 Selecting multiple sheets will calculate each of the selected sheets
To calculate all open workbooks simply
1 Click the ldquoCalculate Allrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+A shortcut key
57
GL Wand calculation on or off
You can use the GL Wand calculation toggle button to control when requests for calculations
are sent to the Oracle server
If you toggle GL Wand calculation ldquoOffrdquo calculation requests are not sent to the Oracle server which means you
you can manipulate a worksheet
change cell values
enter new formulae and
perform any other task that would normally cause Excel to recalculate
and the applicable functions will only return the ldquoglwPendingrdquo status and will not
actually calculate a result
This is useful during report development
To calculate the results simply click one of the three calculation buttons ldquoCalculate Range
Sheet or Allrdquo
If you leave the GL Wand calculation option ldquoOnrdquo the applicable functions will be recalculated whenever Excel initiates a calculation process eg
when changing the contents of the cell
changing one of the functions input values deleting a column or row in the worksheet etc
Please note that the GL Wand calculation option has nothing to do with Excel‟s automatic
and manual calculation The GL Wand calculation option controls only the calculation of the
applicable GL Wand functions All other calculations are controlled as normal by the Excel
automatic and manual calculation option
Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
When you perform a recalculation a window will appear to show the progress of the
calculation
58
If you would like to cancel the calculation process simply click the ldquoCancelrdquo button
Please note that GL Wand will need to wait for the next reply from Oracle before the
connection can be closed Therefore it may take some time before the calculation stops and
the window closes
Snapshot
- Snapshot
The snapshot tool can be used to take a snapshot of your GL Wand report This tool will
remove all the GL Wand functions from the workbook and will replace them with the values that the function returned
The results are similar to using the Excel ldquopaste valuesrdquo functionality However this process will only replace GL Wand formulas All other Excel formulas will be left as they were
Please note that you cannot take a snapshot of a protected worksheet rather output the
sheet to PDF format for archive and distribution purposes
When producing a snapshot GL Wand will request a name for the new workbook You can
select an existing workbook and GL Wand will give you the option to append the snapshot
results to the existing workbook or overwrite the existing workbook You therefore have the
option of producing various snapshot reports and combining them into one new workbook in a single operation rather than producing a separate workbook for each snapshot
Hide zeros
- Hide zeros in selected range
Select a report range that contains rows where all the numbers are zero Click the hide zeros
button and GL Wand will hide all the rows in the selected range where all the cells containing
numbers are zero This is very useful for formatting a report which includes many rows
where for example a number of accounts are not used in a particular cost centre or have no
59
balances in a certain period At the click of a button you can hide all the rows that contain only zeros
Select the entire report range when using the hide zeros function GL Wand checks the
selected range for zeros when determining which rows to hide
Excel automatically forces a recalculation of Get Balance formulas when you hide rows on a
report This is normal Excel functionality
This feature can be used on any Excel worksheet and is not limited to GL Wand reports
Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Undo the last hide zeros operation
Click this button to automatically undo the last hide zeros operation
Drill downs
- Drill to default Balance layout
- Drill to default Journal layout
- Drill to default Sub Ledger layout
The drill down options allow you to extract additional detail about a specific ldquoGet Balancerdquo function
1 Select a cell that contains a valid Get Balance function
2 Click on the drill to balance button
3 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
4 The criteria sheet will be populated with the criteria from the Get Balance function
5 The drill down to balance detail will be executed showing all the detailed accounts that make up the total in the Get Balance function
60
See the Create Drill Criteria Sheet section for more details and options on the drill down criteria sheet
Budget variance analysis If you select two cells on the GL Wand report eg one cell with
actual values and one with budget numbers GL Wand will perform a drill down on the Get
Balance function and display the actual and budget values next to each other and a
calculated variance
You now have a variety of options which can be performed from the drill down workbook
1 Modify the parameters on the criteria sheet and perform a new drill to balance Drop
down lists are provided for most of the parameters see the Create Drill Criteria Sheet for
more details
2 Create a summary drill down report
3 If you have performed a balance drill down you can select the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet and then
click drill down to journal details after selecting one or more rows with accounts
4 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo sheet and then click the button to drill down to the full journal
after selecting one or more rows with journal lines The full journal with all the contra
entries for the selected journal lines will be displayed
5 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo or ldquoJournal-Fullrdquo sheet and then click sub-ledger drill down after
selecting one or more rows with journal lines 6 Drill down to Global Consolidation System transactions
When drilling down you have the following options
Double click any cell on the row that you wish to drill down on
61
Select any cell in the row that you want to drill down on and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar
Highlight a range of rows and click the applicable drill down button on the GL Wand
toolbar to drill down on multiple lines at once
Highlight non contiguous rows using the ldquoCtrlrdquo button and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar to drill down on multiple lines which are not adjacent to each other
It is possible to drill from a Get Balance formula directly to the journal or sub ledger
information Similarly you can drill from a detailed balance (on the Balance worksheet)
directly to the sub ledger information If you select these options GL Wand will execute the
interim drill steps automatically Be careful when performing a drill down directly to the
journal or sub ledger detail level as these drill down operations may return many records
GL Wand will automatically group the drill down to journals and sub ledger information using
Excel‟s group and outline functionality This will allow you expand and collapse the data to
show just a portion of the report Headings are also inserted on the journal and sub-ledger drill down to make the report easier to read
On the sub-ledger drill down the heading includes a number in brackets eg ldquo(23) Journal
Name 123rdquo The number indicates which Excel row these sub-ledger lines originated from on
the ldquoJournalsrdquo sheet
You can use the remove drill down report headings button to strip out the headings on
the journal and sub-ledger drill down sheets
A couple of important things to note about drill downs
GL Wand will first count the number of rows that will be retrieved by the drill down
operation
If the row count is more than 1000 you will receive a warning message asking you if
you want to continue
If the row count is more than the defined limit (see Query Limit) you will receive a
warning and the drill down will be cancelled
If the row count is more than the number of rows available in your version of Excel
you will receive an error and the drill down will be cancelled
When you drill down to journal details the ldquoBalance Typerdquo parameter controls how
much detail is returned If this parameter is ldquoPTDrdquo only the current period‟s journals
are returned If this parameter is ldquoYTDrdquo then all the journals for the year are returned and likewise ldquoQTDrdquo will show the journal for the quarter
Ensure that the worksheet is calculated before performing any drill down functions Also
ensure that the cell contains a ldquoGet Balancerdquo function with valid parameter information
A new drill down workbook will be created each time you perform a drill down operation from
a Get Balance function Once you are finished with a drill down workbook simply close it
without saving
You cannot drill down to journal detail on translated balances
Oracle Global Consolidation System
Drill down to Oracle Global Consolidation System (GCS) transactions is also supported
These items will appear on the journal drill down report with a source and category of
62
ldquoConsolidationrdquo If you execute a normal drill down to Sub Ledger on these transactions a
new GL Wand drill workbook will be created and the drill down to the subsidiary set of books will be executed
In order to drill down on a GCS transaction you must be logged on the parent as well as the
subsidiary set of books This can be done using the Multiple Sets of Books logon option
Summary Balance Drill Down
On the drill down Criteria sheet toggle the summarization option to ldquoYrdquo for any segment that
you which to summaries by GL Wand creates a summary trial balance report and
summarizes by the selected segments The report can still be expanded to show the detailed
lines and you can still drill down to journals from these lines
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
56
character which will provide the best flexibility The range criteria can be specified as follows
=Get_Balance(Jan-02PTDUSDEA011100|20010000000000)
This example will return all the values where attribute 1 of the segment descriptive flexfield
on segment 2 is between 100 and 200 Date values are also supported in this criteria and GL Wand will correctly derive the ldquobetweenrdquo criteria for a date
Calculating
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what cells are refreshed from
Oracle They are used in conjunction with the GL Wand calculation option (onoff) You can stop a calculation at any time by clicking cancel
- Calculate Range (Alt+Ctl+R)
- Calculate Sheet (Alt+Ctl+S)
- Calculate All (Alt+Ctl+A)
- GL Wand calculation on
- GL Wand calculation off
Calculate Range Sheet or All
The three calculation buttons allow you to control exactly what is recalculated
To calculate a range of cells simply
1 Highlight the range
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Rangerdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+R shortcut key
3 Select multiple ranges using the ctrl button (as normal in Excel)
4 Select a range and then select multiple Excel worksheets to calculate the same range on
each sheet
Please note do not use the calculate range option to recalculate the entire sheet ie by
selecting all the cells on the sheet This will take unnecessarily longer Rather use the
calculate sheet option
To calculate a sheet simply
1 Select the applicable sheet
2 Click the ldquoCalculate Sheetrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+S shortcut key
3 Selecting multiple sheets will calculate each of the selected sheets
To calculate all open workbooks simply
1 Click the ldquoCalculate Allrdquo button or use the Alt+Ctl+A shortcut key
57
GL Wand calculation on or off
You can use the GL Wand calculation toggle button to control when requests for calculations
are sent to the Oracle server
If you toggle GL Wand calculation ldquoOffrdquo calculation requests are not sent to the Oracle server which means you
you can manipulate a worksheet
change cell values
enter new formulae and
perform any other task that would normally cause Excel to recalculate
and the applicable functions will only return the ldquoglwPendingrdquo status and will not
actually calculate a result
This is useful during report development
To calculate the results simply click one of the three calculation buttons ldquoCalculate Range
Sheet or Allrdquo
If you leave the GL Wand calculation option ldquoOnrdquo the applicable functions will be recalculated whenever Excel initiates a calculation process eg
when changing the contents of the cell
changing one of the functions input values deleting a column or row in the worksheet etc
Please note that the GL Wand calculation option has nothing to do with Excel‟s automatic
and manual calculation The GL Wand calculation option controls only the calculation of the
applicable GL Wand functions All other calculations are controlled as normal by the Excel
automatic and manual calculation option
Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
When you perform a recalculation a window will appear to show the progress of the
calculation
58
If you would like to cancel the calculation process simply click the ldquoCancelrdquo button
Please note that GL Wand will need to wait for the next reply from Oracle before the
connection can be closed Therefore it may take some time before the calculation stops and
the window closes
Snapshot
- Snapshot
The snapshot tool can be used to take a snapshot of your GL Wand report This tool will
remove all the GL Wand functions from the workbook and will replace them with the values that the function returned
The results are similar to using the Excel ldquopaste valuesrdquo functionality However this process will only replace GL Wand formulas All other Excel formulas will be left as they were
Please note that you cannot take a snapshot of a protected worksheet rather output the
sheet to PDF format for archive and distribution purposes
When producing a snapshot GL Wand will request a name for the new workbook You can
select an existing workbook and GL Wand will give you the option to append the snapshot
results to the existing workbook or overwrite the existing workbook You therefore have the
option of producing various snapshot reports and combining them into one new workbook in a single operation rather than producing a separate workbook for each snapshot
Hide zeros
- Hide zeros in selected range
Select a report range that contains rows where all the numbers are zero Click the hide zeros
button and GL Wand will hide all the rows in the selected range where all the cells containing
numbers are zero This is very useful for formatting a report which includes many rows
where for example a number of accounts are not used in a particular cost centre or have no
59
balances in a certain period At the click of a button you can hide all the rows that contain only zeros
Select the entire report range when using the hide zeros function GL Wand checks the
selected range for zeros when determining which rows to hide
Excel automatically forces a recalculation of Get Balance formulas when you hide rows on a
report This is normal Excel functionality
This feature can be used on any Excel worksheet and is not limited to GL Wand reports
Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Undo the last hide zeros operation
Click this button to automatically undo the last hide zeros operation
Drill downs
- Drill to default Balance layout
- Drill to default Journal layout
- Drill to default Sub Ledger layout
The drill down options allow you to extract additional detail about a specific ldquoGet Balancerdquo function
1 Select a cell that contains a valid Get Balance function
2 Click on the drill to balance button
3 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
4 The criteria sheet will be populated with the criteria from the Get Balance function
5 The drill down to balance detail will be executed showing all the detailed accounts that make up the total in the Get Balance function
60
See the Create Drill Criteria Sheet section for more details and options on the drill down criteria sheet
Budget variance analysis If you select two cells on the GL Wand report eg one cell with
actual values and one with budget numbers GL Wand will perform a drill down on the Get
Balance function and display the actual and budget values next to each other and a
calculated variance
You now have a variety of options which can be performed from the drill down workbook
1 Modify the parameters on the criteria sheet and perform a new drill to balance Drop
down lists are provided for most of the parameters see the Create Drill Criteria Sheet for
more details
2 Create a summary drill down report
3 If you have performed a balance drill down you can select the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet and then
click drill down to journal details after selecting one or more rows with accounts
4 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo sheet and then click the button to drill down to the full journal
after selecting one or more rows with journal lines The full journal with all the contra
entries for the selected journal lines will be displayed
5 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo or ldquoJournal-Fullrdquo sheet and then click sub-ledger drill down after
selecting one or more rows with journal lines 6 Drill down to Global Consolidation System transactions
When drilling down you have the following options
Double click any cell on the row that you wish to drill down on
61
Select any cell in the row that you want to drill down on and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar
Highlight a range of rows and click the applicable drill down button on the GL Wand
toolbar to drill down on multiple lines at once
Highlight non contiguous rows using the ldquoCtrlrdquo button and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar to drill down on multiple lines which are not adjacent to each other
It is possible to drill from a Get Balance formula directly to the journal or sub ledger
information Similarly you can drill from a detailed balance (on the Balance worksheet)
directly to the sub ledger information If you select these options GL Wand will execute the
interim drill steps automatically Be careful when performing a drill down directly to the
journal or sub ledger detail level as these drill down operations may return many records
GL Wand will automatically group the drill down to journals and sub ledger information using
Excel‟s group and outline functionality This will allow you expand and collapse the data to
show just a portion of the report Headings are also inserted on the journal and sub-ledger drill down to make the report easier to read
On the sub-ledger drill down the heading includes a number in brackets eg ldquo(23) Journal
Name 123rdquo The number indicates which Excel row these sub-ledger lines originated from on
the ldquoJournalsrdquo sheet
You can use the remove drill down report headings button to strip out the headings on
the journal and sub-ledger drill down sheets
A couple of important things to note about drill downs
GL Wand will first count the number of rows that will be retrieved by the drill down
operation
If the row count is more than 1000 you will receive a warning message asking you if
you want to continue
If the row count is more than the defined limit (see Query Limit) you will receive a
warning and the drill down will be cancelled
If the row count is more than the number of rows available in your version of Excel
you will receive an error and the drill down will be cancelled
When you drill down to journal details the ldquoBalance Typerdquo parameter controls how
much detail is returned If this parameter is ldquoPTDrdquo only the current period‟s journals
are returned If this parameter is ldquoYTDrdquo then all the journals for the year are returned and likewise ldquoQTDrdquo will show the journal for the quarter
Ensure that the worksheet is calculated before performing any drill down functions Also
ensure that the cell contains a ldquoGet Balancerdquo function with valid parameter information
A new drill down workbook will be created each time you perform a drill down operation from
a Get Balance function Once you are finished with a drill down workbook simply close it
without saving
You cannot drill down to journal detail on translated balances
Oracle Global Consolidation System
Drill down to Oracle Global Consolidation System (GCS) transactions is also supported
These items will appear on the journal drill down report with a source and category of
62
ldquoConsolidationrdquo If you execute a normal drill down to Sub Ledger on these transactions a
new GL Wand drill workbook will be created and the drill down to the subsidiary set of books will be executed
In order to drill down on a GCS transaction you must be logged on the parent as well as the
subsidiary set of books This can be done using the Multiple Sets of Books logon option
Summary Balance Drill Down
On the drill down Criteria sheet toggle the summarization option to ldquoYrdquo for any segment that
you which to summaries by GL Wand creates a summary trial balance report and
summarizes by the selected segments The report can still be expanded to show the detailed
lines and you can still drill down to journals from these lines
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
57
GL Wand calculation on or off
You can use the GL Wand calculation toggle button to control when requests for calculations
are sent to the Oracle server
If you toggle GL Wand calculation ldquoOffrdquo calculation requests are not sent to the Oracle server which means you
you can manipulate a worksheet
change cell values
enter new formulae and
perform any other task that would normally cause Excel to recalculate
and the applicable functions will only return the ldquoglwPendingrdquo status and will not
actually calculate a result
This is useful during report development
To calculate the results simply click one of the three calculation buttons ldquoCalculate Range
Sheet or Allrdquo
If you leave the GL Wand calculation option ldquoOnrdquo the applicable functions will be recalculated whenever Excel initiates a calculation process eg
when changing the contents of the cell
changing one of the functions input values deleting a column or row in the worksheet etc
Please note that the GL Wand calculation option has nothing to do with Excel‟s automatic
and manual calculation The GL Wand calculation option controls only the calculation of the
applicable GL Wand functions All other calculations are controlled as normal by the Excel
automatic and manual calculation option
Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
When you perform a recalculation a window will appear to show the progress of the
calculation
58
If you would like to cancel the calculation process simply click the ldquoCancelrdquo button
Please note that GL Wand will need to wait for the next reply from Oracle before the
connection can be closed Therefore it may take some time before the calculation stops and
the window closes
Snapshot
- Snapshot
The snapshot tool can be used to take a snapshot of your GL Wand report This tool will
remove all the GL Wand functions from the workbook and will replace them with the values that the function returned
The results are similar to using the Excel ldquopaste valuesrdquo functionality However this process will only replace GL Wand formulas All other Excel formulas will be left as they were
Please note that you cannot take a snapshot of a protected worksheet rather output the
sheet to PDF format for archive and distribution purposes
When producing a snapshot GL Wand will request a name for the new workbook You can
select an existing workbook and GL Wand will give you the option to append the snapshot
results to the existing workbook or overwrite the existing workbook You therefore have the
option of producing various snapshot reports and combining them into one new workbook in a single operation rather than producing a separate workbook for each snapshot
Hide zeros
- Hide zeros in selected range
Select a report range that contains rows where all the numbers are zero Click the hide zeros
button and GL Wand will hide all the rows in the selected range where all the cells containing
numbers are zero This is very useful for formatting a report which includes many rows
where for example a number of accounts are not used in a particular cost centre or have no
59
balances in a certain period At the click of a button you can hide all the rows that contain only zeros
Select the entire report range when using the hide zeros function GL Wand checks the
selected range for zeros when determining which rows to hide
Excel automatically forces a recalculation of Get Balance formulas when you hide rows on a
report This is normal Excel functionality
This feature can be used on any Excel worksheet and is not limited to GL Wand reports
Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Undo the last hide zeros operation
Click this button to automatically undo the last hide zeros operation
Drill downs
- Drill to default Balance layout
- Drill to default Journal layout
- Drill to default Sub Ledger layout
The drill down options allow you to extract additional detail about a specific ldquoGet Balancerdquo function
1 Select a cell that contains a valid Get Balance function
2 Click on the drill to balance button
3 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
4 The criteria sheet will be populated with the criteria from the Get Balance function
5 The drill down to balance detail will be executed showing all the detailed accounts that make up the total in the Get Balance function
60
See the Create Drill Criteria Sheet section for more details and options on the drill down criteria sheet
Budget variance analysis If you select two cells on the GL Wand report eg one cell with
actual values and one with budget numbers GL Wand will perform a drill down on the Get
Balance function and display the actual and budget values next to each other and a
calculated variance
You now have a variety of options which can be performed from the drill down workbook
1 Modify the parameters on the criteria sheet and perform a new drill to balance Drop
down lists are provided for most of the parameters see the Create Drill Criteria Sheet for
more details
2 Create a summary drill down report
3 If you have performed a balance drill down you can select the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet and then
click drill down to journal details after selecting one or more rows with accounts
4 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo sheet and then click the button to drill down to the full journal
after selecting one or more rows with journal lines The full journal with all the contra
entries for the selected journal lines will be displayed
5 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo or ldquoJournal-Fullrdquo sheet and then click sub-ledger drill down after
selecting one or more rows with journal lines 6 Drill down to Global Consolidation System transactions
When drilling down you have the following options
Double click any cell on the row that you wish to drill down on
61
Select any cell in the row that you want to drill down on and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar
Highlight a range of rows and click the applicable drill down button on the GL Wand
toolbar to drill down on multiple lines at once
Highlight non contiguous rows using the ldquoCtrlrdquo button and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar to drill down on multiple lines which are not adjacent to each other
It is possible to drill from a Get Balance formula directly to the journal or sub ledger
information Similarly you can drill from a detailed balance (on the Balance worksheet)
directly to the sub ledger information If you select these options GL Wand will execute the
interim drill steps automatically Be careful when performing a drill down directly to the
journal or sub ledger detail level as these drill down operations may return many records
GL Wand will automatically group the drill down to journals and sub ledger information using
Excel‟s group and outline functionality This will allow you expand and collapse the data to
show just a portion of the report Headings are also inserted on the journal and sub-ledger drill down to make the report easier to read
On the sub-ledger drill down the heading includes a number in brackets eg ldquo(23) Journal
Name 123rdquo The number indicates which Excel row these sub-ledger lines originated from on
the ldquoJournalsrdquo sheet
You can use the remove drill down report headings button to strip out the headings on
the journal and sub-ledger drill down sheets
A couple of important things to note about drill downs
GL Wand will first count the number of rows that will be retrieved by the drill down
operation
If the row count is more than 1000 you will receive a warning message asking you if
you want to continue
If the row count is more than the defined limit (see Query Limit) you will receive a
warning and the drill down will be cancelled
If the row count is more than the number of rows available in your version of Excel
you will receive an error and the drill down will be cancelled
When you drill down to journal details the ldquoBalance Typerdquo parameter controls how
much detail is returned If this parameter is ldquoPTDrdquo only the current period‟s journals
are returned If this parameter is ldquoYTDrdquo then all the journals for the year are returned and likewise ldquoQTDrdquo will show the journal for the quarter
Ensure that the worksheet is calculated before performing any drill down functions Also
ensure that the cell contains a ldquoGet Balancerdquo function with valid parameter information
A new drill down workbook will be created each time you perform a drill down operation from
a Get Balance function Once you are finished with a drill down workbook simply close it
without saving
You cannot drill down to journal detail on translated balances
Oracle Global Consolidation System
Drill down to Oracle Global Consolidation System (GCS) transactions is also supported
These items will appear on the journal drill down report with a source and category of
62
ldquoConsolidationrdquo If you execute a normal drill down to Sub Ledger on these transactions a
new GL Wand drill workbook will be created and the drill down to the subsidiary set of books will be executed
In order to drill down on a GCS transaction you must be logged on the parent as well as the
subsidiary set of books This can be done using the Multiple Sets of Books logon option
Summary Balance Drill Down
On the drill down Criteria sheet toggle the summarization option to ldquoYrdquo for any segment that
you which to summaries by GL Wand creates a summary trial balance report and
summarizes by the selected segments The report can still be expanded to show the detailed
lines and you can still drill down to journals from these lines
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
58
If you would like to cancel the calculation process simply click the ldquoCancelrdquo button
Please note that GL Wand will need to wait for the next reply from Oracle before the
connection can be closed Therefore it may take some time before the calculation stops and
the window closes
Snapshot
- Snapshot
The snapshot tool can be used to take a snapshot of your GL Wand report This tool will
remove all the GL Wand functions from the workbook and will replace them with the values that the function returned
The results are similar to using the Excel ldquopaste valuesrdquo functionality However this process will only replace GL Wand formulas All other Excel formulas will be left as they were
Please note that you cannot take a snapshot of a protected worksheet rather output the
sheet to PDF format for archive and distribution purposes
When producing a snapshot GL Wand will request a name for the new workbook You can
select an existing workbook and GL Wand will give you the option to append the snapshot
results to the existing workbook or overwrite the existing workbook You therefore have the
option of producing various snapshot reports and combining them into one new workbook in a single operation rather than producing a separate workbook for each snapshot
Hide zeros
- Hide zeros in selected range
Select a report range that contains rows where all the numbers are zero Click the hide zeros
button and GL Wand will hide all the rows in the selected range where all the cells containing
numbers are zero This is very useful for formatting a report which includes many rows
where for example a number of accounts are not used in a particular cost centre or have no
59
balances in a certain period At the click of a button you can hide all the rows that contain only zeros
Select the entire report range when using the hide zeros function GL Wand checks the
selected range for zeros when determining which rows to hide
Excel automatically forces a recalculation of Get Balance formulas when you hide rows on a
report This is normal Excel functionality
This feature can be used on any Excel worksheet and is not limited to GL Wand reports
Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Undo the last hide zeros operation
Click this button to automatically undo the last hide zeros operation
Drill downs
- Drill to default Balance layout
- Drill to default Journal layout
- Drill to default Sub Ledger layout
The drill down options allow you to extract additional detail about a specific ldquoGet Balancerdquo function
1 Select a cell that contains a valid Get Balance function
2 Click on the drill to balance button
3 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
4 The criteria sheet will be populated with the criteria from the Get Balance function
5 The drill down to balance detail will be executed showing all the detailed accounts that make up the total in the Get Balance function
60
See the Create Drill Criteria Sheet section for more details and options on the drill down criteria sheet
Budget variance analysis If you select two cells on the GL Wand report eg one cell with
actual values and one with budget numbers GL Wand will perform a drill down on the Get
Balance function and display the actual and budget values next to each other and a
calculated variance
You now have a variety of options which can be performed from the drill down workbook
1 Modify the parameters on the criteria sheet and perform a new drill to balance Drop
down lists are provided for most of the parameters see the Create Drill Criteria Sheet for
more details
2 Create a summary drill down report
3 If you have performed a balance drill down you can select the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet and then
click drill down to journal details after selecting one or more rows with accounts
4 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo sheet and then click the button to drill down to the full journal
after selecting one or more rows with journal lines The full journal with all the contra
entries for the selected journal lines will be displayed
5 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo or ldquoJournal-Fullrdquo sheet and then click sub-ledger drill down after
selecting one or more rows with journal lines 6 Drill down to Global Consolidation System transactions
When drilling down you have the following options
Double click any cell on the row that you wish to drill down on
61
Select any cell in the row that you want to drill down on and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar
Highlight a range of rows and click the applicable drill down button on the GL Wand
toolbar to drill down on multiple lines at once
Highlight non contiguous rows using the ldquoCtrlrdquo button and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar to drill down on multiple lines which are not adjacent to each other
It is possible to drill from a Get Balance formula directly to the journal or sub ledger
information Similarly you can drill from a detailed balance (on the Balance worksheet)
directly to the sub ledger information If you select these options GL Wand will execute the
interim drill steps automatically Be careful when performing a drill down directly to the
journal or sub ledger detail level as these drill down operations may return many records
GL Wand will automatically group the drill down to journals and sub ledger information using
Excel‟s group and outline functionality This will allow you expand and collapse the data to
show just a portion of the report Headings are also inserted on the journal and sub-ledger drill down to make the report easier to read
On the sub-ledger drill down the heading includes a number in brackets eg ldquo(23) Journal
Name 123rdquo The number indicates which Excel row these sub-ledger lines originated from on
the ldquoJournalsrdquo sheet
You can use the remove drill down report headings button to strip out the headings on
the journal and sub-ledger drill down sheets
A couple of important things to note about drill downs
GL Wand will first count the number of rows that will be retrieved by the drill down
operation
If the row count is more than 1000 you will receive a warning message asking you if
you want to continue
If the row count is more than the defined limit (see Query Limit) you will receive a
warning and the drill down will be cancelled
If the row count is more than the number of rows available in your version of Excel
you will receive an error and the drill down will be cancelled
When you drill down to journal details the ldquoBalance Typerdquo parameter controls how
much detail is returned If this parameter is ldquoPTDrdquo only the current period‟s journals
are returned If this parameter is ldquoYTDrdquo then all the journals for the year are returned and likewise ldquoQTDrdquo will show the journal for the quarter
Ensure that the worksheet is calculated before performing any drill down functions Also
ensure that the cell contains a ldquoGet Balancerdquo function with valid parameter information
A new drill down workbook will be created each time you perform a drill down operation from
a Get Balance function Once you are finished with a drill down workbook simply close it
without saving
You cannot drill down to journal detail on translated balances
Oracle Global Consolidation System
Drill down to Oracle Global Consolidation System (GCS) transactions is also supported
These items will appear on the journal drill down report with a source and category of
62
ldquoConsolidationrdquo If you execute a normal drill down to Sub Ledger on these transactions a
new GL Wand drill workbook will be created and the drill down to the subsidiary set of books will be executed
In order to drill down on a GCS transaction you must be logged on the parent as well as the
subsidiary set of books This can be done using the Multiple Sets of Books logon option
Summary Balance Drill Down
On the drill down Criteria sheet toggle the summarization option to ldquoYrdquo for any segment that
you which to summaries by GL Wand creates a summary trial balance report and
summarizes by the selected segments The report can still be expanded to show the detailed
lines and you can still drill down to journals from these lines
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
59
balances in a certain period At the click of a button you can hide all the rows that contain only zeros
Select the entire report range when using the hide zeros function GL Wand checks the
selected range for zeros when determining which rows to hide
Excel automatically forces a recalculation of Get Balance formulas when you hide rows on a
report This is normal Excel functionality
This feature can be used on any Excel worksheet and is not limited to GL Wand reports
Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Undo the last hide zeros operation
Click this button to automatically undo the last hide zeros operation
Drill downs
- Drill to default Balance layout
- Drill to default Journal layout
- Drill to default Sub Ledger layout
The drill down options allow you to extract additional detail about a specific ldquoGet Balancerdquo function
1 Select a cell that contains a valid Get Balance function
2 Click on the drill to balance button
3 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
4 The criteria sheet will be populated with the criteria from the Get Balance function
5 The drill down to balance detail will be executed showing all the detailed accounts that make up the total in the Get Balance function
60
See the Create Drill Criteria Sheet section for more details and options on the drill down criteria sheet
Budget variance analysis If you select two cells on the GL Wand report eg one cell with
actual values and one with budget numbers GL Wand will perform a drill down on the Get
Balance function and display the actual and budget values next to each other and a
calculated variance
You now have a variety of options which can be performed from the drill down workbook
1 Modify the parameters on the criteria sheet and perform a new drill to balance Drop
down lists are provided for most of the parameters see the Create Drill Criteria Sheet for
more details
2 Create a summary drill down report
3 If you have performed a balance drill down you can select the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet and then
click drill down to journal details after selecting one or more rows with accounts
4 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo sheet and then click the button to drill down to the full journal
after selecting one or more rows with journal lines The full journal with all the contra
entries for the selected journal lines will be displayed
5 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo or ldquoJournal-Fullrdquo sheet and then click sub-ledger drill down after
selecting one or more rows with journal lines 6 Drill down to Global Consolidation System transactions
When drilling down you have the following options
Double click any cell on the row that you wish to drill down on
61
Select any cell in the row that you want to drill down on and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar
Highlight a range of rows and click the applicable drill down button on the GL Wand
toolbar to drill down on multiple lines at once
Highlight non contiguous rows using the ldquoCtrlrdquo button and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar to drill down on multiple lines which are not adjacent to each other
It is possible to drill from a Get Balance formula directly to the journal or sub ledger
information Similarly you can drill from a detailed balance (on the Balance worksheet)
directly to the sub ledger information If you select these options GL Wand will execute the
interim drill steps automatically Be careful when performing a drill down directly to the
journal or sub ledger detail level as these drill down operations may return many records
GL Wand will automatically group the drill down to journals and sub ledger information using
Excel‟s group and outline functionality This will allow you expand and collapse the data to
show just a portion of the report Headings are also inserted on the journal and sub-ledger drill down to make the report easier to read
On the sub-ledger drill down the heading includes a number in brackets eg ldquo(23) Journal
Name 123rdquo The number indicates which Excel row these sub-ledger lines originated from on
the ldquoJournalsrdquo sheet
You can use the remove drill down report headings button to strip out the headings on
the journal and sub-ledger drill down sheets
A couple of important things to note about drill downs
GL Wand will first count the number of rows that will be retrieved by the drill down
operation
If the row count is more than 1000 you will receive a warning message asking you if
you want to continue
If the row count is more than the defined limit (see Query Limit) you will receive a
warning and the drill down will be cancelled
If the row count is more than the number of rows available in your version of Excel
you will receive an error and the drill down will be cancelled
When you drill down to journal details the ldquoBalance Typerdquo parameter controls how
much detail is returned If this parameter is ldquoPTDrdquo only the current period‟s journals
are returned If this parameter is ldquoYTDrdquo then all the journals for the year are returned and likewise ldquoQTDrdquo will show the journal for the quarter
Ensure that the worksheet is calculated before performing any drill down functions Also
ensure that the cell contains a ldquoGet Balancerdquo function with valid parameter information
A new drill down workbook will be created each time you perform a drill down operation from
a Get Balance function Once you are finished with a drill down workbook simply close it
without saving
You cannot drill down to journal detail on translated balances
Oracle Global Consolidation System
Drill down to Oracle Global Consolidation System (GCS) transactions is also supported
These items will appear on the journal drill down report with a source and category of
62
ldquoConsolidationrdquo If you execute a normal drill down to Sub Ledger on these transactions a
new GL Wand drill workbook will be created and the drill down to the subsidiary set of books will be executed
In order to drill down on a GCS transaction you must be logged on the parent as well as the
subsidiary set of books This can be done using the Multiple Sets of Books logon option
Summary Balance Drill Down
On the drill down Criteria sheet toggle the summarization option to ldquoYrdquo for any segment that
you which to summaries by GL Wand creates a summary trial balance report and
summarizes by the selected segments The report can still be expanded to show the detailed
lines and you can still drill down to journals from these lines
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
60
See the Create Drill Criteria Sheet section for more details and options on the drill down criteria sheet
Budget variance analysis If you select two cells on the GL Wand report eg one cell with
actual values and one with budget numbers GL Wand will perform a drill down on the Get
Balance function and display the actual and budget values next to each other and a
calculated variance
You now have a variety of options which can be performed from the drill down workbook
1 Modify the parameters on the criteria sheet and perform a new drill to balance Drop
down lists are provided for most of the parameters see the Create Drill Criteria Sheet for
more details
2 Create a summary drill down report
3 If you have performed a balance drill down you can select the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet and then
click drill down to journal details after selecting one or more rows with accounts
4 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo sheet and then click the button to drill down to the full journal
after selecting one or more rows with journal lines The full journal with all the contra
entries for the selected journal lines will be displayed
5 Select the ldquoJournalrdquo or ldquoJournal-Fullrdquo sheet and then click sub-ledger drill down after
selecting one or more rows with journal lines 6 Drill down to Global Consolidation System transactions
When drilling down you have the following options
Double click any cell on the row that you wish to drill down on
61
Select any cell in the row that you want to drill down on and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar
Highlight a range of rows and click the applicable drill down button on the GL Wand
toolbar to drill down on multiple lines at once
Highlight non contiguous rows using the ldquoCtrlrdquo button and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar to drill down on multiple lines which are not adjacent to each other
It is possible to drill from a Get Balance formula directly to the journal or sub ledger
information Similarly you can drill from a detailed balance (on the Balance worksheet)
directly to the sub ledger information If you select these options GL Wand will execute the
interim drill steps automatically Be careful when performing a drill down directly to the
journal or sub ledger detail level as these drill down operations may return many records
GL Wand will automatically group the drill down to journals and sub ledger information using
Excel‟s group and outline functionality This will allow you expand and collapse the data to
show just a portion of the report Headings are also inserted on the journal and sub-ledger drill down to make the report easier to read
On the sub-ledger drill down the heading includes a number in brackets eg ldquo(23) Journal
Name 123rdquo The number indicates which Excel row these sub-ledger lines originated from on
the ldquoJournalsrdquo sheet
You can use the remove drill down report headings button to strip out the headings on
the journal and sub-ledger drill down sheets
A couple of important things to note about drill downs
GL Wand will first count the number of rows that will be retrieved by the drill down
operation
If the row count is more than 1000 you will receive a warning message asking you if
you want to continue
If the row count is more than the defined limit (see Query Limit) you will receive a
warning and the drill down will be cancelled
If the row count is more than the number of rows available in your version of Excel
you will receive an error and the drill down will be cancelled
When you drill down to journal details the ldquoBalance Typerdquo parameter controls how
much detail is returned If this parameter is ldquoPTDrdquo only the current period‟s journals
are returned If this parameter is ldquoYTDrdquo then all the journals for the year are returned and likewise ldquoQTDrdquo will show the journal for the quarter
Ensure that the worksheet is calculated before performing any drill down functions Also
ensure that the cell contains a ldquoGet Balancerdquo function with valid parameter information
A new drill down workbook will be created each time you perform a drill down operation from
a Get Balance function Once you are finished with a drill down workbook simply close it
without saving
You cannot drill down to journal detail on translated balances
Oracle Global Consolidation System
Drill down to Oracle Global Consolidation System (GCS) transactions is also supported
These items will appear on the journal drill down report with a source and category of
62
ldquoConsolidationrdquo If you execute a normal drill down to Sub Ledger on these transactions a
new GL Wand drill workbook will be created and the drill down to the subsidiary set of books will be executed
In order to drill down on a GCS transaction you must be logged on the parent as well as the
subsidiary set of books This can be done using the Multiple Sets of Books logon option
Summary Balance Drill Down
On the drill down Criteria sheet toggle the summarization option to ldquoYrdquo for any segment that
you which to summaries by GL Wand creates a summary trial balance report and
summarizes by the selected segments The report can still be expanded to show the detailed
lines and you can still drill down to journals from these lines
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
61
Select any cell in the row that you want to drill down on and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar
Highlight a range of rows and click the applicable drill down button on the GL Wand
toolbar to drill down on multiple lines at once
Highlight non contiguous rows using the ldquoCtrlrdquo button and click the applicable drill
down button on the GL Wand toolbar to drill down on multiple lines which are not adjacent to each other
It is possible to drill from a Get Balance formula directly to the journal or sub ledger
information Similarly you can drill from a detailed balance (on the Balance worksheet)
directly to the sub ledger information If you select these options GL Wand will execute the
interim drill steps automatically Be careful when performing a drill down directly to the
journal or sub ledger detail level as these drill down operations may return many records
GL Wand will automatically group the drill down to journals and sub ledger information using
Excel‟s group and outline functionality This will allow you expand and collapse the data to
show just a portion of the report Headings are also inserted on the journal and sub-ledger drill down to make the report easier to read
On the sub-ledger drill down the heading includes a number in brackets eg ldquo(23) Journal
Name 123rdquo The number indicates which Excel row these sub-ledger lines originated from on
the ldquoJournalsrdquo sheet
You can use the remove drill down report headings button to strip out the headings on
the journal and sub-ledger drill down sheets
A couple of important things to note about drill downs
GL Wand will first count the number of rows that will be retrieved by the drill down
operation
If the row count is more than 1000 you will receive a warning message asking you if
you want to continue
If the row count is more than the defined limit (see Query Limit) you will receive a
warning and the drill down will be cancelled
If the row count is more than the number of rows available in your version of Excel
you will receive an error and the drill down will be cancelled
When you drill down to journal details the ldquoBalance Typerdquo parameter controls how
much detail is returned If this parameter is ldquoPTDrdquo only the current period‟s journals
are returned If this parameter is ldquoYTDrdquo then all the journals for the year are returned and likewise ldquoQTDrdquo will show the journal for the quarter
Ensure that the worksheet is calculated before performing any drill down functions Also
ensure that the cell contains a ldquoGet Balancerdquo function with valid parameter information
A new drill down workbook will be created each time you perform a drill down operation from
a Get Balance function Once you are finished with a drill down workbook simply close it
without saving
You cannot drill down to journal detail on translated balances
Oracle Global Consolidation System
Drill down to Oracle Global Consolidation System (GCS) transactions is also supported
These items will appear on the journal drill down report with a source and category of
62
ldquoConsolidationrdquo If you execute a normal drill down to Sub Ledger on these transactions a
new GL Wand drill workbook will be created and the drill down to the subsidiary set of books will be executed
In order to drill down on a GCS transaction you must be logged on the parent as well as the
subsidiary set of books This can be done using the Multiple Sets of Books logon option
Summary Balance Drill Down
On the drill down Criteria sheet toggle the summarization option to ldquoYrdquo for any segment that
you which to summaries by GL Wand creates a summary trial balance report and
summarizes by the selected segments The report can still be expanded to show the detailed
lines and you can still drill down to journals from these lines
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
62
ldquoConsolidationrdquo If you execute a normal drill down to Sub Ledger on these transactions a
new GL Wand drill workbook will be created and the drill down to the subsidiary set of books will be executed
In order to drill down on a GCS transaction you must be logged on the parent as well as the
subsidiary set of books This can be done using the Multiple Sets of Books logon option
Summary Balance Drill Down
On the drill down Criteria sheet toggle the summarization option to ldquoYrdquo for any segment that
you which to summaries by GL Wand creates a summary trial balance report and
summarizes by the selected segments The report can still be expanded to show the detailed
lines and you can still drill down to journals from these lines
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
63
Drill Down Batching
With the drill down batching option enabled GL Wand will execute the drill downs more
efficiently This option will help with the performance of large drill down reports You also have the option to cancel the process
Drill to My Layout
- Drill to My Balance layout
- Drill to My Journal layout
- Drill to My Sub Ledger layout
GL Wand allows you to customize the layout of the drill down reports There are a number of
possible drill layout options
When GL Wand is initially installed each drill down report has a default layout
The default drill layout is used each time a standard drill down is performed
The default drill layout can be edited ndash see the Edit Default Drill Layout option
When a drill down is performed a new GL Wand Drill Workbook is created these
workbooks can be saved for future use or sent to others so that they can use these layouts to perform their own drill downs
To create custom drill layouts follow this process
1 Use the Edit Default Drill Layout option to create the layout that you require eg
create a layout to be used for Accounts Receivable drill downs
2 Perform a standard drill down which will create a new drill workbook using the new
layout that you just created
3 Save this workbook and call is something like ldquoMy Accounts Receivable Layoutrdquo 4 Repeat this process to create other drill down layouts
Now you can make use of these custom drill layouts When performing a drill down from a
Get Balance function instead of using the standard drill down buttons use one of the ldquoDrill to My Layoutrdquo options You will be presented with one of the following options
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
64
If there are no GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be prompted to open one that
you would like to use for the drill down
If there is only one GL Wand drill workbook open the drill down will be executed into
that drill workbook
If you have multiple GL Wand drill workbooks open you will be presented with a list of
Drill workbooks to choose from The drill down will be executed into the selected workbook
With these options you can create as many custom drill layouts as you like and save them as
Excel spreadsheets with appropriate names You can then use these drill layouts whenever you need them or share them with other users
The GL Wand drill down workbooks have certain hidden columns and rows that must not be
modified Other changes to the reports are permitted eg changing column widths column
orders column headings and column formatting
Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
You can add your own calculated columns in the GL Wand drill down reports as follows
Execute a normal drill down to journal detail for example
Now insert a column using normal Excel functionality Ensure that you give the new column a heading
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
65
Then unhide the special hidden row 2 Ensure that you only modify the contents of
row 2 in the new column that you have inserted Modifying any of the other cells in
this hidden row may cause problems with the drill down template
Enter your formula in this cell using normal Excel functionality You can include any
formula or function from Excel or GL Wand
Add any formatting you like to this cell
Hide the special row 2 again
Execute the drill down again
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
66
GL Wand copies your new formula into each report row as it populates the drill down
results
Save this drill down template and reuse it for future drill downs
You can add calculated Excel columns to any of the GL Wand drill down reports
This functionality can be used very effectively in conjunction with the new Reports Wand
module You can insert a Run Report formula into a calculated Excel column which can be
linked to fields returned by the GL Wand drill down When you double click on this Run
Report formula Reports Wand will execute the custom SQL statement that you have created
and can provide additional detail which is not provided by the standard GL Wand drill down
report
Sort Drill Report
- Sort the drill report
With a drill down report as the active sheet click the sort button under the drill menu GL
Wand will highlight the correct report range (ensuring that all rows and columns including
the special hidden id columns are selected) and open the Excel sort window
Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Configuration Sheet
When you click the ldquoConfiguration Sheetrdquo button GL Wand inserts a new worksheet into the
current workbook that contains a variety of information about the configuration of your Set of Books
The Configuration Sheet includes the
chart of accounts layout showing each segment‟s details
example period names
valid balance types
available currency codes
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
67
valid actual flags
budget names and encumbrance types definition of the segment values descriptive flexfield as configured in your system
The information on the Configuration Sheet can be useful when constructing GL Wand
functions
The period names will show you how the accounting period has been configured for your Set
of Books eg the period names may be in the format
Apr-03 or they might be April-03
This is very important because when you populate the Period name parameter of the ldquoGet Balancerdquo function you must enter it in
the correct format
the correct case
otherwise GL Wand will not find the data you have requested
The new Period Name function will return the period name in the correct format and can be used as an input into the Get Balance function
The budget and encumbrance names are also very useful as these must also be entered in
the correct case and with the correct spelling in order to successfully extract a budget or encumbrance balance
Options (Tools Menu)
- Options
The options form allows you to
create database connections
initiate an upgrade set other GL Wand options
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
68
Connections
GL Wand connects to the Oracle Applications database using internet architecture This
means that the only setting required on the client is the connection URL
This required URL will depend on the GL Wand server component that you are using There
are three possibilities If you are not sure which method you are using to connect to your Oracle system please check with the applications DBA
Connection option 1 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the Mod PLSQL connection method then the required URL is the Applications Web
Agent URL This URL is stored in an Oracle Applications profile option called ldquoApplications Web Agentrdquo You can query this profile option through the main Oracle Applications forms
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
69
Connection option 2 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 11i system
using the java servlet method then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportservlets
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000servlets
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add servlets to it
Connection option 3 - If you are connecting to GL Wand on an Oracle release 12 system
then the required URL will be as follows
httpserver1domaincomportOA_HTML
For example - httpvisionjhb1excel4appscom8000OA_HTML
The first part will be the same as the URL that you use to log on to Oracle and you simply add OA_HTML to it
To create a new connection click the option button next to the connection that you which to
add or edit A maximum of 5 connections can be created
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
70
Select a new line in the connections section and enter a connection name like ldquoProdrdquo or
ldquoDevrdquo to identify the connection Type the connection URL in the space provided Note that
you can copy a URL (eg from an e-mail) and paste it into the space provided using ctrl-v or
clicking the right mouse button If this connection should use your internet explorer settings
to find the correct path to the server (eg it must go through a proxy server or via the Internet) then tick the check box on that line
You can then test the connection using the test button Click the ldquoTestrdquo button to open a web browser which will navigate to the GL Wand test page
You should see the page shown above This means that the GL Wand server side install has
been successfully completed If you get a ldquoPage cannot be foundrdquo error it means that either
the GL Wand server side install has not been completed successfully or the Oracle
Application server is down This page also shows the database indexes on the key tables utilized by GL Wand
Click ldquoOKrdquo on the main options screen to save your changes This connection will now be available in the log on screen
From the options screen you can select an existing connection to delete Click the ldquoDeleterdquo
button and the connection will be removed Click ldquoOKrdquo to save your changes
Upgrade
If you want to check if there is a new version of GL Wand available simply click the upgrade
button on the options screen
GL Wand periodically checks for new versions of the product and provides the users with the
ability to perform an upgrade It either checks a shared folder on your corporate LAN or else
it checks on the internet at Excel4appscom This is controlled by populating the profile
option ldquoGL Wand Upgrade Locationrdquo with the appropriate information Refer to the profile
options section in this user guide for more information If a new version is detected it will be downloaded and the installation will be initiated
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
71
Disable Summary Account Checking
The Oracle General Ledger provides the functionality to hold summary balances for a parent
GL account When calculating balances GL Wand first checks if the account you are
requesting is a summary account If it is it simply fetches the balance on this account If not
it calculates the balance based on the defined parent hierarchy
This summary account check takes time Therefore if you know that your organization does
not use summary accounts leave this option ticked (default)
HTTP Packet Size
This value can be changed in order to control the number of calculations that are sent to
Oracle in each calculation batch The default is dynamic With this setting selected GL Wand
will dynamically recalculate the optimal packet size to use for each calculation batch based
on how quickly your Oracle instance resolves the Get Balance SQL queries If your system is
resolving the queries quickly the HTTP packet size will be increased to allow more
calculations to be performed in one batch If the queries are running slower than average
the HTTP packet size will be reduced This dynamic mode will attempt to ensure that you do not receive a timeout due to the Get Balance SQL queries taking too long to complete
If you prefer you can override the dynamic option and pick a specific HTTP packet size We
recommend that you only do this in one of two situations Firstly if you know your system
processes the Get Balance SQL queries quickly eg upwards of 10 cells per second you can
choose the maximum HTTP packet size of 32000 This will ensure that GL Wand sends the
most calculations in each batch that it possibly can The second situation where you might
override this setting is if the dynamic calculations are not providing the optimal HTTP packet
size on your system for some reason In this case select the appropriate HTTP packet size from the list
You should only modify the HTTP packet size if you are experiencing errors during the
calculation process typically when a batch of calculations runs for more than 5 minutes
Otherwise leave it at the default
Trace Mode
Trace mode is used for troubleshooting problems with Excel4apps support
Logon Method
GL Wand supports a new logon method via the Oracle logon screen (default) You can use
this option to switch the logon method back to the Excel based logon screen The Excel method should not be used unless the ldquoOraclerdquo method does not function correctly
Show secured segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow secured segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether secured
segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Note Even though a user can control the visibility of items secured by segment value
security rules Get Balance functions will not display secured values but rather the message
ldquoglwNoAccess to indicate a security rule breach
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
72
Show disabled segment values
Select or de-select the ldquoShow disabled segment valuesrdquo option to determine whether
disabled segment values are shown in the list of values window and included in the discover process
Budget Upload
This option works in conjunction with the budget upload functionality See the section on
deleting duplicates during a budget upload for more detail
Parent Cache Option
With this option enabled the GL Wand logon screen will have a new check box which allows
you to select an alternative method for processing Get Balance formulas This option must
be enabled on the options form before this new tick box will appear on the logon form This is to avoid confusing any users that have no need for this option
Once this option is enabled you can tick this checkbox at each logon and vary it to suit which ever method provides you with the best performance for particular GL Wand reports
In certain situations this alternate Get Balance processing method can result in a significant
performance improvement Typically it will only improve performance on those Oracle
systems which are currently giving poor performance This would normally be less than 5
cells per second calculation rate If you are already achieving calculation rates of more than this then chances are this option will not improve performance on your environment
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
73
When selecting this option the initial GL Wand logon may be slower We recommend testing
your slower GL Wand reports using the old and the new method to determine which method is better for your environment
Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
This option determines if GL Wand uses batching to process drill down requests With this
option enabled the drill down process can handle large drill downs more efficiently and also
provides a Cancel option to stop the process
The Batch Size tells GL Wand how many records to fetch with each batch The default is 1000 which should be suitable for most situations
Report Manager
These options are as follows
Process Disabled Segment Values ndash Uncheck this option if you would prefer report
manger to skip disabled segment values when producing reports
Email Client ndash If you wish to create emails from the report manager choose your
email client ldquoOutlook ndash Draftrdquo is the default For Outlook and GroupWise the only
available option is to create a draft email with the reports attached which must then
me sent by clicking the send button manually For Lotus Notes you can choose to create a draft mail message or to actually send the mail
Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
A drill down can be performed by selecting a cell containing a Get Balance formula and
clicking the drill down button on the toolbar However you may wish to bypass the
requirement for a Get Balance formula and simply extract data based on parameters that
you set The Drill Down Criteria Sheet functionality allows you to very quickly extract the
detailed general ledger balances and journals that meet certain criteria This is useful when
large numbers of individual GL balances are required as the values are returned faster than by using many individual ldquoGet Balancerdquo formulae
- Create drill down criteria sheet
1 Click on the Create drill down criteria sheet button
2 A new GL Wand drill down workbook is created
3 Enter the parameters for the data that you wish to extract on the criteria sheet of this
new workbook The criteria are exactly the same as the parameters of the Get Balance
function and operate in the same manner
4 Use the balance drill down button on the GL Wand toolbar to execute the drill down
5 This workbook operates in exactly the same manner as a normal drill down See the Drill downs section for more details
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
74
Enter a period or double click the cell to select it from the drop down list
Choose the balance type Please note that selecting ldquoYTDrdquo will extract all the journal
lines for the year when executing a journal drill down and similarly ldquoQTDrdquo will extract
the journals for the quarter
Enter the required currency code
Pick ldquoErdquo entered or ldquoTrdquo translated balances (Or Total if using Oracle R12)
Pick ldquoArdquo actual ldquoBrdquo budgets or ldquoErdquo encumbrance for the primary balance type If you
select ldquoBrdquo or ldquoErdquo then you must populate the BudEnc Name parameter with the
budget version name or encumbrance type Please note this must be spelt correctly
Optionally populate the secondary balance parameters They work in the same
manner as the primary balance parameters If you do populate the secondary balance
parameters and perform a balance drill down the ldquoBalancerdquo sheet will contain a list of
the primary balance values with the secondary balance values alongside them and a
variance between the two
Populate the segment values You can enter values directly into the Excel cells or you
can pick them from a list of values To use the list of values simply double click the
cell where you want the parameters entered or select the applicable cell and click the
list of values button on the GL Wand toolbar The list of values form will open (see
the Segment List of Value sections for more details) When you click ldquoOKrdquo on the
segment list of values form the parameters that you have selected will be entered
into the current cell
Toggle the summarization option ldquoYrdquo for any segment that you wish to summaries by
Enter a journal source or category to limit the results to only the journals meeting
those criteria
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
75
Note that GL Wand will remember your selections for secondary balance criteria as well as
which segments you have selected for summarization Future drill down operations will apply
these parameters automatically
Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Report wizard
The report wizard is useful for building your very first example report from which to learn GL Wand principles
The report wizard will create a template report using your set of books configuration The
report has a standard layout and allows you to specify one segment as the ldquoPagerdquo item and
one segment as the ldquoRowrdquo item A report is created with a list of values at the top of the
report for the chosen ldquoPagerdquo segment The report lists the first ten child segment values
down the rows of the report for the chosen ldquoRowrdquo segment The report wizard creates generic Get Balance formulas to build the detailed values of the report
Start by entering the parameters for the report
The special items ldquoRowsrdquo and ldquoPagerdquo can be selected from the segment list of values and
may be entered against one segment only The ldquoPagerdquo and ldquoRowsrdquo values must be included against one segment Clicking ldquoOKrdquo will generate the report
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
76
Once you have generated the report you can extend it to incorporate other values by
inserting more rows and copying and pasting the generic Get Balance formulas You now have the freedom and power of Excel to extend it and modify it as needed
Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
This button can be used to obtain information about how GL Wand is processing the segment
values of a Get Balance function It can be specifically helpful to indentify which security rules are being contravened when the Get Balance returns ldquoglwNoAccessrdquo
Select a single cell containing a Get Balance function
Click this button
GL Wand calculates the cell and creates a new Excel workbook containing a log of how the Get Balance function processed its segment parameters
The log output is fairly self explanatory but if you require assistance interpreting the results please contact Excel4apps support
Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
The FSG conversion utility can be used to import an FSG report definition from Oracle You
can then format the data and link it to Get Balance and other GL Wand formulas to complete
the report A demonstration of how to use this feature can be found on the Excel4apps web site
Import Definition
Select the FSG report that you wish to import GL Wand will create a new workbook which
contains the RowSet and ColumnSet information from the FSG report
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
77
Please note that the information extracted is the basic RowSet and ColumnSet data to cater
for an FSG report of average complexity The more advanced reports may not be catered for
100 For calculations only simple addition and subtraction calculations are replicated into
an Excel formula
Once the information has been populated into the Excel spreadsheet you can use the
following as a guideline to complete your GL Wand report
Review Row definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Review Column definitions and consolidate segment low high ranges into input
parameters for the Get Balance function
Modify the sample Get Balance function to reference valid parameters These may be
from the report header the RowSet account assignments the ColumnSet account
assignments the ColumnSet override values or hardcoded values Then copy amp paste
the formula across report
Insert additional GL Wand amp Excel formulas as needed (eg Segment description and
Budget Variance and other calculations)
Remove or hide unused RowsColumns format report and Expand Rows where required
Merge Low High Segment Ranges
The account assignment information is presented as Low High ranges of segment values as
per the definition in the FSG report In order to use this information in a segment parameter
of the Get Balance function one often needs to merge the values into a single cell of ranges
and lists of segment values You can use the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button to automate this process
Select a range of Low High segment ranges that need to be merged
Click the Merge Low High Segment Ranges button The selection is merged into a single cell of ranges and lists of segment values
Report Manager (Tools Menu)
- Create Report Manager workbook
- Execute the selected range
- Execute the selected sheets
- Execute all the sheets in the current workbook
Report Manager allows you to batch produce (replicate) GL Wand reports from a source
report snapshot them and then automatically convert them to various formats In addition
you can optionally choose to print the reports and or email them to specified recipients For
example you might have a standard GL Wand report that you wish to replicate for a range
of cost centers in your organization With report manager you can configure a report set
definition and then execute that definition and the production of the reports will be
automated for you
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
78
The first step is to create the source GL Wand report using Get Balance formulas as normal
Ensure that you link the applicable parameters of the Get Balance function to appropriate
cells in the workbook For example if you want to replicate this report for a range of cost
centers ensure that you have a cell somewhere in the workbook where the cost centre can
be captured Then link the applicable parameter of all the Get Balance formulas in the report
to this cell When you change the value in this cell all the Get Balance formulas should recalculate for the new cost centre
Report Set Definition
Next you create a report manager workbook Click the create button on the toolbar This
button is in the tools section under Report Manager You will be presented with a form to capture the details of the report set definition
1 In this form click the ldquoSelectrdquo button and choose the GL Wand source report If the
report is not currently open GL Wand will open it
2 Optionally select the output folder and file name to group reports in to
3 Tick the options that you want eg Excel PDF HTML Print and email
4 Tick the applicable items that you want GL Wand to loop though when the report is
created
5 For each ticked item populate the Cell Link field You can type in this field but it is
easier to simply click the applicable target cell on the worksheet and the field will be
correctly populated with the cell reference
6 Optionally select the From and To values that you want GL Wand to loop through
These fields can also be populated on the next screen
7 Optionally select a range on the report where you would like to execute a ldquoHide Zerosrdquo Report Manager will hide the zeros in this range for each report produced
When you are finished populating the form click ldquoOKrdquo A new workbook will be created and the report set definition will be populated
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
79
This is a normal Excel workbook However the structure must not be changed The only
changes that you may make to this workbook are to insert more lines and to populate the
white fields Any other changes will most likely corrupt the definition and Report Manager
will give an error when you try to execute the definition
Modifying the Criteria
You can now modify and populate this report as follows
Modify the report name in cell E4 This can be done by editing the cell but we
recommend that you rather double click the cell and select the report from the
normal file open dialogue box If you edit the cell directly you must ensure that you
capture the path and file name correctly
Optionally modify the output folder and grouping file name You can double click
output folder cell to select the folder from a dialogue box
Optionally edit the hide zeros range
You can edit the cell links in row 7 Please ensure that you enter valid cell references
Edit the parameters by capturing from and to values and toggling the Y N flags for
the various options
Enter applicable email information like the email address that the email should be
sent to or who should be cc‟d etc
Optionally set an output folder and grouping file name for the row
Populate additional lines by either capturing the detail from scratch or simply use
normal Excel copy and paste to create a new line and then change only those fields
that you want different Insert additional rows if the default number is not enough
Executing the Report Set
Once you have completed populating the report set definition it can be saved as a normal
Excel spreadsheet When you are ready to execute the report set definition close all other Excel workbooks and then do one of the following
To execute only a few rows of the report set definition first highlight the applicable
rows (or a cell in each row) and then click the execute range button
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
80
To execute one or more report set definition sheets first select the applicable sheets
and then click the execute sheet button
To execute all the definition sheets in the current workbook click the execute all
button
Report manager will validate the definition and if all checks are passed the reports will be generated
Report Manager Validation
Report manager first validates all the definition rows that will be executed If any errors are
found the process will be stopped and the errors will be marked in red An Excel note will be
added to provide more information about the error
If all rows to be executed pass validation you will receive a message indicating how many
reports will be created and which printer will be used for any rows where the print option is marked with Y At this stage you can cancel the process or you can click ldquoYesrdquo to continue
Report Generation
If you click Yes Report manager will open the GL Wand report and loop through all the
selected report set definition rows and create a report for the criteria on that row The
applicable output formats will be created and if requested the report will be printed
The output report name and folder location will depend on the options that you have
specified on the report set definition The output folder location will be determined as follows
If an output folder is specified on the row the report will be saved in that folder
Else if you specify an output folder on the header level that folder will be used
Else the report will be saved in the folder where the source GL Wand report is located
The file name will be determined as follows
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
81
If a grouping file name is specified on the row then all output from that row will be
grouped into the specified file name
Else if you specify a grouping file name on the header level then all output will be
grouped into that specified file name
Else the file name will be generated using the source GL Wand report name suffixed
with a concatenation of the segment or period values used in the generation of that
report eg ldquoProfit and Loss ndash Jan-07 ndash 100rdquo might be the profit and loss output report
for January 2007 and department 100
It is obviously possible for many of the generated reports to use the same folder and file name In this case GL Wand will append all the report output into a single Excel workbook
During the validation process GL Wand will check if any of the output files to be used already
exist If they do exist you will receive a warning If you choose to continue the report
manager output will be appended to the existing files
If you requested the report to be emailed an email message will be created and populated
with the To CC Bcc Subject and Text and the applicable file will be attached
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
Sending email requires Microsoft Outlook GroupWise or Lotus Notes as your mail client
Excel must have the focus while the Report Manage process executes If you attempt to
perform other tasks on the PC while the process is running you will notice that Excel
continually takes the focus
Once the process is completed each executed row will be marked in green if it was
successfully processed or in red if it was not Any unsuccessful rows will include a note in column B to provide any available information about what caused the problem
It is possible to include multiple report set definitions in a single workbook To do this simply
open an existing Report Manager workbook and click the Create button under the Report
Manager menu A new sheet will now be added to the existing workbook instead of a new
workbook being created You can also use normal Excel functionality to copy a sheet from
one Report Manager workbook to another
Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- Balance
- Journal
- Sub Ledger
- Sub Ledger (R12) (Only visible on an Oracle release 12 system for sub ledger accounting (SLA))
- OPM (Oracle Process Manufacturing
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
82
When GL Wand is installed each of the drill down reports is configured with a default layout
You can edit the default layout using these options When you select one of the options a form opens which allows you to modify the fields included in this layout
You can modify the layout using the following options
Select one or more (using shift) items in the list of available fields and click add to
include them in the layout
Select one or more (using shift) items in the current layout and click remove to
exclude them from the layout
Use the Up Down Top and Bottom buttons to re-order the fields in the layout
Click and drag items from the available fields to the selected fields to include them in
the layout
Click and drag items in the selected fields to change their order
Click ldquoDefaultrdquo to return the layout to the GL Wand standard
Tip To immediately see the impact of your changes to a drill down layout first delete the
currently open drill sheet eg Journal and then re-execute the drill down to see the edited
layout Alternatively close any open drill workbooks and then start a new drill down
PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- Export selected range to PDF
- Export selected sheets to PDF
- Export all the sheets in the current workbook to PDF
Export to PDF allows you to export a highlighted range the selected sheets or the entire
workbook to a PDF file This feature can be used on any Excel spreadsheet It does not
require a GL Wand report to function Start by setting your page setup options to ensure
that the report will be produced in the correct way eg landscape versus portrait as well as
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-
83
print size Then click the applicable PDF button under the Tools menu on the GL Wand
toolbar or simply right click in a cell A temporary PDF file will be created with the selected
output from Excel and will be opened in the default PDF viewer If you wish to keep this file
click the Save As button in the PDF Viewer and save the file in the correct folder with an appropriate name
Please note that in order to create PDF output the required component ldquoPDF Creatorrdquo must
be installed It is available for download at httpwwwexcel4appscompdf
About GL Wand
- About GL Wand
This button brings up the about box for the GL Wand application
You can use this window to
see which version of the product you are running
see your site information like GL Wand key expiry date licensed users etc
see what version of the e-Business Suite and Oracle database you are running
request a license key for the current instance
log a support request
Help
- Help
Use the help button to access the latest online version of the help file
- Quick start guide
- New features
-
- Release 405
- Release 389
- Release 385
- Release 380
-
- About ldquoDemoxlsrdquo tutorial
- Install add-in on PC
-
- Installation files
- PC Installation
- Uninstalling GL Wand
- Installation Problems
- Installing PDF Creator
-
- PDF Creator on Vista
-
- Connect to Vision
-
- Connection details
- About the test instance
- Test instance performance
-
- Using GL Wand
-
- Toolbar
- The Menu
- Shortcut keys
- Logging on
-
- Oracle Logon Method
- Excel Logon Method
- Descriptive Flexfields
- Proxy Authentication
- License Key
-
- Set of Books and Segment Selector
-
- Set of Books
- Segments
-
- Discovering
-
- Discover Segment Values
- Discover Period Names
- Discover Properties
- Discover Child Ranges
- Discover Hierarchy
- Toggle Discover Level
-
- Expand
-
- Expand Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Expand Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Undo Expand
- Refresh Expand
- Explode Report
-
- Explode Hierarchy (1 Level)
- Explode Hierarchy (Full)
-
- Open List of Values
- Create List of Values
- Functions
-
- Get Balance
- Segment Description
- Next Segment Value and Previous Segment Value
- Parent Flag
- Enabled Flag
- Account Type
- Period Name
- Set of Books Name
- Segment Descriptive Flexfield
- Period Offset
- Split Text
- Combine Text
- Functional Currency
- Get Daily Rate
- Function return values
-
- Discovering versus Functions
- Special Get Balance Criteria
-
- Account Combinations
- Expand Account Combinations
- Segment Descriptive Flexfields
-
- Calculating
-
- Calculate Range Sheet or All
- GL Wand calculation on or off
- Calculation progress and stopping a calculation
-
- Snapshot
- Hide zeros
- Undo Hide Zeros (Tools Menu)
- Drill downs
-
- Oracle Global Consolidation System
- Summary Balance Drill Down
- Drill Down Batching
-
- Drill to My Layout
- Drill Downs ndash Calculated Excel Columns
- Sort Drill Report
- Configuration Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Options (Tools Menu)
-
- Connections
- Upgrade
- Disable Summary Account Checking
- HTTP Packet Size
- Trace Mode
- Logon Method
- Show secured segment values
- Show disabled segment values
- Budget Upload
- Parent Cache Option
- Enable Drill Down Batching and Batch Size
- Report Manager
-
- Create Drill Criteria Sheet (Tools Menu)
- Report Wizard (Tools Menu)
- Audit Get Balance (Tools Menu)
- Convert FSG (Tools Menu)
-
- Import Definition
- Merge Low High Segment Ranges
-
- Report Manager (Tools Menu)
-
- Report Set Definition
- Modifying the Criteria
- Executing the Report Set
- Report Manager Validation
- Report Generation
-
- Edit Default Drill Layout (Tools Menu)
- PDF Export (Tools Menu and Right click in a cell)
- About GL Wand
- Help
-
- Budget Wand
-
- Budget Wand overview
- Technical requirements
-
- Installation Versions required
- License key requirements
-
- Installation
-
- Client
- Server
- Profile options
-
- Oracle required setup
- Budget Wand components
-
- About box
- Toolbar changes
- Convert Get Balance
- Load Budget Wizard
- Setting the Load mode
- Validate and load budgets from selected cells ndash ldquoRrdquo ndash ldquoSrdquo ndash ldquoArdquo
- Validate and load budgets from input cells
- Debits and credits
- Monitor Budget Wand Concurrent requests
- Create List of Values
-
- Loading a Budget
-
- Validate and Load Budgets
- Handling Duplicate records
- Deleting duplicates
- Reporting duplicates
-
- Statuses and Error messages
-
- Load Budget Status
- Server Side Error Messages
-
- Reports Wand
-
- About Reports Wand
-
- Reports Wand Licensing
-
- Using Reports Wand basic features
-
- Criteria Form
- Executing the report
- Run Report Function
- Calculating the Run Report Function
- Refreshing Definitions
-
- Customizing the output template
-
- Report Header
- Report Titles
- Column Headings
- Formatting
- Deleting Columns
- Adding Calculated Columns
- Inserting user defined totals and aggregations ndash Report Footer
- Format rows ndash First two rows of the report
- Restrictions
-
- Using Reports Wand advanced features
-
- Working with pivot tables
- Link one report to another report
- Using functions that hyperlink to static values
-
- Security
- Creating Report Definitions
-
- Prerequisites
- Report Header
- SQL Statement
- Parameters
- Filters
- Default Report To
- Batching
- Assign the report
-
- Server Component
- Oracle Profile Options
-
- GL Wand All sets of books access
- GL Wand Enable Extended Languages
- GL Wand Get Balance Hint
- GL Wand HTTP Timeout
- GL Wand License Key
- GL Wand Query Limit
- GL Wand Track User Activity
- GL Wand Upgrade Location
- GL Wand User
- GL Wand Budget Wand User
-
- Support
-
- Support Requests
- Enhancement Requests
-
- Error Messages
-