Tài liệu Chapter 4: Drilldown Reporting ppt

4–34 4 In this chapter you will learn: ƒ What makes Drilldown reporting an effective reporting tool ƒ How the components of Drilldown reporting are organized ƒ How Drilldown differs

Chapter 4: Drilldown Reporting

Contents

Learning the Basics of Drilldown Reporting 4–2

Creating a Drilldown Report: Profitability Analysis 4–7

Getting the Most from Drilldown Reporting: Tips & Tricks 4–23

Review 4–33

Where to Learn More 4–34

4

In this chapter you will learn:

ƒ What makes Drilldown reporting an effective reporting tool

ƒ How the components of Drilldown reporting are organized

ƒ How Drilldown differs from other reporting tools

ƒ How to create and execute

a form (drilldown) report

Learning the Basics of Drilldown Reporting

Drilldown reporting contains interactive functionality that lets you analyze the data collected in your application or information systems Compared with other reporting tools, Drilldown offers greater flexibility in mining data You can slice and dice data without the restrictions of formatted and fixed reports

Before jumping into how you can use Drilldown reporting to create and use reports, it is important to understand its features and basic organization

Note: Many users may not know of a tool called Drilldown reporting, but are instead

familiar with other tools such as the Executive Information System (EIS) and Profitability Analysis (CO-PA) reporting Drilldown reporting is the engine for both EIS and CO-PA reporting However, as previously mentioned, there are times when report development tools are known by different names within certain applications This is the case with Drilldown reporting In this chapter we will discuss the applications in which Drilldown reporting is used, but for additional references to Drilldown reporting, see chapter 1 of this guidebook

What Is Drilldown Reporting?

With Drilldown reporting you analyze data based on any of the characteristics or objects that describe the accessible data Drilldown reporting allows you to:

< Choose key figures or performance measures to categorize your data (we will further describe both key figures and characteristics and their use)

< Display a number of objects for a given key figure

< Display a number of key figures for a given object

< Carry out any number of variance analyses (for example, plan/actual comparisons, fiscal year comparisons, and comparisons of different objects)

Drilldown Functions

Drilldown reporting provides you with easy-to-use functions for navigating through your data Using drilldown functions, you can:

< Jump to the next level of detail or to the next report object at the same level

< Hide individual levels of detail

< Switch between the detail and drilldown lists

< Process lists interactively (sorting, conditions, ranking lists, and more)

< Deploy SAP Graphics, SAPmail, and the Excel List Viewer

Once you have built the initial view of the data, you have dynamic control over how the

change the level of detail Hotspots influence the appearance of the cursor and the effect of clicking

To make a distinction between “Drilldown” (the tool) and “drilldown” (the function), the Drilldown reporting tool is optimized for online viewing of report data; you do not have to constantly scroll up or down a long list to find the appropriate subset of desired

information Drilldown allows you to stay on the same page while it interactively presents data

Where Is Drilldown Reporting Used?

Drilldown reporting is primarily used to access the following selected data structures:

< Controlling and Profitability Analysis (CO-PA)

< Executive Information System (EIS)

< General Ledger (Financial versions)

< Project Systems With Release 4.0 Drilldown reporting has been expanded to include:

Types of Drilldown Reports

Drilldown reporting is designed to make it easy to define simple adhoc reports while still providing all the functionality required for more complex ones

Consequently, you can define two different types of reports:

Form Report

In form reports the structure of the list is more complex but also allows you greater flexibility Form reports are often used for official company reports, and are particularly suitable for printing reports

Do not confuse the term form as used in Drilldown reporting (or Report Painter) with

any other use of the word “form” in the R/3 System Note that the term “form,” as used here bears no relationship to the same term that appears in the area of printing forms

For more information on printing forms, see the Printout Design Made Easy guidebook (now called SAPscript Made Easy)

Form reports are based on a structure of rows and columns called a form (template), which you define separately Form reports are divided according to the degree of complexity, depending on whether they have one axis or two, and whether or not a key figure is used in the form definition

How Is Drilldown Reporting Organized?

As shown below, you can use characteristics, key figures, and forms to define reports When you create a report, the result is a series of lists and graphics that you can display on screen You can also print reports, send them by fax or e-mail, or save them as files for PC

applications such as Microsoft Word and Excel

Characteristics Key Figures

Form

Report Name

Create Change Execute

Key Figures

Key figures (value fields) contain amounts, quantities, or events Your application contains a number of key figures that may be relevant for analysis purposes Key figures include not only stored values and quantities, but also values that are calculated from these, based on formulas that you can define

Examples of key figures:

< Value: Costs, sales, sales deductions

< Quantity: Number of employees, sales quantity, amount of billings posted

< Calculated value: Sales per employee, contribution margin

Characteristics

Characteristics refer to unique, keyed information that you use to select, sort, and summarize data Characteristics determine how your data can be classified The SAP

organizational units Controlling area, Company code, Business area, and Division are examples

of characteristics For each characteristic, a hierarchy (or many hierarchies) may be defined

in order to reflect semantic relationships between the characteristic values For example, you could set up a hierarchy for a characteristic sales region starting with worldwide sales at the top level and then subdivide it by continents, countries, and regions In Drilldown

reporting, these characteristic hierarchies are presented as a tree structure you can interactively expand or collapse to the desired level

Forms

Forms are the basic building blocks of drilldown reports A form determines the content and formal structure of a report A form can be thought of as template and a semifinished report, which you complete by specifying (additional) characteristics and key figures when you define the individual report

< Since forms can be shared across many reports, we recommend that you name them in such a way that the name does not limit their use

< The content of a form should generally be fixed and change only under rare circumstances When you change a form, it impacts every report that uses the form

Related Terminology

< Drilldown: This term is somewhat loosely used in the R/3 System In this guidebook,

drilldown implies drilling down within the confines of the report you are viewing—not drilling down to lower levels of detail across the R/3 System However, we mean to distinguish between the function of drilling down (as is available with several R/3 report development tools) and the Drilldown reporting tool, which is the focus of this chapter

< Painter: Graphical point-and-click technology in the R/3 System, the Painter allows you

to quickly build report queries against selected databases The term “Painter” used here

is different from the “Report Painter” tool covered in chapter 3

< Variables: These are generally attached to certain characteristics of the report Variables

allow you to prompt the user to select different characteristics for running a report This feature makes it possible to create reports that are flexible for different needs You can define global and local variables, depending on how often the variable is used If the

variables are used more frequently, define them as global You can use global variables

in any forms

< Axis: Refers to the X and Y axes of the body of a form report A one-axis report display

is made up of just rows or just columns A two-axis report display has a more conventional row and column look and feel

< Freezing: Drilldown can save only the data that an individual report requires This

allows a report to run many times without having to go back to large volumes of the original data store

How Does Drilldown Reporting Differ From Other Reporting Tools?

A fundamental difference between Drilldown reporting and other R/3 report development tools is that with other tools a user can develop reports from application areas (such as accounts payable in FI, shipping in SD, or payroll accounting in HR) Reports can also be developed within the menu of the reporting tool itself However, with Drilldown reporting,

you can only develop reports within the application menus Other than the application area

menus, there is no central report development for drilldown reports Consequently, the reports you develop in the Executive Information System or Profitability Analysis (for

example) are available for use only within those specific applications

Note: Drilldown reporting is often confused with Report Painter/Report Writer, a tool that is most commonly used in FI and CO Both use the term “form painter,” but use the forms differently

Because the Drilldown tool is specifically designed for reporting, it simplifies the steps necessary to write reports Double-clicking on hotspots does much of the development, with the hotspots prompting you along the way Thus, Drilldown reporting tool makes it easy to create reports

What are the Prerequisites?

Drilldown reporting tends to access summary data that requires a one-time configuration effort Once the summary tables have been configured and are populated with data, there is little need for further configuration

Quick View of the Output

Shown below is the output of a sample drilldown report With just a few hours of basic training, you should be able to create this two-axis report in 30 minutes or less

Creating a Drilldown Report: Profitability Analysis

In this section, you get a guided tour of how to create a two-axis form report This step approach is built around a sample report (see the graphic on the next page) Take a minute to familiarize yourself with the scenario and the desired report

step-by-Note: Drilldown reporting is a report development tool used as a background engine in several applications In this chapter, we provide an example of creating a drilldown report in the application area of Profitability Analysis (CO-PA)

Appendix F provides an additional perspective on how to create a drilldown report using the Executive Information System (EIS)

Example: Bungee Corporation wants to build a graphical, interactive, and user-friendly form report against its profitability analysis data Design a two-axis form report to allow users to drill down by customer or customer group

Note: The example shown here was created using Release 4.5A While this guidebook set generally provides information about Release 4.0B, we created this example in Release 4.5A to take advantage of some of the settings provided in the 4.5A IDES system

If you are familiar with profitability analysis in R/3, you may know what a CO-PA operating concern is and what the characteristics and key figures contained in an operating concern are If not, you may not fully appreciate all of the business logic in the example However, you will see how reports are created with the Drilldown tool

The graphic below shows what the finished example report looks like

< First axis: The columns (beginning with Machinery) form the first axis for this report

< Second axis: The rows (beginning with Sales Quantity) form the second axis

< Characteristics: The drilldown characteristics in this example are Customer Group and Customer The graphic shows report data, grouped by customer

Second axis (Rows)

Characteristics

First axis (Columns)

Basics Steps in Creating Drilldown Reports in CO–PA

To create a drilldown report in CO-PA, follow the steps shown below:

1 Enter a name for the report

2 Decide whether you want to create a basic report or a form report In this chapter we cover the steps needed to create a form report

3 For a form report, enter the name of the desired form

4 To copy an existing report, enter the name of the report you want to copy

5 From the initial screen, you can access the different components of the report

6 After you have specified the desired characteristics, characteristic values, and key figures for the report, save the report

7 Execute the report

Creating a Two-axis Form Report With Key Figures (in CO-PA)

To create the sample profitability analysis form

report, follow the steps shown at right

Once a form has been created, you can attach it

to a report (as shown in step 5) The term

“attach it to a report” simply means “creating a

report according to a form.”

As mentioned in step 2 above, you must decide

whether or not to create a basic report or a

form report Creating this form leads up to

creating a form report

Execute report

Trained Employee Available?

Attach your form

Guided Tour

Step 1: Set Operating Concern and Currency

The first step in building a form in

CO-PA is to set the operating concern and

operating currency

1 From the SAP main menu (not

shown here) choose Acounting →

Controlling → Profitability analysis

2 Choose Environment → CO-PA

6 Click the arrow (possible entries) to

decide which operating concern you

are going to build your query

against (for example, IDEA)

7 Under Type of Profitability Analysis,

select costing-based if it is not your

default setting

8 Choose Enter

9 In the Form field, enter a name for

the form and enter a text description

(for example, RME-2XWK)

10 From the Structure section, choose

Two axes (matrix)

11 Choose Continue

You can create forms with reference to

forms previously created by entering

the name of a form in the Copy from

area

The currency must be identified

(whether coming from the operating

concern or identified with the company

12

13

Step 2: Define the First Axis (Columns)

This is a view of a Form Painter screen

used for two axes with a key figure

When writing any of the three form

reports you always build the form first

and then attach the form to your report

We begin this section by focusing on

building the form, starting with the

columns

1 Double-click on the column heading

for Column 1

Note: Do not double-click on

XXX,XXX,XXX under the column

headings These are called cells and will

be discussed on page 4–27

2 Choose Characteristics as the Element

Type for the first column

3 Choose Enter

4 For this example, choose Product

hierarchy 1 to represent the first

column in the report

Note: It is perfectly acceptable to

choose more than one characteristic

for a column It all depends on your

6 Choose the Variable on/off button to

have the system prompt you to enter

a variable at run time

7 Use possible entries to choose

variables

8 Double-click on PRODH1_1, a

single-value variable for column 1 This

selection allows the end user to

choose from any of the product

hierarchy levels

9 In the Short, Medium, and Long

fields, enter the text to be used for

the column heading This example

shows how to apply another type of

variable as the heading text

10 Choose Enter

11 To define the remaining columns (columns 2 and 3), repeat steps 1—9 as described in this section In

step 8 above, attach the variables PRODH1_2 and PRODH_3 to columns 2 and 3 respectively.

You can create local variables at any time without having to first define them in configuration Simply put the cursor in the From or To field and click the Variable on/off

button Then type in $ followed by the variable name you want

Next, you must indicate what kind of local text variable you just defined In this case, we will define

attributes for the variable &$PHIERTXT

The R/3 System recognizes four types of variables:

12 From the Form Painter screen (shown on

page 4-12), choose Extras → Variables →

Text → Maintain variable

13 Since only one variable has been defined

for this example, choose Enter

14 Select how you want the variable value

replaced (for example, Replace

automatically) The system automatically

replaces the value of the variable for the

user

15 Choose Enter

16 Choose the characteristic(s) whose value is

to be placed into the variable at run time

In this example, we chose Product

Step 3: Define the Second Axis (Rows)

You are now ready to define the rows

for your form The steps are similar to

those used in defining columns

1 Double-click on the row titled Row 1

2 Select Key figure as the element type

for Row 1 This selection gives access

to preconfigured combinations of

Value fields with characteristics See

the TechTalk box below for more

information

3 Choose Enter

The selections on the above screen have the following results:

< Characteristics give you a list of only those characteristics that have not been selected

by either columns or general data selection

< The Value field with characteristics gives you a list of what is currently available from

the Operating concern

< Predefined elements are simply other one-axis forms that someone else may have

created earlier

Formula allows you to calculate a value based on other elements For example, as we

show, the formula can be a summation of row values

Note: You will not see this option (to enter a formula) until after you have at least one

row already defined

1

2

3

4 Since you chose Key figure, the system

prompts you for any additional key

figure scheme that may have been

configured These are virtual key figures

that can be added to the list of

permanent key figures in an operating

concern

5 Choose Enter

Note: This key figure scheme list, if

available, is unique to each installation

6 Choose Sales quantity from the Value

fields screen

7 Choose Enter

The Choose Characteristics screen prompts

you to select any characteristics you want to

associate with your key figure You may

choose none, or many, to complete the

selection criteria for your row In this

example, we select no characteristics

Supply a name for the row Notice that the

system automatically brings up the

description of the key figure from the

Operating concern You may change it if

necessary

9 Choose Enter

You have now defined row 1 for the key

figure Sales Quantity

10 Repeat steps 1-9 described in this section to define rows for the following key figures:

< Outgoing Freight (Row 2)

< Outgoing Packaging (Row 3)

< Total Revenue (Row 4)

Step 4: Select General Data and Desired Characteristics

You are now ready to select general data

and desired characteristics While this

selection is not mandatory, it is almost

always used to limit your data selection

to the characteristics you want You can

also choose characteristics that you may

not want to see in the rows or columns