20201106 FINAH Production Release

From: Parnell, Sarah <saparnell@ucsd.edu>
Sent: Friday, November 6, 2020 8:26 PM
To: Financial-Analytics-COP-l (Financial-Analytics-COP-l@ucsd.edu) <Financial-Analytics-COP-l@ucsd.edu>
Cc: ITS-BIA <its-bia@ucsd.edu>; ITS-DataIntergrationServices <ITS-DataIntergrationServices@AD.UCSD.EDU>; Kilburn, Erin <ekilburn@ucsd.edu>; Kim, Elliot <etkim@ucsd.edu>; Blankenship, Laura <lsblankenship@ucsd.edu>; Chou, Kevin <kcchou@ucsd.edu>
Subject: FINAH Enhancements to Production

Good news FINAH Developers!  We have released the below full list of enhancements into Production today!  THANK YOU to everyone who provided feedback, asked questions and let us know how they are using financial data in their reports.  Not all requests made it into these enhancements so look for more to come in next month’s FINAH release.

Consumer Access Reminder:

If consumers want to view the reports that you have built for them, then do not need to have Oracle access.  These consumers do need to be in an Active Directory (AD) group that you have provided to busintel@ucsd.edu.  We will need to know which folder and which data source that AD group will need to access in order to view the reports you have built for them.

Tableau and FINAH Measures:

In our last Tableau Community of Practice we looked at how Tableau aggregates (aka totals) the FINAH measures and how the grain (lowest detail level) of the view drives what numbers you see.  We also worked through an example of how to use a Level of Detail (LOD) calculation to ensure Tableau is giving you the number that matches Oracle.  If you missed the session you can find the notes and recording here:  https://ucsdcollab.atlassian.net/wiki/display/ACP/Tableau+Community+of+Practice#expand-20201103TableauCOP

Future Enhancements:

We fully expect that you have questions, comments and ideas on how we can continue to improve FINAH in order to make creating business analytic solutions easier for all of you.  Don’t hesitate to let us know your thoughts be emailing busintel@ucsd.edu and check out what we are working on next here:  https://ucsdcollab.atlassian.net/wiki/display/ACP/FINAH+Enhancements+In+Progress.

Thanks for being awesome,

Sarah Parnell

Analytics Community of Practice Manager

Business Intelligence & Analytics | Information Technology Services | UC San Diego

https://ucsdcollab.atlassian.net/wiki/x/A4C0C

work cell: 858-354-9709

My pronouns [https://www.mypronouns.org/]: she/her/hers

“I take care of step 1 thru 3 so you can get to step 4 faster. What’s your step 1?” - Sarah

From: Parnell, Sarah <saparnell@ucsd.edu>
Sent: Friday, October 30, 2020 12:35 PM
To: Financial-Analytics-COP-l (Financial-Analytics-COP-l@ucsd.edu) <Financial-Analytics-COP-l@ucsd.edu>
Cc: ITS-BIA <its-bia@ucsd.edu>; ITS-DataIntergrationServices <ITS-DataIntergrationServices@AD.UCSD.EDU>; Kilburn, Erin <ekilburn@ucsd.edu>; Kim, Elliot <etkim@ucsd.edu>; Blankenship, Laura <lsblankenship@ucsd.edu>; Chou, Kevin <kcchou@ucsd.edu>
Subject: FINAH enhancements - UAT available - due November 5

Happy Friday FINAH Developers! We are excited to release new enhancements for you to test. 

This is final UAT for September 30, October 14 and October 30 FINAH enhancements:

Due to the Cognos upgrade during October we have only released enhancements to UAT.  Hearing no critical issues, we will be releasing all of the enhancements released since September 30th into Production on November 6.  The is the final week for you to test the following enhancements.

If you find an issue, please email busintel@ucsd.edu right away with the subject line “FINAH UAT due November 5” so we can address it prior to November 6.

Customer Service Reminder:

Data in UAT is not ready to be shared with end customers, is not considered completely validated and can change suddenly.  For optimal customer satisfaction, do not connect your production solutions to packages / data sources that are in UAT.  If you choose to share UAT items with end customer, be explicit that the data and report is in UAT and can change suddenly or be broken by UAT changes.

Consumer Access:

If users want to build FINAH reports then they need to request an Oracle access role of UCSD BI Consumer JR via the Oracle and Concur Role Request form.  Users with UCSD BI Author JR, UCSD BI Modeler JR or UCSD BI Administrator JR will automatically have FINAH Report Developer access.

If consumers want to view the reports that you have built for them, then do not need to have Oracle access.  These consumers do need to be in an Active Directory (AD) group that you have provided to busintel@ucsd.edu with instructions on which folder and which data source that AD group will need to access in order to view the reports you have built for them.

Financial Measures:

Financial data lives at different levels (Award, Project, Task, more...) due to the nature of finance.  Tableau and Cognos will display the same number for multiple rows when the measure you are looking at lives at a less-detailed grain than what you have included in your report.  This is expected behavior in both tools, not a duplication in FinAH.  Tableau developers, please note that if you total these measures you see inflated numbers - this is expected Tableau functionality.  Cognos functionality allows for these totals to display the correct, unique grain value.

Tableau report developers will need to use Level of Detail (LOD) calculation to display the correct total if you choose to display measures and dimensions that live at different grains together in the same worksheet.  For example, {FIXED 'Award Number' : MIN(Measure Name)} or {FIXED 'Project Code and Name' : MIN(Measure Name)}.

Cognos and Tableau are different business intelligence tools that have different strengths (https://blink.ucsd.edu/technology/bi/tools/index.html) so we encourage you to use the best tool for your specific report need.  ITS-BIA attempts to deliver the data equitably but we cannot force the tools to function the same.  If you are delivering report links to your end customers then there is no reason for end customers to be concerned with which tools the report is built in.

How to test the new enhancements:

• Cognos: Use the packages in Cognos DEV > Financial Activity Hub > FINAH Data Sources – UAT to build your report and select Hana QA.  Do not select Hana Prod as the report will fail.  Using Hana QA will allow you to see the below enhancements with Oracle Production data. 
• Tableau: Sign into Tableau QA on your Tableau desktop tool and open your report.  Add a new data source with the same name and -QA at the end of the title.  Using this data source will allow you to see the below enhancements with Oracle Production data.
• Hana QA:  FINAH data in Hana QA is production Oracle data loaded daily, just like in Hana PROD.

If you find an issue, please include in your email to busintel@ucsd.edu the following:

• What browser are you using?
• What environment are you using?  Cognos DEV, QA or PROD?  Tableau QA or Prod?
• What data source / package are you using?
• What results were you expecting?  What departments were you approved for via the new FINAH row level security?

Items marked with an asterisk (*) are report breaking enhancements if you have these fields in your report.

Reminder: UAT was completed when we published the General Ledger so these were moved directly into production.

Thanks for being awesome,

Sarah Parnell

Analytics Community of Practice Manager

Business Intelligence & Analytics | Information Technology Services | UC San Diego

https://ucsdcollab.atlassian.net/wiki/x/A4C0C

work cell: 858-354-9709

My pronouns [https://www.mypronouns.org/]: she/her/hers

“I take care of step 1 thru 3 so you can get to step 4 faster. What’s your step 1?” - Sarah