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Administrators with both the Databases and Sync user permissions can manage dimension groups for a database in the Designer module. This page outlines how to manage groups from within in the Financial Statements , for which youneed module when you have permission to manage custom statements. |
Customize your dimension groups to enhance the analysis capabilities in your financial statements.
Dimensions and dimension groups
A dimension is a subset of data. Dimensions . Change the name of a group to something more descriptive, delete a group that is no longer in use, or add a new group to meet your business needs.
Your changes are saved in the underlying database design and, therefore, available to all users who have access to that database. Your dimension groups are included in favorites and dashboards and are also available for use in the Analytics module.
Before you start - some definitions
Dimensions are subsets of data. They give organization and structure to your data and form the basis of all analysis in Phocas. Each dimension contains multiple entities (also called items or values). For example, a common dimension is Country and its entities can include Australia, the UK, and the USA.
In Financial Statements, you see the list of dimensions on the left side of the grid. You use these dimensions to add levels to the statement and filter the data to focus on specific information.In a financial database, you always have topitems. The list contains two classes of dimensions:
Top-level dimensions
: The Category and Account
dimensions are always available. You might also have others, such as Company or Origin.
Dimension groups: Also called child dimensions or sub-dimensions, these additional dimensions are based on the top-level dimensions. Examples include Country, Region, and Branch.
Why add dimension groups?
As dimensions are a way of grouping data, additional dimension groups are useful for many reasons, but they’re particularly valuable:
If your business has a long list of things, such as lots of departments or cost centers. For example, you could create groups for each type of store (franchise or independent) or each size of store (small, medium, or large).
If your business is project-based. You can have individual groups for each project.
If you want to analyze consolidated results. You might want to group your entities in a certain way to help with your analysis.
If you want to reclassify items, something that might be unavailable in your ERP.
What you can do
You can edit an existing dimension group (change its name or define the order of its items), delete a group that is not in use, or add a new group to meet your business needs.
Your changes are saved in the underlying database design and, therefore, available to all users who have access to that database. Your groups are included in favorites and dashboards and also available for use in the Analytics and Budgets and Forecasts modules.
Manage groups in Financial Statements
INTRO
Get started with groups
You start in the same way whether you are adding groups to create new dimensions, editing existing groups, or simply viewing a group's composition.
Open the Groups window: Click the Settings button > Groups in the top-right corner.
In the Groups window, select the Select the top-level dimension for which you want to manage groups, for example, BranchCompany. Each entity in that dimension is displayed as a row in the grid. If any dimension groups exist for that dimension, they are displayed as columns in the grid.
Proceed to add new groups or edit or delete the groups as required.
Filter the items
Properties: If there are many properties against a particular dimension, you can see which ones you want to bring in to help you classify your items.
Activity: , so that you have some, you know, branches and stuff with no activity. You can still map them.
Mapped and unmapped: and we'll be looking to move the match and unmet options into this kebab menu as we want them to be column specific. So that's a bit of work we're working on at the moment.
Search for an item:
Sort by a range:
Import export from Excel.
Add a group
With the required dimension selected in the Groups window, click New Grouping… A new In the following image, the Company dimension has seven rows (entities) and two groups: Country and Size. The top-level entities are assigned to an entity in each group.
Find specific items (sort and filter)
The example above is very basic. It’s likely that your top-level dimensions contain many entities, and therefore, there are many rows in the grid. If there are a lot of entities, to manage the groups more easily you can:
Click a column header to sort the items by that condition in ascending or descending order.
Use the filters to limit the number of items that are displayed in the grid:
Properties: Properties give you information about the dimension, which helps you to assign the entities to the applicable group entities. Select the checkboxes of the properties you want to see in the grid.
All (activity): The dimension might contain entities for which there are no transaction activities. It is still possible to map such entities. Select Activity, No Activity, or All as required.
Keyword: The search box allows you to find a particular entity row quickly. As you type a keyword, the grid contents are filtered to display only the items that match. Often you don’t need to enter a whole keyword, as the search results are so fast.
Mapped and unmapped: As you assign entities to a group, you can filter the grid by a specific group column, so you only see the unmapped entities (the entities you have yet to assign to the group). Click the menu button in the column header and select VISIBLE > Unmapped. Filter by mapped entities in a similar way.
Add a group
In the Groups window with the required top-level dimension selected, click the New button. A new group column with a default name (Dimension 1) displays in is added to the grid.
Change the group’s default name to something more meaningful, for example, Branch Manager.Select the rows of the items in the grid and type the name of the new entity into the new Country. Click the menu button in the column header and select Rename. The header becomes editable. Overwrite the default name and click out of the header to apply your changes.
Assign the applicable top-level entities to entities in the group:
Save time by assigning multiple entities to a group entity at the same time. Use the sort and filter tools (see section above) to locate the specific items, then select their rows (click and drag to select all rows in a series).
Type the new entity's name into the yellow box in the group column and press Enter.
In this example, you select the three Australian company rows and type Australia (entity) into the Country (group) column.
After you add one or more entities to the group, you can
select
from
that list of entities when assigning the subsequent top-level entities to the group.
Repeat the above step to assign the other rows to an entity.steps (1 to 3) to add more groups and assign the applicable entities. In this example, you add another group for the size of the company, which can be small, medium, or large.
Select one of these options:
Click Build Now to rebuild the database with your changes and view the results.Click Save and closeSave and close to save your changes without triggering a database build. Your changes will take effect on the next database build.
Click Build Now to rebuild the database immediately and apply your changes. After a successful build, you’ll receive a message asking you to refresh the page, then you’ll see the new dimensions.
View the new dimensions
After you add the groups and rebuild the database, you’ll see the new dimensions in the dimension list next to the statement grid. For example, if you added a group for Branch Manager…
Edit a group
In the Groups window, with the required dimension selected,
under the top-level dimension. You can then use these dimensions as you would use any other dimension during your analysis.
If you're an administrator with access to the Designer module, you can also view the new dimensions in the database design. In Financial Statements, click the blue menu button next to the database name and select Design database. In Designer, the dimensions are displayed underneath the corresponding top-level dimension. A lock icon indicates that these dimensions cannot be edited here, as they are managed in Financial Statements.
Edit or delete a group
In the Groups window
,with the required top-level dimension selected,
View groups in Designer
TO DO
In Designer, adds a child to underlying database. Lock icon shows it’s managed in FS.
See Modify a database > Customize dimensions (hide the code, create groups, and include a group as a property)you can edit or delete the dimension groups as follows:
To rename a group, click the menu button in the column header, select Rename, overwrite the name, and then click out of the header to apply your changes.
To delete a group, click the menu button in the column header, select Delete, and click Delete to confirm.
On this page
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Related pages for administrators
Designer (learn about the Dimension component of a database)