FSG Tips and Tricks
By Melanie Cameron
About Melanie Cameron
 14 years experience with EBS
 Worked on every release since 10.6, oldest
release was 9.x
 20 years experience in Finance, including
banking, mortgage, manufacturing,
SOX compliance and IPO’s
 5 year member of the AZOAUG
Board of Directors
 A Funcno Techno consultant who
Prefers knitting over palm pilots
About MSS Technologies, Inc
 Established in 1989
 Located in Phoenix and Denver
 Deliver business application solutions to the Mid
Market:
- ERP, BI, Data Warehousing, Application
Development Services, Strategic IT Planning
 MSS Vision:
- “Innovate the way business management solutions
are delivered and eliminate the word failure from the
information systems vocabulary.”
Tip #1
If it works……..
Don’t change it
Anatomy of an FSG
Account Override Options
 On Report – enter Segment Override
 Add a Content Set
 When running, add Segment Override or
Content Set
 On Column Set – Add Override Value
Remember, a segment must be included at the
Lowest level to be Overridden at a Higher level!
Row Sets
Define Row Sets
Account Assignments
Calculations
 Using Row Numbers:
 Using Row Names:
Row Tips
 Number your Lines 10, 20, 30
- Leave Room for growth
 Skip and Page Break – be consistent on Before
and After
- Easier to create consistent looking reports
 Row Names in Calculates are easier to see
what the calculation is doing
- WARNING: sometimes this leads to inaccurate
results when adding Rows that have Calculations in
them
Row Tips
 Use Display Zero to add proofing rows or columns to
your report
- They display only when there is a problem – Assets does not
equal Liabilities plus Owners Equity, or a zero balance account
is not zero
 Using ICM? If this is an audited Financial Statement, or
one that is linked to your controls, you may want to use
Ranges instead of Parent accounts
- ICM will not see all the Child accounts under a parent, only the
Parent Account, which is not the account being audited nor the
one that relates to the control
Column Sets
Define Column Sets
Budgets and Forecasts?
 Define Control Values on the Report and select them on
the Row and Column Sets to determine which budget
numbers are used on the Report
What goes on a Column set vs
Row set?
Column Set
 Company or Dept
assignments for column
breakout
 Column Calculations
 Format Options
 Level of Detail
 Control Values
 Offsets
Row Set
 Row Titles
 Account Assignments
 Row Calculations
 Format Options
 Level of Detail
Build Columns
Column Tips
 Make the Number formats at least one over the
largest current number
- Allows room for growth and formulas
 When creating columns, assign them all a width
of 10
- Use the Build Columns, you can adjust the widths in
a graphical interface that gives a better visual image
 Clicking on Build Column Set will override any
previous column formats you had saved
- Not bad or good – just something to be aware of
Content Sets
Content Set Tips
 These are buggy! Sometimes they do not
give you the results you expect – if
it works, leave it alone
 If a copied set gives different
results, check the manual or
a white paper, and only change
the one that is wrong
Row Order
Row Order Tips
 The Width on the row order sometimes
needs to be 1 wider then the actual
segment to display
ADI
 Did you know you can define FSG’s in
ADI?
ADI – Define Report
ADI – Define Report
ADI – Define Report
ADI – Define Report
Maintenance
 Auto Copy
- Will not copy over the
same name in the target
database
 Database Links
- This requires the apps password – if you setup a
new user name and password, ensure it has the
proper Write access
FSG’s running slow
 Remove any disabled companies from Content
Sets
 Ensure all segments of the Accounting Key
Flexfield are setup to be Indexed
 Run Program> Optimizer
- Gather Statistics
- Re-indexes the Segments, or Indexes them if it was
just turned on
Work with your DBA if this is the first time using this report
or turning on Indexing
Hierarchy of Data
 Request overrides everything
 Report overrides Components
 Content Set overrides Column
and Row Sets
Row always overrides Column
 Amount Type
 Offset
 Control Value
 Format
 Factor
 Display Zero
 Level of Detail
Column always overrides Row
 Calculation – when check box is checked
 Activity (DR, CR or Net)
No Override Rules
 Accounts – uses intersecting from Row and
Column
 Summary – must be same as Row and Column
 Currency – must assign same currency for
intersecting columns and row, or will display 0
 Change Sign (and on Variance)– Defaults to
No, Yes anywhere will override
Running and Publishing Reports
 Options:
- Concurrent Request
Formatting limited
- ADI
Runs as Excel or HTML
Control questionable because it has 100% of Excel
functionality
Allows drill downs on lines that are Parent Accounts or
Account Ranges for analysis purposes
- XML Publisher
Limits analysis available with ADI
Concurrent Request
ADI
XML Publisher
Differences?
 ADI – Can drill down
 XML – Can publish securely
 Concurrent Manager – Limited space and
formatting
What’s coming in R12?
 FSG’s publish with Report Manager
 Users are working with Oracle to have
ADI like features available
Questions?
Contact Information
[email protected]
To Download a copy of the
FSG Tips and Tricks White Paper:
www.MSSTech.com
and click on FSG White Paper