Data Monitor (SAP Library - Consolidation (EC-CS))

Data Monitor

Use

You use the data monitor to run the activities for collecting and preparing the financial data reported by your consolidation units. In Consolidation, these activities are called tasks.

The system manages the status of the tasks and, thus, ensures a logical sequence and consistent data.

Prerequisites

In Customizing , you have defined a task group along with its tasks for the data monitor, and you have assigned the task group to the dimension (global task group).

In addition you have assigned one task group to one consolidation group or to several consolidation groups of the dimension, which includes a partial quantity of task groups. When you enter the consolidation group in the global parameters, then the data monitor only shows the organizational units of this group and the tasks of the consolidation group dependent task group.

See also: Data Monitor in the Implementation Guide for Consolidation

Features

Monitor Layout

The monitor displays the hierarchy of organizational units vertically.

The monitor displays the overall status and the tasks horizontally.

In the resulting table, each organizational unit is shown with its overall status and the status of each related task.

The legend (found in the menu of the monitor) explains the meaning of the colors and icons/texts. This graphic is explained in the accompanying text

Organizational Units

The data monitor displays the hierarchy of organizational units all the way down to the level of the consolidation units. This means that you can run the tasks for the consolidation groups as well as the consolidation units (also see the section running the tasks).

Note

When you enter a consolidation group in the global parameters, then the monitor only displays the organizational units of this group as a hierarchy (as with the focus, see below). When you also enter a consolidation unit of this group in the global parameters, then the monitor displays the detail overview of tasks for this unit.

For a better overview of the organizational units to be processed, the menu contains the following functions:

You can search the organizational units in the hierarchy.
You can set the focus on a hierarchy, a group, or a consolidation unit, allowing you to only see these organizational units with their lower-level units.

By double-clicking on the hierarchy column heading, you can reset the focus (or via the menu).

When you position the cursor on an organizational unit, then you can

double-click on it to go to its master record.

This can be very useful, when you want to look at the unit's assignments concerning the data transfer method, validations, currency translation method, and so on.

right-click to call up the detail overview of the status for the selected organizational unit

This graphic is explained in the accompanying text

Tasks

The monitor shows all of the tasks you defined in Customizing and assigned to the task group. The following is important when processing the tasks:

All tasks in the task group must generally be run for each and every consolidation unit.

An exception is made for the tasks:

- data collection tasks

- manual posting tasks

- tasks that are not relevant to a given consolidation unit (see later)

In Customizing of the task group, specify which task should be the last task to be executed. When you include the task for validating the standardized financial data in the task group, then the system considers this task as the last task; in this case you cannot tag another task as the last task.

There is a mandatory sequence of certain tasks. This ensures that these tasks are run in the correct sequence as required by the system.

Example

For example, the collection of reported financial data must be complete before the data is validated, that is, the data's consistency is checked.

However, this mandatory sequence is only very broad. The details of the mandatory sequence depends on your specific requirements. Therefore, Customizing lets you further narrow down the mandatory sequence.

Example

If you want to standardize the reported financial data to meet your corporate requirements, you can decide if this task is to be run prior to and after currency translation.

The following tasks may be irrelevant for individual consolidation units:

- Carrying forward of balances

This task is irrelevant for a consolidation unit if the database does not contain data for the prior fiscal year.

- Currency translation

This task is irrelevant for a consolidation unit if the unit's local currency is the same as the group currency, or if the unit's data is entered in group currency.

The status of such consolidation units shows if the task is irrelevant and is therefore skipped.

In Customizing you can determine certain tasks as milestones. In the monitor, these tasks are tagged with in the column heading.

Milestones are used when tasks are run as a bundle. The system stops at each milestone, thus allowing the user to control further processing at that point. However you can run a task successively for the milestones (see also section Executing Tasks).

For further information on these Customizing activities, see the Implementation Guide of Consolidation at: Define Task Group

Layout Design

Depending on your group's structure and your consolidation requirements, the matrix in the monitor can become very large and somewhat unwieldy. In this case, you can use the following functions to modify the layout of the monitor:

· In the hierarchy of the organizational units you can:

- set the focus (see also the section monitor layout / organizational units)

hide the names of the organizational units, and thus only show the IDs.
hide blank lines

· You can manipulate the task columns as follows:

- scroll horizontally to hide the completed tasks and only show the incomplete tasks

hide columns to only show the overall task for the organizational units.
set the width, by moving the edges of the column with the cursor

· You can manipulate the status display as follows:

- set a filter to only show certain statuses – e.g., only show all tasks with errors or with the overall status of incomplete

choose between icons and text
align the icons on the left or centrally

· You can save your user layout (see menu Layout or Icons). Then your layout settings are retained even when you exit the monitor and are available the next time you call up the monitor.

This concerns the following settings in particular:

Focus

Expand hierarchy

Status display

Task display

Some of the saved settings are cross-dimensional, they are icons/text, show/hide blank lines, icon alignment, reveal/hide tasks.

Running the Tasks

Selection of the Organizational Units

In the data monitor, you can run the tasks for each individual consolidation unit.

If you want to be able to run the tasks for the lower level consolidation units of an entire consolidation group, the system must be able to automatically execute the tasks of the lower-level consolidation units. Automatic execution is not possible for:

the data transfer method online data entry in the SAP System

the task manual adjustment

Note

When you position the cursor on a task and right click with the mouse, then you receive a context menu. This menu is dependent on the status of the task. For example, when the task is blocked, then you receive the functions Unblock and if required Last log as the context menu .

Start Mode

You can run the tasks in the following modes:

· Test mode

You can execute test runs regardless of a task's status at any time.

· Update mode

You can run a task in update mode if the task has been opened and the preceding task is blocked (see Status Management).

· Update mode with pendent tasks

When you start a task in update mode and the preceding task is not yet blocked, then the system executes the pendent task (see Status Management).

· Initial Screen Start

You receive the initial screen start for the tasks in this mode, so that you can enter the selection conditions, the technical settings (test mode or update mode) etc.

· Run successive tasks

A consolidation run automatically triggers multiple executable tasks as a bundle. This feature speeds up the creation of your consolidated statements. The automatic processing stops at the next milestone.

The status bar of the SAP screen shows which task is being processed.

· Run successive tasks without stopping

The system does not stop before the milestone in this mode. Instead it closes the milestone task and moves on to the next task.

Note

For tasks where the system generates a log (for example currency translation), you can call up the last log, by positioning the cursor on the organizational unit and right clicking the mouse.

Opening and Closing Periods

You can open and close periods of a fiscal year, to be precise always for a selected consolidation unit (with subordinated organizational units) or a consolidation unit.

Periods are generally kept open. The following table shows, which actions you can execute in the data monitor or in the consolidation monitor, so that according to the initial situation, you can close or open the period again.

Initial situation	Action		Result
Initial situation	in data monitor	in cons monitor	Result
Period open	-	Close period	Period closed in data monitor and cons monitor
Period open	Close data monitor	-	Period closed in data monitor, open in cons monitor
Period closed	Open period	-	Period open in data monitor and in cons monitor
Period closed	-	Open cons monitor	Period closed in data monitor, open in cons monitor

An authorization object exists for opening and closing periods, enabling you to assign the authorization to a specific circle of co-workers.

Further functions

You can go to the monitor in the database listing in order to check the totals record (menu Go To).

You can go to the data monitor to the consolidation monitor and vice versa (menu Go To).

Status Management

Overall Status

The monitor displays the overall status for each organizational unit. The overall status is portrayed using an initial stage icon and three traffic light icons, as illustrated here:

This graphic is explained in the accompanying text

Task Status

As with the overall status, the monitor also displays the status of each task for each organizational unit. Tasks have the following statuses:

This graphic is explained in the accompanying text

You can double-click a status to see more detail. This includes the user name, date and time of the last change.

Status Updating

At the beginning of processing in the data monitor the status of all tasks are set to initial stage or irrelevant. When you run a task in update mode, the status is updated for the relevant organizational unit.

When you run a task in update mode and the preceding tasks are not yet blocked, then the system sets the status pendent task. This means that you have to run the task again if you have blocked the preceding tasks.

A task can only be blocked (see menu) if it was run without any errors and not pendent.

An exception is made for the tasks data collection and manual standardizing entries. These can be blocked without having been run.

In Customizing, any task can be set to be automatically blocked after being run without errors. For example, this is useful for the task validation.

A task must be unblocked before it can be rerun after being blocked. Note that this also automatically unblocks all "downstream" tasks. For example, if you unblock the task data collection, the tasks validation, currency translation, and so on are also unblocked.
The system uses the same update logic for higher-level and lower-level organizational units, and for the overall status. This is illustrated below as follows:
In certain situations you can reset the status to initial stage (in the menu). The system then also resets the statuses of the organizational units for the selected task as follows:

- the status of the selected consolidation unit or group

- the statuses of the lower-level consolidation units and groups

- the statuses of the higher-level consolidation groups

· Another function for certain situations is the function for deactivating status management. This function is described in Customizing step Check Global System Settings.

· When the status management is deactivated, you will receive a system message on activities in the monitor. You find this function in the step Check Global System Settings in the Implementation Guide. When the status management is deactivated then you get a system message with activities in the monitor. You can activate the status management from the monitor (menu Environment).

Example

The following graphics illustrate simple examples of status updating: Say, a user at the subgroup Acme Pharmaceuticals runs the tasks for the lower-level consolidation units. Note that some interim steps have been left out below.

The first graphic shows all tasks at the initial stage before any processing occurs.

This graphic is explained in the accompanying text

The next graphic shows that the user executed the data collection task for two consolidation units. Note that the status of the subgroup Pharma is still incomplete because the task has not been executed for all consolidation units that belong to the group. The traffic light is yellow. Both of these statuses are reflected at the higher-level organizational unit Segments.

This graphic is explained in the accompanying text

The next graphic shows that the user blocked the data collection task for both consolidation units and executed the task for validating the reported financial data.

This graphic is explained in the accompanying text

The next graphic shows that the validation for unit Pharma 1 contained errors. This status is also reflected at the higher-level organizational units.

This graphic is explained in the accompanying text

The next graphic shows that the user unblocked the data collection task in order to correct the reported financial data. Afterwards, the user must block the task again and rerun the validation task.

This graphic is explained in the accompanying text

The next graphic shows that all tasks for the group Pharma ran without errors and have been blocked, which is reflected by the green traffic light.

This graphic is explained in the accompanying text