Enhancements to Drilldown Reporting

Scope of Functions

Custom Characteristics and Attributes

In drilldown reporting you can use custom characteristics, standard attributes and custom attributes as selection criteria and as drilldown characteristics. Especially the attributes behave in drilldown reports just like normal characteristics.

Reference Characteristics

In order to be able to select transaction data for a consolidation group, you need to specify the version, the fiscal year and period for determining the consolidation group and its combination of consolidation units.

Previously the following logic was implied:

• The consolidation version specified in the selection criteria was used as the version

• The most recent fiscal year specified was used for the year

• Either the most recent period specified was used for the period, or "16" was used if no period was specified.

(This information was computed for each cell in the report.)

The current release introduces three characteristics: the "reference version", the "reference fiscal year", and the "reference period". These can be used to explicitly specify the parameters for breaking down the consolidation group into consolidation units. Furthermore, when you use custom attributes, the reference characteristics at the same time determine for which version/year/period the attributes of a consolidation unit are to be determined. If you do not specify one of the reference characteristics, the previous, implied logic is used for breaking down the consolidation group and for determining the attributes.

The characteristic "reference version" enables version-based restatements via reporting. The characteristics "reference fiscal year" and "reference period" simplify temporal restatements via reporting that was already available.

Global Variables with SAP Exits

For several standard characteristics you can create global variables with an SAP exit that can simplify the handling of drilldown reports considerably:

1. Value variable for global parameters

For the characteristics dimension, ledger, cons chart of accounts, version, fiscal year, and period, you can create global variables that can be substituted with the global parameters of the Consolidation system.

You can create the same variables for the reference characteristics as well. These are also filled with the global parameters of Consolidation.

2. Value variable for ledgers with special logic

If a report contains a unique value for the characteristics dimension, totals consolidation group, consolidation version, and fiscal year, this information can be used for deriving the ledger. You can use a special value variable for the ledger to do this. This simplifies reporting in group currency, which is always taken from the ledger.

3. Hierarchy variable for organizational units

Previously, if you wanted a drilldown list to display a hierarchy for one of the characteristics consolidation group, consolidation unit, or partner unit, you had to specify a hierarchy name composed of a combination of the five characteristics dimension, consolidation group, version, year, and period. Instead, now you can also use a special hierarchy variable that derives the values of the five parameters from the selection criteria of the report. This ensures that the hierarchy shown in the report always matches the data that is displayed.

4. Hierarchy variable for FS items

Previously, if you wanted a drilldown list to display a hierarchy for an FS item, you had to specify as the hierarchy name a consolidation chart of accounts or a combination of cons chart and totals item. Instead, you can now also use a special hierarchy variable that derives the cons chart and the value of the totals item (when applicable) from the selection criteria of the report. This ensures that the hierarchy shown in the report always matches the data that is displayed.

Hierarchy Names and Display Properties for Hierarchies

For hierarchies of organizational units and FS items, previous releases did not allow you to influence the defaults for the display properties of the hierarchies. After a report was created, the hierarchies were always displayed using the system defaults. In this release you can change the defaults of the display properties in IMG.

Previously, there were two ways of choosing a hierarchy in a report:

• You could directly specify the combination of the characteristics dimension, cons group, version, year and period (for hierarchies of organizational units) or the combination of cons chart of accounts and FS item (for hierarchies of FS items).

• You could create global hierarchy variables which you could use to propose a list of several hierarchy names in report maintenance.

As of this release, the maintenance transactions let you maintain the hierarchy names to be offered in the hierarchy selection in the report. The hierarchy names created in this manner have the following advantages over the global hierarchy variables:

• As opposed to global hierarchy variables, you can specify your own defaults for the display properties for each hierarchy name.

• The hierarchy names are not only listed in the report maintenance, but also when the report is started.

Characteristic Groups

When you use custom characteristics and attributes, the number of characteristics available for defining forms and reports can become very large. You can keep the available characteristics managable by combining the characteristics into groups. Thus, if you choose a characteristic group when defining a form or a report, the selection list only shows the characteristics that belong to the group.

Report Conversion

When you start a report after updating your release, the report is first converted for the new release. A new step in the Implementaiton Guide allows you to convert all of the existing reports all at once.

Effects on Customizing

• Use custom subassignments, attributes and reference characteristics when defining forms and reports.

• Define global variables with an SAP exit, and use them when defining forms and reports.

• Define hierarchy names and use them when defining reports.

• Define characteristic groups and use them to delimit the list of characteristics when defining forms or reports.