Export, Archive and Import Reports - Exercises

Export, Archive and Import Reports

Purpose: The purpose of this lesson is to show you how to export an Excel report from a BA report, save the BA report in the BA Export Archive and then how to import data from an Excel report to a BA report.

Scenario: In this exercise, an existing Business Analytics report with writeback enabled cells have to be used in order to get an executed report with a dataset in the end user mode.

Required Data

Purpose: The purpose of this exercise is to create two reports that can be used in the exercises for exporting, archiving and importing reports.

  1. Design a report with the name BAEXPORT01.

General Exercises for Design Report

  1. Design a writeback enabled BA report with the name BAEXPORT02.

General Exercises for Writeback

Main Exercises

Export to Microsoft Excel Report

Purpose: The purpose of this exercise is to show you how to export a BA report to a Microsoft Excel report and save it without the IFS Business Analytics functionality.

Windows: 

               Export to Excel Report

  1. Open the BAEXPORT01 report in design mode.
  2. Click Execute. The report result will be displayed in the end user mode.
  3. Click Export to Excel Report to open the Export to Excel Report dialog box.


     
  4. Select Export to Excel Report option.
  5. In the Export to Excel Report Without BA tab, select Save on Disk option.
  6. Click Browse to browse for the location in which the report should be saved.
  7. Enter a name in the File Name field for the Microsoft Excel report that will be saved without the IFS Business Analytics functionality.
  8. Click Export. A message will appear to inform you that the report was successfully exported.
  9. Open the location in your hard disk which you browsed for in step 6. You will find the BAEXPORT01 saved as a Microsoft Excel file.

Export to Microsoft Excel Report for Later Import

Purpose: The purpose of this exercise is to show you how to export a BA report to a Microsoft Excel report for the purpose of importing it back to the original BA report later. Note that the original BA report should have writeback enabled cells in order to have data imported to it. Data will be imported only to the writeback enabled cells.

Windows: 

               Export to Excel Report

  1. Open the BAEXPORT02 report in design mode.
  2. Click Execute. The report result will be displayed in the end user mode.
  3. Click Export to Excel Report to open the Export to Excel Report dialog box.
  4. Select Export to Excel Report for Later Import option.
  5. In the Export to Excel Report Without BA tab, select the Save on Disk option.
  6. Enter the File Path and the File Name to save the Excel report on disk.
  7. Click on the Save BA Report tab. The Save BA Report to Archive check box will be automatically selected.

    Note: When exporting excel report for later import, it is required to save the original BA report in the BA Export Archive.

  1. Select Save BA Report to Disk check box, if you need to save the report with the Business Analytics design to a local disk location.
  2. Click Browse to browse for the location in which the report should be saved with the Business Analytics design.
  3. Modify the name displayed in the Report Name  field if you want to save the BA report with a different name.
  4. Click Export. A message will appear to inform you that the report was successfully exported.
  5. Click Manage BA Archive  to open the Manage BA Archive dialog box. You will find the BAEXPORT02  displayed in the dialog box. You would also find the report saved as a Microsoft Excel file in the file path you specified in step 6.

Required Data

Modify Microsoft Excel Report

Purpose: The purpose of this exercise is to modify the BAEXPORT02 report you exported and saved as a Microsoft Excel report in Export to Microsoft Excel Report for Later Import exercise so that you can view the modifications when you import it back to the original report.

Open the BAEXPORT02 report you saved as a Microsoft Excel report from the file path you specified in step 6 of Export to Microsoft Excel Report for Later Import exercise. Note that data can be imported only to the writeback enabled cells of a BA report. Therefore, ensure that you modify values for writeback enabled cells for BAEXPORT02 when modifying the Microsoft Excel report.

Import from Microsoft Excel Report to Archived BA Report

Purpose: The purpose of this exercise is to show you how to import data to a BA report. The data imported in this exercise are modifications made to the report without using IFS Business Analytics functionality.

Scenario: The Microsoft Excel report you saved in your hard disk in the Export to Microsoft Excel Report for Later Import exercise and then modified in the Modify Microsoft Excel Report exercise will be used as the source file when importing data. The BA report that was saved in the BA Export Archive in the Export to Microsoft Excel Report for Later Import exercise will be used as the target BA report.

  1. Open a new IFS Business Analytics report. Go to the end user mode.
  2. Click Import from Excel Report to open the Import From Excel Report dialog box.
  3. Click Browse in the Source File tab to select the Microsoft Excel report you saved in your hard disk in the Export to Microsoft Excel Report for Later Import exercise.
  4. Click Sheet Selection. In the list of sheets, select the sheets of the source Excel report that should be imported.


     
  5. In the Target BA Report tab, select Report from BA Export Archive option to fetch the target report from the BA export archive.
  6. select Re-Execute Before Import if you want the archived report to execute and fetch latest dataset from the database.


     
  7. Click Import. The BA report will be opened and the data values from the Excel report will get imported to the BA report.

Import from Excel Report to the Current BA Report

Scenario: In this exercise, the Excel report that was exported in the previous exercise will be used as the source file with few modifications to its data values. The BA report that was saved on the disk in the previous exercise will be opened and used as the target BA report.

  1. Open the BA report that was saved on the disk in the Export to Excel Report for Later Import section. Execute the report to fetch latest dataset from the database.
  2. Click Import from Excel Report to open the Import From Excel Report dialog box.
  3. In the Source File tab, enter the File Name of the source Excel report using Browse.
  4. Click Sheet Selection. In the list of sheets, select the sheets of the source Excel report that should be imported.
  5. In the Target BA Report tab, select Current BA Report option.
  6. Click Import. The data values from the Excel report will get imported to the current BA report.

Writeback Imported Values to Archived BA Report

Scenario: In this exercise, the values imported to writeback enabled cells of the BA report will be written back to IFS Applications.

  1. Use the BA report to to which you imported values in the Import from Microsoft Excel Report to Archived BA Report exercise or Import from Excel Report to the Current BA Report exercise. (Note: You should not close the BA report you use in this exercise after importing values to it without performing the writeback.)

  2. Click Writeback on the Document Action pane.

  3. Click Collect Modified Data Sets.

  4. Click Collective Writeback to update the values directly to IFS Applications.

Manage BA Export Archive
 

Scenario: In this exercise, the BA report archived in Export to Excel Report for later Import section will modified in BA Export Archive.

  1. Open IFS Business Analytics and go to end user mode.
  2. Click Manage BA Export Archive to open the BA export archive.
  3. In the Report Selection tab, select a report and modify the Expire date if you want a different date than the default suggested date. Edit Notes, if needed.

    Note: By default the Expire Date is set 60 days away from the archiving date.

  4. Select a report from Report Selection tab, and go to Report Access tab. Enter the users and user groups who should have access to the selected report in BA Export Archive.