Business objects PLANNING DOCUMENTATION ROADMAP User Manual

What's New in BusinessObjects Planning
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Introduction

About this guide

What's New in BusinessObjects Planning
Introduction
Business Objects is pleased to announce the release of BusinessObjects Planning XI Release 2 (11.20). This document details the enhancements included in this release. For more information on these enhancements, please see the appropriate system documentation.
For additional information on this release, see the Release Notes document located in your product distribution. If you have any questions on this release, please contact Support.

Who should read this guide

This guide is intended for Master System Users of BusinessObjects Planning.

Upgrading from version 10.x

Customers who want to upgrade from BusinessObjects Planning version
10.x or earlier should contact their Business Objects representative for upgrade information. To upgrade to Planning XI, your system must first be reviewed and certified.
If you are a current Planning XI customer, see the BusinessObjects Planning Installation Guide for information on performing an upgrade.

New Features

Dashboards

BusinessObjects Planning XI Release 2 (11.20) contains a new set of dashboard features designed to provide enhanced dashboard management and the ability to update dashboards on demand. Using dashboards, you
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What's New in BusinessObjects Planning
New Features
can present financial data and key performance indicators (KPIs) to users in an interactive Flash format.
Note: Upgrading to 11.20 from a prior version of Planning XI will not affect
any current dashboard.swf file that you are using. If you want to use the new dashboard features, you must specifically enable them on a per-system basis.
For more information on dashboard features, see the Planning Professional
Edition Administrator's Guide or the Planning Professional Edition Online Help.

Summary of dashboard features

Using the new dashboard feature set, administrators can:
Enable dashboard features on a per-system basis.
Enable dashboard publishing on a per-area basis. The following areas
can display dashboards: Professional Edition home page, Enterprise Desktop home page, Enterprise Desktop system pages.
Manage a list of dashboards to publish to users.
Specify which users and groups can view each dashboard.
Configure dashboards to support data updates from the Planning
database.
Once dashboards are published, users can:
Choose from a list of multiple dashboards to view.
Select a default dashboard to view upon entry to the system.
Update dashboards on demand to reflect the most current data from the
Planning database. Users' data filters apply on data update.

Dashboard creation

The dashboard SWF files are created using Crystal Xcelsius, based on data gathered from BusinessObjects Planning reports. BusinessObjects Planning comes bundled with five license keys for Crystal Xcelsius Designer. These licenses give you the right to develop and generate dashboards based on BusinessObjects Planning data only.
Dashboard creation is a three-step process:
Generate a BusinessObjects Planning report that contains the data you
want to present in the dashboard.
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Import the report into Crystal Xcelsius, and develop the dashboard
visualization (XLF file).
Export the visualization as a SWF file.
Note: Business Objects has issued a Crystal Xcelsius patch that enables
the ability to import BusinessObjects Planning reports directly into Crystal Xcelsius. This patch is available on the BusinessObjects Planning product distribution.
Enabling the dashboard to support data updates requires a few additional configuration steps:
Each range of data that you want to be updated in the dashboard must
have a defined range name in the BusinessObjects Planning source report. The named ranges must start with _plnexp.
In the Crystal Xcelsius visualization, each of the _plnexp named ranges
must be configured as updateable.
The Crystal Xcelsius visualization must be configured to source data from
the Planning web service.

Dashboard publishing

What's New in BusinessObjects Planning
New Features
For a dashboard file to be visible to Planning users, the dashboard must meet two requirements:
The SWF file must be saved to the \Dashboards folder within the system's
User Directory.
Within the Professional Edition, the SWF file must be defined as a valid
dashboard in Setup Dashboards .
Within the dashboard setup area, you can define the following for each dashboard:
The dashboard name to be displayed to Planning users.
Whether the dashboard is enabled for data updates.
The source report to use for updating.
Which users and groups can view the dashboard.

Dashboard viewing

If dashboard features are enabled for a system, the dashboard viewer appears at the top of the splash page in the Professional Edition and
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What's New in BusinessObjects Planning
New Features
Enterprise Desktop. Users must have Adobe Flash Player 7 or higher to view dashboards.
When a user first accesses the dashboard viewer, the user is prompted to select a dashboard. The list of dashboards is drawn from the list defined in the Professional Edition, and is limited to only those dashboards that the user has rights to view.
Using the Choose Dashboard button at the bottom of the dashboard control area, users can select dashboards to view, and can specify a default dashboard. The default dashboard is saved per user name.
If a dashboard has been configured to support data updates, the Update button is available at the bottom of the dashboard control area. Updating a dashboard populates it with the most current data from the Planning database, filtered by the user's data filter.
Planning dashboards can also be accessed from outside of the Professional Edition or Enterprise Desktop. You can copy the dashboard viewer (dash
boardviewer.swf) into any environment that supports Flash. When the SWF
file is run, it prompts the user for the URL of the Planning web server and for Planning user credentials. Once authenticated, the user can interact with dashboards just like within BusinessObjects Planning.

Enabling dashboard features

Dashboard features are enabled within the Planning Configuration Manager. Two sets of configuration settings are required to enable Dashboarding:
Dashboarding must be enabled globally under Global Parameters
Dashboarding .
For each system in which you want Dashboarding features enabled, you
must add Dashboarding to that system.

Siteminder integration

BusinessObjects Planning now supports use of CA SiteMinder®to control access to the Planning web access options.
Once SiteMinder integration is configured, users use a special login page (loginsm.aspx) to access Enterprise Desktop.
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For more information, please see the BusinessObjects Planning Security Administrator's Guide.

Enhancements

Home page enhancements

Home page reorganization
The home page "splash" area was reorganized to enhance usability and to allow more space for the dashboard viewer. This applies to Professional Edition Home, the Enterprise Desktop home page, and the Enterprise Desktop system pages.
The right-hand sidebar was removed. Links are now located in the main
splash area. In Enterprise Desktop, alerts and favorites are now located in the left-hand sidebar.
The Bulletins area is now named Announcements.
Splash content now appears in the following order (from top to bottom):
Dashboards, Currently Assigned, Announcements, Links, and At a Glance. If no content exists for an area, that area will not appear.
You can now jump directly to specific areas on the page by using
hyperlinks at the top of the page. A scroll bar is also present to scroll through the content.
What's New in BusinessObjects Planning
Enhancements
Editing announcements and links (Professional Edition only)
You can now edit announcements (bulletins.txt) and links (links.txt) directly from Professional Edition Home. To edit these areas, click the Edit hyperlink underneath the Announcements or Links header. The announcements or links are displayed in a dialog where you can edit the text.
This feature is only available to administrators.

Process Control enhancements

User interface enhancements were made to the Process Control Management, Process Control Ownership, and Stage History screens.
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What's New in BusinessObjects Planning
Enhancements
A Status column was added to Process Control Management to
graphically show the current status of each plan workbook. The column contains a green light if the workbook is on time, and a red light if the workbook is past due.
In Process Control Management, the same color is now used to highlight
completed stages and the current stage, creating a graph-like view of workbooks' progress through the stages.
The Graph View tab was removed from Process Control Management.
The color scheme of all screens was updated to better match the overall
BusinessObjects Planning color palette.

Login dialog enhancements

The BusinessObjects Planning login dialog was updated to match the login dialog design for other Business Objects products.
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