FinXL Help Guide 1.2

ContentsPages

Overview2 to 7

Create a new report8 to 9

Refreshing a report10 to 12

Edit a report13 to 14

Convert reports15 to 16

Updating FinXL17

Overview

Ribbon Bar

Upon successful installation of the FinXL add-in, and after restarting Excel, the FinXL tab and ribbon bar will become visible to allow access to the tool.

Fig. 1 FinXL ribbon bar when logged out of tool.

The ribbon bar will display a number of buttons of which most are greyed out and are inactive until a user has logged in using the Login button.

Upon selecting the Login button the login pane is displayed on the right of the active spreadsheet. To log in enter the groupname, username and password (these details are the same as the Analytics login credentials).

Please note that after 3 incorrect login attempts the account will become inactive for 5 minutes before you can try again. If login attempts fail 9 times then the account will become permenantly locked and FE will need to confirm your details before unlocking the account.

Fig. 2 Login pane.

Upon successful login, a number of buttons in the ribbon bar will become active allowing access to FinXL’s functionality. The login button will also change to allow the user to log out.

Fig.3 FinXL ribbon bar when logged into tool.

Please note that once logged in there is a session expiry after 30 minutes of inactivity which is reset by running or refreshing any FinXL report. Upon session expiry you will be required to log back into FinXL to continue using the tool.

The ribbon bar buttons which become active after logging in are:

  1. Add New Report-Allows selection of a FinXL report to be created.
  2. Edit or Move Report-This option becomes active when any cell within an existing FinXL report is selected and allows editing of the selected report.
  3. Refresh-Allows individual refresh of any selected FinXL report or refresh of all FinXL reports in the active Excel workbook.
  4. Report Explorer-Toggle the visibility of the Report Form and Report List panes.
  5. Help and Support-Provides guides and help on FinXL and Client Support details.
  6. Convert-Convert either single or all FinXL v1 reports into the new FinXL report format.

Please note that the Add New Report menu will initially be empty as the report list has to be loaded from the database upon first use. Please log out of FinXL, close and reopen Excel and then log back into FinXL and the reports list should now be populated.

Right Click Menu

Once successfully logged into FinXL a quick access menu is visible by right clicking in any cell in the active spreadsheet. The options available will depend on the content of the active cell.

The quick access menu options available when the active cell does not contain an existing FinXL v2 report are:

  1. New FinXL Report-Allows selection of a FinXL report to be created.
  2. Convert Report-If the active cell contains a FinXL v1 report then it be can converted to a FinXL v2 report.

Fig. 4 New FinXL report option when right clicking in an empty cell.

Fig. 5Convert FinXL report option when right clicking in a cell containing a v1 FinXL report.

Please note that the Add New Report menu will initially be empty as the report list has to be loaded from the database upon first use. Please log out of FinXL, close and reopen Excel and then log back into FinXL and the reports list should now be populated.

The quick access menu options available when the active cell contains an existing FinXL v2 report are:

  1. Edit or Move FinXL Report-Allows editing or movement of the selected report.
  2. Refresh FinXL Report-The selected report can be refreshed to obtain the latest data.
  3. Transpose-Change the orientation of the selected report.
  4. Delete a report-Delete a FinXL report.
  5. Remove report link-Remove the connection from a FinXL report so that only the data is left in the spreadsheet. Note that this will mean that the report is no longer editable or refreshable.

Fig. 6 Right click menu options when an exisiting v2 report is selected.

Report Explorer Pane

The report explorer pane is a section which appears on the right side of the active spreadsheet. The report explorer pane can be hidden or displayed by clicking on the Report Explorer button in the ribbon bar when logged into FinXL. The pane can also be expanded by clicking on the left grey board and dragging sideways.

This pane holds two sections – Report Form and Report List.

The report form pane is used to create new FinXL reports or to edit existing FinXL reports.

Fig. 7 Report form pane with a blank report form loaded ready for editing.

The report list pane displayes a list of the existing FinXL reports in the order that they are refreshed when the refresh all option is selected. The list of reports will initially be ordered by the order in which they were created. If FinXL reports are created and are dependent on other FinXL reports, for some or all of their input parameters, then the order of refresh is adjusted to a dependency based refresh order.

Fig. 8 Report list pane displaying 3 reports in order of refresh.

The order of refresh can also be manually changed by the user and this user defined refresh is kept until changed further or reset to the default.

To manually set the order of refresh, click on any report and drag and drop it into the required position.

Create a new report

To create a new FinXL report select the Add New Report button in the FinXL ribbon bar or right click in any empty cell and select New FinXL Report from the menu.A list of the available reports is displayed.

Please note that the Add New Report menu will initially be empty as the report list has to be loaded from the database upon first use. Please log out of FinXL, close and reopen Excel and then log back into FinXL and the reports list should now be populated.

Select the required report and an empty report form will be displayed in the report form pane. The report form pane is split into two sections as follows:

Common Report Settings

This section contains options which are the same for most reports. A user can set:

  1. Report Name-Set a user friendly name which can contain letters, numbers or the underscore character.
  2. Report Origin -Initially the report origin will be set as the cell selected in the spreadsheet when selecting the report to be created. A user can change the report origin by selecting any cell in the workbook which does not already contain a FinXL report.
  3. Include Header-Include or exclude a header row which is the title for the column.
  4. Field Orientation-Orientate the report horizontally or vertically.

Fig. 1 Common report settings in the report form pane.

Report Parameters

This section will display a blank report form which is set by the selection made in the Add New Report or New FinXL Report options.

Depending on the report selected there will be a number of fields to enter codes, dates, select fields, price types and other options to dictate the output.

At the bottom of the report form are two buttons which allow the user to either save or run the report using the given inputs and another button which locks or unlocks the users ability to select cells or ranges of cells as part of the inputs to the report form. This second button is to allow users to navigate and make changes in the spreadsheet without accidentally changing inputs in the report form.

Once a report has been saved or run the user can move onto creating/editing other FinXL reports or other Excel tasks.

Please note that FinXL reports will only be fully saved into a workbook when that workbook is saved in Excel.

Fig. 2 Report parameters in the report form pane.

Refreshing a report

FinXL reports can be refreshed on an individual basis or all at once using the following methods.

Fig. 1 Refresh options in right click menu and ribbon bar.

Right Click Menu

Right click anywhere in a FinXL report and in the resultant menu one of the options will be Refresh FinXL Report. This option will only allow refresh of the report selected.

Ribbon Bar

In the FinXL ribbon bar is a Refresh button which will allow both refreshing of individual FinXL reports and also refreshing of all FinXL reports in a workbook.

When refreshing an individual report the Refresh option does not become active until a cell within the required report has been selected.

When the Refresh All option is selected, FinXL will refresh all of the FinXL reports in the active workbook using one of the following methods:

  1. If all FinXL reports in the workbook are separate, and do not depend on any other FinXL report for input settings, then FinXL will refresh the reports in the order they were created. This order can be viewed in the Report List pane.
  2. If there are FinXL reports in the workbook which are dependent on other FinXL reports for input settings, then FinXL will identify the required order of refresh based on the report dependencies. The reports will be refreshed in the correct order so any dependent reports are refreshed after those they are dependent on. This order can be viewed in the Report List pane.
  3. The final refresh method is that stipulated by the user. A user can view the current order in the Report List pane and then amend the refresh order by dragging and dropping each report to create the refresh order required.

Please note that if a user changes the refresh order from a dependent order to a user defined order then reports may not refresh in the correct order. Also when Refresh All is selected there may be a slight delay before refreshing starts depending on the number of reports to be refreshed. This is due to the report requests being sent to the server for processing.

Report List Pane

Individual reports can also be refreshed by right clicking on the required report name in the report list pane.

Fig. 2 Refresh option in Report List pane.

Cancel Report Refreshing

If during the refresh of a single or multiple reports it is necessary to cancel the refresh operation, then a Cancel Refresh option is available under the Refresh button.

Fig. 3. Cancel Refresh option.

Ifthe Cancel Refresh button is pressed after the report(s) have completed then data will be displayed as normal into the spread sheet.

Clicking on the Cancel Refresh button while a single report is refreshing will stop that report from completing and no data will be returned.

Clicking on the Cancel Refresh button while a refresh all operation is happening and any reports currently being refreshed or yet to refresh will be stopped. Any reports which have already completed refreshing will display data as normal into the spread sheet.

Edit a report

To edit a FinXL report, start by selecting the report to be edited by clicking any cell inside the parametres of the report.

Fig. 1 Edit options.

Now select the Edit Report button which has become active in the FinXL ribbon bar or right click and select Edit FinXL Report from the menu.

The report form will be loaded in the report form pane and will include all of the prepopulated settings from the last time the report was changed and saved.

Change the fields as required and then click the save/run button to return the latest data in line with the new settings.

Please note that FinXL reports will only be fully saved into a workbook when that workbook is saved in Excel.

Report List Edit

Alternately an individual report can be editied by right clicking on the required report in the report list pane and then selecting Edit.

The report form will be loaded in the report form pane and will include all of the prepopulated settings from the last time the report was changed and saved.

Fig. 2 Edit option in the report list pane.

Convert Reports

FinXL v1 will not be turned off immediately but we will be looking to transition all clients over to the new FinXL before retiring the current tool. To assist clients we have included a convert functionality which will migrate current FinXL reports into the new v2 format.

FinXL v1 reports can be converted on an individual basis or all at once to FinXL v2 using the following methods.

Fig. 1 Convert Options.

Right Click Menu

Right click anywhere in a FinXL v1 report and in the resultant menu one of the options will be Convert FinXL Report. This option will only allow conversion of the report selected.

When conversion has been completed a notification will appear and the old connection/query tables for FinXL v1 will have been removed. The new FinXL report will now appear in the report list pane and be ready for editing and refreshing.

If there is an issue with conversion then an error will be displayed and the report will not be completed. The user will be required to take some corrective action before conversion is tried again.

Ribbon Bar

In the FinXL ribbon bar is a Convert button which will allow both conversion of individual FinXL reports and also conversion of all FinXL reports in a workbook.

When converting an individual report the Convert option does not become available until a cell within the required FinXL v1 report has been selected.

When the Convert All option is selected, FinXL will convert all of the FinXL reports in the active workbook. The new FinXL reports will now appear in the report list pane and be ready for editing and refreshing.

If FinXL has an issue converting a report then an error message will be displayed and the conversion of reports stopped. The user will be required to take some corrective action before reattempting conversion on the remaining reports.

Problems for conversion

A number of common problems have been identified with v1 FinXL reports which will cause issues when converting to the new v2 report types.

  1. Overlapping reports – the conversion tool will allow 2 or more overlapping v1 reports to be converted into v2 reports but a warning message will be displayed when a Refresh All function is attempted. The user will need to rectify this overlapping issue by either removing or moving reports so no overlapping occurs and then normal refresh all can attempted.
  1. Duplicate v1 reports – if a workbook contains v1 reports which have been created by directly copying and pasting existing reports (within the same workbook) then this is likely to cause v2 to crash once converted. To stop this from happening it is recommended to delete any duplicate v1 reports and recreate them individually before attempting to convert.
  1. Corrupt v1 reports – if the workbook being converted contains any corrupted v1 reports these will need to deleted and replaced before attempting conversion to v2.
  1. Sheet names containing special characters – if any of the sheet names contain special characters (such as %,!, “, $, etc) then this will cause issues when converting reports. Please make sure that all sheet names have been changed to on include alphabetic, numeric or the “_” character before converting.

Updating FinXL

The FinXL team will intermittently release new versions of FinXL due to improvements, new functionality or fixing of bugs. Releases will usually contain a number of updates some of which may or may not be visible in the tool.

When a release is available the ‘Update’ button will become active in the ribbon bar of FinXL.

Fig 1. Active Update button.

When the active ‘Update’ button is selected a pop up will appear asking if you want to progress and install the latest version of FinXL.

Selecting ‘Yes’ will start a download of the latest FinXL installation file. Opening the file and running the installer will automatically update the tool without the need to uninstall any software.

Selecting ‘No’ will allow the user to return to normal FinXL functionality until it is a convenient time to update the tool.

Please note that if an active ‘Update’ button is ignored or the user selects ‘No’ a number of times within a given time period then the user will be forced to upate the tool. This is for security purposes and each release will have a different time period before updating is enforced.

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