Live Microsoft Excel Pivot Charts with Entrinsik s Informer

Transcription

1 Live Microsoft Excel Pivot Charts with Entrinsik s Informer Lea Kegley Colorado Mountain College Introduction Informer is a reporting tool made by Entrinsik. ik Colorado Mountain College is currently transitioning from Informer version to version 4x. Examples are shown in Excel Examples use the Financial Aid module because these reports were already done. 1

2 Please note this excerpt from Entrinsik s Informer 4.2 User Guide : B OTTOM LINE Be sure that the recipient of the spreadsheet is supposed to have access to the information in it, because Informer security will not be applied when that person executes the refresh. Why use Excel? Informer did not have graphics. Informer 4x does have charts, but with limited features. Excel is an application that most people are familiar with already. The live Excel report can be placed right on the user s desktop and be executed anytime without logging into anything. 2

3 Why use Pivot Charts? Pivot charts can answer a variety of questions in a glance. The user does not have to study the raw numbers to come to a conclusion. The answers are obvious. uestions Why is the Financial Aid office so stressed out lately? Isn t the workload the same as last year at this time? Should I hold the staff retreat in the spring or the fall? nswer! 3

4 uestion Do you think that Financial Aid seminar we did at the high school had any effect? nswer! uestion The Chaffee site wants to hire another Financial Aid Specialist to balance the increased workload, but the budget will only allow one new position this year. Which site should get it? nswer! 4

5 nswer Here s an uestion! Make up your own Four Simple Steps: 1. Create the report in Informer 2. Execute the report (export data to Excel) 3. Create pivot table/chart in Excel 4. Send the Excel file to the end user with instructions for refreshing data 5

6 Create the Informer report Entrinsik s Informer 4x Make sure the Reports tab is active, and click on New Report. 6

7 Name your report, select the database (Live/Test/whatever), select the mapping file/table, type a description of the report, and enter the tag (folder) to store it under. Note: Even though it looks like a tag is assigned, if you don t click Add Tag (as I didn t in this example), no tag is assigned but, you can add it later. Title: Description: Datasource: Mapping: Select Filter: Which records? 7

8 Select Simple Condition Property = IFAF.IMPORT.YEAR (called Year in our setup) Condition = exactly matches Value = Prompt, Require Value, with custom text Enter Year1 for comparison Click Or and add another Simple Condition with the same criteria, except using Year2. Save and Close 1 Title: Description: Datasource: Mapping: Select Filter: Columns: What to show? Columns refers to the data fields you want to include in the report. 8

9 Click Add Fields. Some Informer 4x Enhancements: Shows Dictionary name alongside friendly name. Search fields. Sortable fields. Drag and drop. Rearrange columns easily. Understands file suites 9

10 Informer 4x drawback: Can no longer specify custom date format as you could in 3.2. (Ignore those links to file suites in this screenshot they were carried over from the old Informer and are no longer needed in Informer 4x.) 10

11 1 Title: Description: Datasource: Mapping: Select Filter: Columns: Sorts: Groups: Normalize: PDF Template: Tags: N/A for pivot chart N/A for pivot chart N/A no MV fields N/A for Excel Add Financial Aid Type Tag name and click Add Tag. Save and Close. 11

12 1 Title: Description: Datasource: Mapping: Select Filter: Columns: Sorts: Groups: Normalize: PDF Template: Tags: Sharing: N/A for pivot chart N/A for pivot chart N/A no MV fields N/A for Excel Add Financial Aid Set permissions Private means only you can see it. To share this report with others, you must set permissions. Lookup users or groups. Save and Close. 12

13 Execute the report (export data to Excel) On the Data tab, enter the years to compare and click Launch Report. Informer will think for a couple minutes 13

14 When the results are returned, click Export Results. Select Live Excel Spreadsheet. 14

15 The report will take a minute or two to run. 15

16 Save it as an Excel Workbook. I use the word LIVE in the file name to identify it as one that carries permissions with it. The next slide shows how I m working around the date conversion issue for now, so that I can demonstrate the ISIR Imports By Month report. It s not a regular part of this process, and I will likely create a computed column for use in Informer to return the month. 16

17 Create pivot table/chart in Excel 17

18 Click on any cell that has data in it. On the Insert tab, select PivotTable, then PivotChart. The PivotChart dialog box asks where you want to place the chart. The range is set for you. Select New Worksheet and click OK. 18

19 Sheet1 is inserted before the data sheet and the fields appear in the PivotTable Field List to the right. The item to be counted (or averaged, or whatever) goes in the Values box. We are counting student ISIR records, so drag Stu ID to the Values box. 19

20 Differentiate between the two comparison years by dragging the Year field into the Legend Fields box. Group the data into months by dragging the Month field into the Axis Fields box. 20

21 Here, I m changing the numerals to month names in the pivot table to make the chart look nicer. Again, this is part of the temporary workaround, but this demonstrates how changing the label in the table updates the chart automatically. To change the chart type, click on the PivotChart. From the Design tab in the PivotChart Tools, click Change Chart Type, select the new chart layout and click OK. 21

22 Same data, different chart layout. Send the Excel file to the end user with instructions for refreshing data 22

23 When the spreadsheet is reopened, you will get the Security Warning each time asking you to enable the connection between Excel and Informer. Just click Enable Content. Click in a blank cell that is not part of the pivot table or chart. From the Data tab, click Refresh All and select Refresh All. 23

24 Enter the years for the report. Although it will look like nothing is happening, the little world icon in the bottom left corner will be turning to let you know the query is still processing. Once the data refresh completes, refresh the PivotTable and PivotChart by clicking on the chart, then click Refresh All on the Data tab, and select Refresh. 24

25 That s it! Questions? 25