Bi4Cloud WorkBooks allows the creation of tabular and graphical reports and notes as tabbed reports within a WorkBook. The WorkBook can be shared with other users and emailed.
If you have already logged into WorkBooks and just need fast help then use this link Quick Help
Workbook Selection Screen
After you press WorkBooks you will be taken to a screen to select the workbook to run. The yellow boxed text describes the major functions. The exact WorkBooks that are available are determined against your Bi4Cloud user profile may be restricted to only information you are allowed to see.
Even if you have complete access right in Bi4Cloud only relevant WorkBooks are displayed. The Workbooks available are also chosen based upon the data found in the connected data file.
For example
- if there is no Inventory then no Inventory WorksBooks will be shown.
- if there are Analysis Codes found ( Tracking Categories, Classes, Jobs) then Department Analysis WorkBooks are shown.
Launching WorkBook Analyse Sales YOY will display Something Like* the following screen.
Something Like* is not Exactly Like. Your data is different and some systems will not have all the dimensions that the WorkBook has utilised and so it will not display the same as the example above
Uncomplicate Things
Q: How do you fit four elephants into a VW ?
A: Two in the front and two in the back.
Divide the problem up to simply things.
The WorkBook has a lot going on. Let’s uncomplicate this by simplifying it into sections.
The workbook consists of
- A header section
- A menu section
- A tab section
Header Section
The Header Section displays the WorkBook name, button to change report dimension and make new reports and on the right filters that apply to the entire workbook.
Menu Section
The Menu Section is used for WorkBook operations like Exit, Save, Set Default, Share and choose another WorkBook. This menu can be hidden by pressing the 3-line icon (hamburger) immediately above it.
Tab Sections
The Tab Section is where the output displays. Each tab can contain reports, charts or a combination of these to form a dashboard. Dashboard can also contain KPI widget that show Big Numbers and trend charts as well as HTML pages. The top line of each Tab has the filters for the Tab. The Tab that is being displayed (in focus) has a blue under-line under it’s name
The Tab display above above is named Headline Sales and it shows 4 KPI’s and below these a report of Year-Over-Year trailing 12months sales for the last 24 moths.
The YOY Compare show details with in-text barcharts for relativity and to indicate variance trend.
Let's go through the steps of how that dashboard was built.
First take a Copy the WorkBook and Save it. This will allow you to make changes and save them.
Create a new Customer report - and save that.
How: Click [+Report] / Choose Customer / Press Save
Too easy. So now let's add a Comparison Column to Compare Years .
To simplify the rest of the example we will
- set the Sales Date range for this Report (Tab) to This Year.
- then use the Edit pencil to open the Report Designer
- remove the Metric except Total Sales
- Click Comparison Filter Add
- Notice you get three elements. A new Filter field, a Difference and a % difference
- We Change filter Name to Last Year
- Set the offset date
- Then for the two Sales values set these to display a Bar Chart in line
Scope of Filters
The scope of filters can be WorkBook, the Tab, the DashBoard, the Widget.
In the screenshot below the purple filter has scope over the entire WorkBook.
The red filter has scope over Report Tab.
To see if there are filter for the Widget click into the widget.