Report Properties

The Report Properties are available from the OneStop Reporting ribbon in Excel. They can be accessed by clicking the Report Properties button.

General tab

You can view and change information, such as, title, description, author, and get information on when the report was created and last modified.

Protection tab

This security property enables you to specify the password used in Excel’s built-in protection, so that it allows Report Designer to unprotect the workbook as needed.

Excel has two different built-in security features:

  • The first is security on the Excel file level. Users may protect the entire file by requiring password to open and modify the workbook. This type of security does not interact with Report Designer and purely restricts who can access the report definition. For more information on security on the file level, refer to the appropriate Microsoft Excel documentation.
  • The second type of built-in security for Excel is the protect worksheet or protect workbook feature. By using either of these features, users can lock the worksheet cells so that users may not modify the contents of locked cells unless the worksheet or workbook is unprotected. If this feature is used, there is a direct interaction with Report Designer reading the protected report definition. Therefore, report designers must provide the password used to lock the worksheet/workbook in the Report Properties -> Protection tab. Otherwise, the report will not be generated and an error message will be shown.

Reporting tab

The Report properties for Reporting are:

  • Keep formulas in run report:
  • When selected, all formulas are kept when running the report in OneStop Reporting. This allows you to make calculations after the report has been executed in Reporting. NOTE: This option does not apply to budget templates
  • When deselected, all formulas in the generated report are removed during processing, and the values are replaced with actual cell values. This option may improve the performance of the report and reduce run time. NOTE: The drilldown function works as normal even though the formulas are removed from the report template.
  • Replace indirect references:
  • When selected, all indirect references, i.e. INDIRECT() are replaced with direct references in order to improve performance in formulas. This does not work for complex reference arguments to INDIRECT. NOTE: This option will also affect budget templates.

Budgeting tab

The Report properties for Budgeting are:

  • Force refresh when opening report in Portal:
  • When selected, this property will force a report (or a budget template) instance in the portal to be executed each time the report is opened.
  • Some conditions that warrant its use would be:
  • 1) to ensure the user is working with the latest data within the budget form. If left unchecked, the data in a history item report will display the data the last time the report was executed by that user.
  • 2) if budgeting data has been updated since the last time the report/form was executed, the report should be refreshed to show the latest status. Note: Checking this property means that the execution will also happen when clicking on a history item (previously run report) in the left menu of the report page in the Portal. You should keep this in mind if reports are heavy and take a long time to run.
  • Protect non-input cells:
  • When selected, it automatically protects all cells in the budget template that do not have any defined budgeting storage rule. This protection applies when running the budget template in Budgeting or Assignments, but does not take effect in Report Designer. This means that end-users will be prevented from editing other cells than data input cells.
  • For advanced budgeting templates with a combination of storage rules with cells requiring user input and/or cells with calculated values where input is not required, you will need to use Excel functionality to protect the sheet and unlock input cells. To do this, deselect the automatic OSR protection property.
  • Allow Line Item Detail: The Budgeting module allows for specifying line item details of budget transactions. For example, as an administrator, you would like the End-user to specify additional details about travel expenses. To enable this, you need to make sure this option is checked. Read more about Line Item Detail here
Last modified July 4, 2024