FOR and the FML Syntax
Noreen Redden
Information Builders
FOCUS Users of New England
Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 1
Financial Reporting
Agenda
 General Accounting Concepts
 Why FML?
 Requirements for Parent-Child Reporting
 Financial Report Painter
 Preparing the Data
 Examples
 Questions
Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 2
Financial Reporting
General Accounting Concepts
 Creating specific types of reports
(eg. Income Statement, Balance Sheet)
 The rows on Financial reports are made up of General
Ledger Accounts with measurement values
 (eg. Actual, Plan, Forecast)
 General Ledger contains Account transactions
 (eg. Debit/Credit entries)
 Chart of Accounts is the G/L Account hierarchy
Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 3
Financial Reporting
General Accounting Concepts
 Total of Debits must equal Total of Credits
Transactions for buying a building:
G/L
Account
10005
10001
20008
Description
Building
Cash
Mortgage
Debit
1,000,000
Credit
200,000
800,000
Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 4
Financial Reporting
General Accounting Concepts
Chart of Accounts
Assets
Current Assets
Cash
Long Term Assets
Building
Liabilities
Long Term Liabilities
Mortgage Payable
Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 5
Financial Reporting
General Accounting Concepts
 The signs of the numbers may be negative for certain
types of accounts
 Revenue
 Liability
 Stockholder’s Equity
 However, they need to be presented as non-negative
numbers on the report
Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 6
Financial Reporting
What’s the difference

In Typical Reporting:
 Report Lines appear in Sort Order
 Lines Appear Only for values retrieved from File
 Free Text can only be inserted on Sort Breaks
 Inter-Row calculations can only be performed at Sort
Breaks (RECAP)
Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 7
What is Financial Reporting?
What’s the difference

In Financial Reporting:
 Specific Report Lines can be placed anywhere on the
page – regardless of sort sequence
 Report Lines can appear in report regardless on
whether there is any Amount in the General Ledger
 Free Text can be inserted on any line of the page
 Inter-Row calculations can performed simply
 Complex formatting
Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 8
Financial Reporting
Requirements for Parent-Child Reporting
 Graphical representation of the
Parent/Child hierarchy
 Each element contains a pointer to
the next element.
Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 9
Financial Reporting
Requirements for Parent-Child Reporting (cont’d)
 Hierarchy Requirements
 Account Code
 Account Parent
 Account Description
 Usually requires an additional process to create this structure
 New structure is then joined to the data to be reported upon
Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 10
Financial Reporting
Master File Keywords
 REFERENCE=fieldname
 Where fieldname identifies FIELDNAME within the Master
File that contains the Child value.
 PROPERTY=PARENT_OF
 Marks the fieldname as containing the Parent value of the
field identified in the REFERENCE attribute
 PROPERTY=CAPTION
 Marks the field as containing the Description value of the
field identified in the REFERENCE attribute
Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 11
Financial Reporting
Parent-Child Rules
 Each parent must be stored as a child
 A child may have only one parent
 Top level must point to a blank parent
 Child and parent fields must have the same format
 If you qualify the field names in the references, you MUST use
those referenced field names in the request
Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 12
Financial Reporting
Hierarchy Examples
Chart of Accounts
ACCOUNT
1000
2000
2100
2200
2210
ACCOUNT PARENT
1000
2000
2100
2200
ACCOUNT CAPTION
Profit Before Tax
Gross Margin
Sales Revenue
Retail Sales
Retail – Television
Organization Chart
Employee ID
001
002
003
004
005
006
Manager ID
001
002
003
003
004
Title
CEO
President
VP Sales
Dir East Coast Sales
Dir West Coast Sales
NE Sales Manager
Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 13
Financial Reporting
The Painter
 Starting a Financial Report
 In the Report Painter:
 Add the fields you want to include in the report, including the







field that you intend to designate as your FOR field
The FOR field is the field that contains the Child account value
You can include BY and/or Across sort fields
Headings, footings,calculated values, and images are usable
Select the field that you want to use as the FOR field, and click
the For button on the Report Painter Columns toolbar
Report can only contain one FOR field
Click the Matrix tab at the bottom of the window
The Financial Report Painter's Design matrix opens
Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 14
Financial Reporting
The Painter
Highlight the column, click the For button
then the Matrix tab
Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 15
Financial Reporting
The Painter
This view shows an
expanded hierarchy
and a section of the
report
Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 16
Financial Reporting
Children/Consolidate Options
You open the tag dialog by right-clicking on
a row and selecting row properties
Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 17
Financial Reporting
Children/Consolidate Options (cont’d)
 With Children
 Shows a total for the groups parent at the start of each
grouping
 Get Children
 Shows the figures for children of that entry. Additional
groups would appear as above.
 Consolidate
 Instructs WebFOCUS to calculate a total for each of the
parent entries or the specific parent.
Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 18
Financial Reporting
Adding Rows Together
You can also create
dynamic hierarchies
using FML. In this
example, we create
a report showing
totals by the existing
hierarchy and a
proposed hierarchy.
Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 19
Financial Reporting
RECAP
You open the recap dialog by either rightclicking on a row or clicking on the tool bar
Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 20
Financial Reporting
RECAP (cont’d)
You can also create recaps by clicking on a cell, then, while holding down the shift
key, you can drag a reference to that cell elsewhere. Note, that by default, a “+” is
used. You can change that to whatever you need it to be.
Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 21
Financial Reporting
Preparing the data
Source – Level Based Hierarchy
Output – Parent/Child
Description
Lev 1 Lev 2 Lev 3 Lev 4 Lev 5 Description
Net Profit
1000 ____ ____ ____ ____
Net Profit
Gross Margin
1000 2000 ____ ____ ____
Gross Margin
1000
2000
Sales Revenue
1000 2000 2100 ____ ____
Operating Expenses
1000
3000
Retail Sales
1000 2000 2100 2200 ____
Sales Revenue
2000
2100
Retail TV Sales
1000 2000 2100 2200 2210
Selling Expenses
3000
3100
Retail Stereo Sales
1000 2000 2100 2200 2220
Retail Sales
2100
2200
Mail Order Sales
1000 2000 2100 2300 ____
Mail Order Sales
2100
2300
Mail Order TV Sales 1000 2000 2100 2300 2310
Advertising
3100
3110
Mail Order St Sales
Retail TV Sales
2200
2210
Operating Expenses 1000 3000 ____ ____ ____
Retail Stereo Sales
2200
2220
Selling Expenses
1000 3000 3100 ____ ____
Mail Order TV Sales
2300
2310
Advertising
1000 3000 3100 3110
Mail Order St Sales
2300
2320
1000 2000 2100 2300 2320
____
Parent
Child
1000
Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 22
Financial Reporting
Preparing the data (cont’d)
FILENAME=ACCTLVL, SUFFIX=FOC , $
SEGMENT=ACCTLVL,SEGTYPE=S1, $
FIELDNAME=FOCLIST , ALIAS=E01, USAGE=I5 , $
FIELDNAME=ACCT_LVL1, ALIAS=E02, USAGE=A4, $
FIELDNAME=ACCT_LVL2, ALIAS=E03, USAGE=A4, $
FIELDNAME=ACCT_LVL3, ALIAS=E04, USAGE=A4, $
FIELDNAME=ACCT_LVL4, ALIAS=E05, USAGE=A4, $
FIELDNAME=ACCT_LVL5, ALIAS=E06, USAGE=A4, $
FIELDNAME=ACCT_LVL6, ALIAS=E07, USAGE=A4, $
FIELDNAME=DESCR,
ALIAS=E08, USAGE=A44,$
FILENAME=ACCTPC , SUFFIX=FOC , $
SEGMENT=ACCTPC, SEGTYPE=S1, $
FIELDNAME=DESCRIPTION, ALIAS=E01, USAGE=A44,
REFERENCE=CHILD_ACCOUNT, PROPERTY=CAPTION,$
FIELDNAME=PARENT_ACCOUNT, ALIAS=E02, USAGE=A4 ,
REFERENCE=CHILD_ACCOUNT, PROPERTY=PARENT_OF,$
FIELDNAME=CHILD_ACCOUNT, ALIAS=E03, USAGE=A4, $
Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 23
Financial Reporting
Syntax
TABLE FILE filename
PRINT/SUM
FOR hierarchyfld
parentvalue GET/WITH CHILD(REN) (n) ALL AS CAPTION/’text’ LABEL label
…
hierarchyfld
the hierarchy field name
or, field name from the host file(JOIN)
parentvalue
the parent value for which the children are to be retrieved
Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 24
Financial Reporting
Syntax
parentvalue GET/WITH CHILD(REN) (n) ALL AS CAPTION/’text’ LABEL label
GET CHILDREN
displays the hierarchy
starts with the first child of the parent value
does NOT include the parent in the display
…
WITH CHILDREN
displays the hierarchy
starts with the first child of the parent value
DOES include the parent in the display
(n) ALL
Integer value from 1 to 99
How many levels of the hierarchy to display
Warning message if 999 levels are exceeded
ALL is a synonym for up to 99 levels
Levels of the hierarchy are indented at each level
Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 25
Financial Reporting
Syntax
parentvalue GET/WITH CHILD(REN) (n) ALL AS CAPTION/’text’ LABEL label
CAPTION
The caption value to display
Taken from the CAPTION field in the Master File Description
‘text’
A text string which will be used for the Row Title
Does NOT use the CAPTION field, if used
LABEL
Regular FML syntax – assigns an explicit row label
Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 26
Financial Reporting
Examples
Hierarchy sample data
PIN
--000000010
000000020
000000030
000000040
000000050
000000060
000000070
000000080
000000090
000000100
000000110
000000120
000000130
000000140
000000150
REPORTSTO
--------000000040
000000340
000000050
000000200
000000200
000000200
000000340
000000250
000000370
000000160
000000230
000000340
000000350
000000120
TITLE
----MARKETING EXECUTIVE
INDUSTRIAL MARKETER
SALES MANAGER
MARKETING DIRECTOR
EXECUTIVE MANAGER
MARKETING DIRECTOR
PRESIDENT
SENIOR SALES EXEC.
EMPLOYEE COORDINATOR
SUPERVISOR OF AP/AR
PRODUCT DISTRIBUTOR
CORPORATE CONSULTANT
MANAGER
MANAGER
SENIOR CONSULTANT
FULLNAME
-------VALINO, DANIEL
BELLA, MICHAEL
CASSANOVA, LOIS
ADAMS, RUTH
ADDAMS, PETER
PATEL, DORINA
SANCHEZ, EVELYN
SO, PAMELA
PULASKI, MARIANNE
ANDERSON, TIM
RUSSO, ANTHONY
WANG, KATE
CVEK, MARCUS
WHITE, VERONICA
WHITE, KARL
Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 27
Financial Reporting
Examples
Master File Description (Synonym) – USEORG.MAS
FILENAME=ORGCHART, SUFFIX=FOC
, $
SEGMENT=SEG01, SEGTYPE=S1, $
FIELDNAME=PIN, ALIAS=E01, USAGE=A9, FIELDTYPE=I, $
FIELDNAME=REPORTSTO, ALIAS=E02, USAGE=A9,
PROPERTY=PARENT_OF,REFERENCE=PIN,$
FIELDNAME=TITLE, ALIAS=E03, USAGE=A20,$
FIELDNAME=FULLNAME, ALIAS=E04, USAGE=A50,
PROPERTY=CAPTION,REFERENCE=PIN,$
Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 28
Financial Reporting
Examples
JOIN PIN IN USEORG TO PIN IN EMPDATA AS J1
TABLE FILE USEORG
COUNT ENTRIES SUM.SALARY
FOR
'USEORG.SEG01.PIN'
'000000070'
ON TABLE SET FORMULTIPLE ON
ON TABLE NOTOTAL
ON TABLE SET BLANKINDENT ON
000000070
COUNT
----1
SALARY
-----$83,000.00
Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 29
Financial Reporting
Examples
JOIN PIN IN USEORG TO PIN IN EMPDATA AS J1
TABLE FILE USEORG
COUNT ENTRIES SUM.SALARY
FOR
'USEORG.SEG01.PIN'
'000000070' OVER
'000000080' INDENT 1
COUNT
----000000070
1
000000080
1
SALARY
-----$83,000.00
$43,400.00
Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 30
Financial Reporting
Examples
JOIN PIN IN USEORG TO PIN IN EMPDATA AS J1
TABLE FILE USEORG
COUNT ENTRIES SUM.SALARY
FOR
'USEORG.SEG01.PIN'
'000000070' WITH CHILDREN
000000070
000000200
000000230
COUNT
----1
1
1
SALARY
-----$83,000.00
$115,000.00
$80,500.00
Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 31
Financial Reporting
Examples
JOIN PIN IN USEORG TO PIN IN EMPDATA AS J1
TABLE FILE USEORG
COUNT ENTRIES SUM.SALARY
FOR
'USEORG.SEG01.PIN'
'000000070' GET CHILDREN
000000200
000000230
COUNT
----1
1
SALARY
-----$115,000.00
$80,500.00
Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 32
Financial Reporting
Examples
JOIN PIN IN USEORG TO PIN IN EMPDATA AS J1
TABLE FILE USEORG
COUNT ENTRIES SUM.SALARY
FOR
'USEORG.SEG01.PIN'
'000000070' WITH CHILDREN 2
000000070
000000200
000000040
000000050
000000060
000000160
000000270
000000340
000000230
000000120
000000170
000000300
COUNT
----1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
SALARY
-----$83,000.00
$115,000.00
$62,500.00
$54,100.00
$55,500.00
$62,500.00
$42,900.00
$58,800.00
$80,500.00
$49,500.00
$30,800.00
$79,000.00
Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 33
Financial Reporting
Examples
JOIN PIN IN USEORG TO PIN IN EMPDATA AS J1
TABLE FILE USEORG
COUNT ENTRIES SUM.SALARY
FOR
'USEORG.SEG01.PIN'
'000000070' WITH CHILDREN ALL
000000070
000000200
000000040
000000010
000000310
000000050
000000030
000000190
000000210
000000330
000000360
000000060
000000320
000000160
000000110
000000350
000000140
COUNT
----1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
SALARY
-----$83,000.00
$115,000.00
$62,500.00
$55,500.00
$52,000.00
$54,100.00
$70,000.00
$39,000.00
$43,600.00
$30,500.00
$43,000.00
$55,500.00
$35,200.00
$62,500.00
$19,300.00
$54,100.00
$62,500.00
Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 34
Financial Reporting
Examples
JOIN PIN IN USEORG TO PIN IN EMPDATA AS J1
TABLE FILE USEORG
COUNT ENTRIES SUM.SALARY
FOR
'USEORG.SEG01.PIN'
'000000070' WITH CHILDREN ALL ADD
COUNT
SALARY
---------000000070
37
$1,892,900.00
000000200
26
$1,346,600.00
000000040
3
$170,000.00
000000010
1
$55,500.00
000000310
1
$52,000.00
000000050
6
$280,200.00
000000030
1
$70,000.00
000000190
1
$39,000.00
000000210
1
$43,600.00
000000330
1
$30,500.00
000000360
1
$43,000.00
000000060
2
$90,700.00
000000320
1
$35,200.00
000000160
4
$198,400.00
000000110
1
$19,300.00
000000350
2
$116,600.00
000000140
1
$62,500.00
Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 35
Financial Reporting
Examples
JOIN PIN IN USEORG TO PIN IN EMPDATA AS J1
TABLE FILE USEORG
COUNT ENTRIES SUM.SALARY
FOR
'USEORG.SEG01.PIN'
'000000070’ ADD
000000400
COUNT
----37
SALARY
-----$1,892,900.00
Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 36
Financial Reporting
Examples
000000070
000000200
000000040
000000010
000000310
000000050
000000030
000000190
000000210
000000330
000000360
000000060
000000320
000000160
000000110
000000350
000000140
000000400
COUNT
----37
COUNT
----1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
SALARY
-----$83,000.00
$115,000.00
$62,500.00
$55,500.00
$52,000.00
$54,100.00
$70,000.00
$39,000.00
$43,600.00
$30,500.00
$43,000.00
$55,500.00
$35,200.00
$62,500.00
$19,300.00
$54,100.00
$62,500.00
SALARY
-----$1,892,900.00
'000000070' WITH
CHILDREN ALL
'000000070' ADD
Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 37
Financial Reporting
Examples
JOIN PIN IN USEORG TO PIN IN EMPDATA AS J1
TABLE FILE USEORG
COUNT ENTRIES SUM.SALARY
FOR
'USEORG.SEG01.PIN'
'000000070' WITH CHILDREN ALL OVER
'000000070' ADD
ON TABLE SET FORMULTIPLE ON
000000070
000000200
000000040
000000010
000000310
000000050
000000030
000000190
COUNT
----1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
SALARY
-----$83,000.00
$115,000.00
$62,500.00
$55,500.00
$52,000.00
$54,100.00
$70,000.00
$39,000.00
1
1
37
$32,400.00
$26,400.00
$1,892,900.00
.
.
.
000000100
000000400
000000400
Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 38
Financial Reporting
Examples
JOIN PIN IN USEORG TO PIN IN EMPDATA AS J1
TABLE FILE USEORG
COUNT ENTRIES SUM.SALARY
FOR
'USEORG.SEG01.PIN'
'000000070' WITH CHILDREN ALL AS CAPTION OVER
'000000070' ADD AS ’*TOTAL’
ON TABLE SET FORMULTIPLE ON
SANCHEZ, EVELYN
LASTRA, KAREN
ADAMS, RUTH
VALINO, DANIEL
LIEBER, JEFF
ADDAMS, PETER
CASSANOVA, LOIS
MEDINA, MARK
COUNT
----1
1
1
1
1
1
1
1
SALARY
-----$83,000.00
$115,000.00
$62,500.00
$55,500.00
$52,000.00
$54,100.00
$70,000.00
$39,000.00.
.
.
WANG, JOHN
ANDERSON, TIM
LOPEZ, ANNE
*TOTAL
1
1
1
37
$62,500.00
$32,400.00
$26,400.00
$1,892,900.00
Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 39
Financial Reporting
Examples
Date
1997/09/01 1997/10/01 1997/11/01 1997/12/01
Quarter Change
------------------------------------------------------------------------Midwest
40684
39563
35466
44813
4129
West
35030
41930
37298
37294
2264
Total
75714
81493
72764
82107
6393
SET CNOTATION=EXPLICIT
TABLE FILE GGSALES
SUM UNITS
ACROSS DATE
COMPUTE QTRCHG/I8=0; AS 'Quarter Change'
FOR REGION
'Midwest' LABEL MW OVER
RECAP MW(5)=MW(4) - MW(1); OVER
'West' LABEL W OVER
RECAP W(5)=W(4) - W(1); OVER
RECAP COMBTOT/I8=MW + W ; AS 'Total'
WHERE DATE GE 19970901
END
Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 40
Questions
Thanks for Coming
Copyright 2007, Information Builders. Slide 41