Take a tour of Budgets & Forecasts

Learn about the key elements of the Budgets & Forecasts homepage and workbook user interface (UI).

User permission: Budgets & Forecasts

In Phocas, your budget or forecast workbooks are accessible from both your Phocas homepage and your Budgets & Forecasts homepage. When you open a workbook, it opens in the Budgets & Forecasts module.

Homepage

Click Budgets & Forecasts in the Phocas menu to open your Budgets & Forecasts homepage, the best place to quickly access your budget and forecast workbooks.

To open the homepage in a separate browser tab, right-click > Open link in new tab.

Workbook list

Your homepage contains a grid that lists all the budget and forecast workbooks you can access. Your access to a workbook depends on multiple factors. Even when you have the required user and database permissions, you can only access a workbook if one of these conditions applies:

• You created the workbook (you are the budget owner).

• You are added as an administrator to the workbook.

• You are assigned to a workflow task in the workbook.

• You are added as a viewer of the workbook.

Using your homepage

Here are some tips to quickly find a specific workbook:

• Click a column header to sort the workbooks by that column, in ascending or descending order.

• Click the buttons above the grid to filter the grid and display only the workbooks of a particular type (budget or forecast), workbooks that you bookmarked, or workbooks that have that particular tag (see below).

• Enter a keyword into the search box to filter the grid and display only the workbooks with that keyword in their name.

When you find the workbook you need, click its name to open it. See the next section to learn more about workbooks.

Depending on your user permissions and user type, you can then take the following actions from your homepage:

Add a bookmark

Bookmarks are like favorites; they are a handy way to manage a list of workbooks you are actively working on. You can use the Bookmarks filter on the homepage to quickly find the bookmarked workbooks. Any workbooks you bookmark on this homepage are also bookmarked on your Phocas homepage.

Click the Bookmark button on the workbook row. The button will turn blue to indicate that the bookmark has been applied.

Add a tag

Tags are a great way to categorize your workbooks for ease of management. They are useful when you have a lot of workbooks. The tags display as filters above the grid. Other users cannot see these tags, they are for your personal use only.

Click the Menu button (on the far right side) of the workbook you want to tag, then type a name for the tag into the Add custom tags box and press Enter. Repeat this step to add more tags for other workbooks.

To remove a tag you no longer need, click the Menu button of the workbook, then click the Delete button on the tag under the tag box.

• If you have permission to manage budgets and forecasts, you can:

  • Create a budget.
  • Manage notifications (at a global level).
  • Delete a stream.
• If you are the budget owner or administrator of a workbook (stated in the Role column), you can:

  • Manage access to the workbook, such as convert a contributor into an administrator and add other users as viewers.
  • Delete the workbook and restore a deleted workbook.

Workbooks

As explained above, your homepage lists all the budget and forecast workbooks you can access. Budget workbooks have a blue icon. Forecast workbooks have a green icon and display underneath their corresponding (parent) budget workbook.

To open a workbook, click its name in the grid.

Other ways to open a workbook are:

• Phocas menu: After you open a workbook, it displays in the list in the Budgets & Forecasts and Recents menus in the Phocas menu on the left of your screen, giving you a quicker access route next time.

  
• Phocas homepage: Locate the workbook in the grid (look for the workbook icon) then click its name to open it.

• Within a workbook: When you open a budget workbook that is linked to a forecast workbook (or vice versa), in the top left corner, click Budget (or Forecast) > Swap to, then click the name of the other workbook.

Troubleshooting when opening a workbook

When you open a budget or forecast workbook, the loading screen displays a line for each worksheet tab in the budget, showing the loading status.

When a tab successfully loads, it disappears from the loading screen. If a tab fails to load, you will see this clearly on the loading screen, as it displays in red with an error icon. Hover over the item to display the error information. There are many reasons why a tab fails to load. The most common reason is you do not have access to the database, stream or measure upon which the workbook was created. Another reason is the underlying stream was deleted.

You can click the Refresh button next to the tab error icon to try load the tab again. If it still does not load, contact the budget owner or administrator for help. You can still open the workbook, even if one or more tabs fail to load. Click the blue link in the error message at the bottom of the loading screen. The workbook opens and an error icon displays on the tab that failed to load.

Budget workbooks and forecast workbooks look very similar but have some differences. Financial budget and forecast workbooks might include tabs for the Balance Sheet and Cash Flow, which have distinct features. The following pages explain the key elements you’ll see in these workbooks and tabs:

• Explore the budget workbook
• Explore the forecast workbook
• Explore the Balance Sheet and Cash Flow budgets