Playing with Hyperion Planning data form Menus

In the context of Planning data forms, MENUs can be defined as short-cuts of links by using which we can jump quickly to open a URL, business rule, data form, or approval. When we are in a data form, for example, we can right-click and choose a menu item to open another data form to enter data or simply get more information about the data, or launch a calculation, or go to another scenario or version, or simply open a URL – as per the requirement of the scene.

As administrators, we can create MENUs and incorporate them in data forms so that they can be used by a simple right-click.

Provided that you have already opened a Planning application in Workspace –

GOTO Administration -> Manage -> Menus

CREATE

Enter the name of the Menu. I have named it “Sample_Overtime_Detail.”

OK

Now the menu “Sample_Overtime_Detail” is available in the list of Menus that I have in the environment/application.

Click EDIT.

Click the “Add Child” tab.

Enter the following

Menu Item:

Label: What name users see when they right-click.

Type: You can choose from the drop down – URL, data form, business rule, manage approval, menu header, previous form.

Required Parameter: Choose from the drop down.

Under the Properties section:

Choose the folder and name of target data form. In the following example, I have chosen a data form called Update Overtime under the folder Detail Forms.

SAVE

Now, you will see this

To this menu item, which is labeled #1, we can add child or sibling, if need be. However, we will just use this one in this case.

Now that we have created this MENU, we can use it in a data form so that right-clicking it would take the user to the “Update Overtime” data form.

Adding a MENU in a data form

One thing to be noted here is that we created a MENU clicking which would take user directly to a data form named “Update Overtime.” This is what we have pointed to in the above step of creating the MENU “Sample Overtime Detail”

In this step, we will add the menu to a form named “Overtime” so that when the Overtime data form is open, user can right click the menu and go directly to “Update Overtime” data form.

GOTO Administration -> Manage -> Data Forms and Ad Hoc Grids

You will see a list of Data forms.

Check the one named “Overtime” and click EDIT

Click the “Other Options” tab.

On the “Context Menus” section towards the end of the page, you will see a list of MENUS. Choose the one that you need; in this case “Sample_Overtime_Detail” and click the “ADD” arrow.

Now you will see the “Sample_Overtime_Detail” move to the right.

Click SAVE and then Finish.

Now to see how the Menu works as a link, open the “Overtime” data form.

Right-click and you will see “This will take you to details form.” The reason you see “this will take you …” in this case is because while creating the MENU, we had typed in the sentence in the LABEL section. If you would like something else, you can type whatever makes sense or according to company policy, naming convention, etc.

Click “This will take you to details form” and it will take you directly to the “Update Overtime” form.