Understanding Matrix Layouts

Typically, the PeopleSoft data you report on is in one or more large tables with lots of details—usually ledgers. Using a PS/nVision matrix layout, you can fashion that raw data into a summarized form.

Matrix layouts have data selection criteria associated with columns and rows in the spreadsheet, creating a criteria matrix. The data retrieved for an individual cell is determined by combining the criteria for its column and row.

Example

To illustrate a matrix layout, assume that a table in the database appears as the following table.

Office	Product	Sales
CHICAGO	PAPER	1,000
BOSTON	SODA	2,000
BOSTON	BOXES	1,200
TORONTO	PAPER	1,500
VANCOUVER	BOXES	5,000
COPENHAGEN	PAPER	2,000
PARIS	SODA	1,200
TOKYO	PAPER	4,000
SINGAPORE	SODA	1,000
SINGAPORE	PAPER	2,000

A table like this one could become very large in a typical business—too large to tell the manager of sales how the enterprise is doing. From this very large and detailed table, PS/nVision can build a report that summarizes sales by region and product category, with the option to break these down into offices and individual products.

Assuming that the company defines a tree that groups offices into a hierarchy of sales districts, countries, and international regions, we could use that tree to define rows of a PS/nVision report, with one row for each region. Similarly, we could use a tree of products to put different types of products—office supplies, consumer products, and so on—into separate columns.

The following table shows how the summarized report is displayed.

Region	Beverages	Office Supplies
Asia-Pacific	1,000	6,000
North America	2,000	8,700
Western Europe	1,200	2,000