Using Data with Forms

When you're in a form, you can make the data more meaningful in many ways.

Explore Form Functionality

Explore ways to access, calculate, manipulate, create, analyze, or comment on data. Click Actions, and then select from the following options:

  • Analyze: Perform ad hoc analysis on a form.

  • New Ad Hoc Grid: Create an ad hoc grid.

  • Show Reasons for Read-Only Cells: Learn why you can't change data in some cells.

  • Business Rules: View the business rules that are used in a form and launch them.

  • Smart Push Details: Analyze data coming from different cubes.

  • Grid Validation Messages: Check how the data conforms to rules that an administrator set up.

  • Clear Formatting: Clear the formatting that you set.

  • Spreadsheet Export: To explore "what-if" scenarios in Excel before copying and pasting values back to your business process, click Actions, and then select Spreadsheet Export.

  • Open in Smart View: Work with a form in Oracle Smart View for Office. See Opening Forms and Ad Hoc Grids from Web Applications in Smart View for Office User's Guide 23.100.

View Form Properties

View the properties of a form by clicking property panel icon (Property Panel).

Focus the Data

Explore what you can do with ad hoc grids. In a form, click property panel icon (Property Panel), and then click ad hoc property tab icon (Adhoc Options).

Enter Data for Suppressed or Excluded Members

Enter data for members that are not included in or not immediately visible on the form.

Emphasize Data with Formatting

Improve the presentation quality of the data. Click property panel icon (Property Panel), and then click format property tab icon (Format) to explore options for setting the font, font size, font color, underscore, and background color.

Adjust and Spread Data

Change values by a specific amount. Select the cell or cells. Click property panel icon (Property Panel), then data property tab icon (Data), and then click any of the following:

  • Adjust to increase or decrease the cell data by a value or percentage.

  • Spread to specify an amount or percentage by which to increase or decrease values across multiple dimensions, based on the existing values in the target cells. You can select a Proportional, Evenly Split, or Fill spread pattern.

    To use Spread, your administrator must enable Grid Spread as a form property.

  • Allocate. Only administrators who are assigned the Allocate role can use this powerful feature. Also, Allocate must be enabled as a form property.

  • Lock to temporarily lock cells while you calculate and fill in other values. To unlock the cells, click Lock again.

Add Comments and Attachments and View History

Explain assumptions behind the data or, if enabled, view change history. Click a cell, then property panel icon (Property Panel), and then data property tab icon (Data). Under Details, click:

  • attachment button (Attachment) to attach an external file.

  • Comment icon (Comment) to add a comment.

  • show change history icon (Show Change History) if your administrator enabled auditing for Data, see who changed cell values and when they did so.

Sort and Filter Data

Simplify the data presentation. Control which rows or columns are displayed (or hidden) by clicking property panel icon (Property Panel), then data property tab icon (Data), and then Keep or Exclude under Filter.

To limit the view to certain comparison results, click the Filter Compare menu to choose an operator and then specify a value for comparison in the value field.

Form Filter Comparison Operators

You can also sort the values in a row or column by ascending or descending order by selecting the row or column, and then clicking an arrow under Sort.

View Supporting Detail

Build logic into a data value. Click a cell, then property panel icon (Property Panel), and then data property tab icon (Data), and then Supporting Detail.