Follow these best practices when querying the Financial Accounting System (FAS) data using IRF Business Objects.

For Reports

• Make sure to use measures that match the lowest level of data so that measures are duplicated on each row of resulting data and aggregate improperly.
  Data levels with measurements by subject area:
  • Financials: Account, Sub-Account, and Transaction
  • Payroll: Person and Job
  • HR: Person, Job, and funding account
  • GEMS: Expense Report, Transaction, Level 3 data/allocations/attendees/IRF Ledger transactions
• When saving your document(s), always use Save As. It gives you the opportunity to change the name of the document and preserve the original.
• Before modifying a report tab, right-click the report tab to make a copy, then select Duplicate Report.
• Use meaningful names for documents, reports, tables, variables, data providers, etc. It makes everything easier to understand both for you and other report users.

For Financial (FAS) Reporting

• Do not combine SL and GL data in the same data provider. They are different types of data and when you refresh your data it will run for a long time, timeout, or return incorrect results.
  
  Always have at least two of three of the condition types listed below in your query. There is a limit to the amount of data you can pull into your document, and it will run faster if you place boundaries on the data you request:
  • Organization (Exec, Dept, Sub-Dept or Sub Sub-Dept)
  • Date (Calendar or Fiscal Year/Month) - You almost always want some kind of Date condition!
  • SL or GL Account(s) and/or Subaccounts
• Totaling transaction amounts may not tie to account or subaccount summaries. You will need a good understanding of transaction entry codes to know what codes should be excluded. If you are using the Transaction Tracking (TT) universe there is a condition under SL Transactions | Entry Cd called Cash Receipts/Disb & Transfers that will exclude all transaction amounts that should not be totaled.
• Use Detail Amt measures for account and subaccount summaries. If using Detail Amt results in pulling too much data, then and only then should you use the Total Amt measures.

For Payroll Reporting

• When you are using Person data by itself, don't include any calendar objects. Person data is not historical and will be repeated for each date selected.
• Always use calendar and organizational conditions in your data provider. There is a limit to the amount of data you can pull into your document. It will run faster if you place boundaries on the data you request.