Valid Intersections, only available in Planning and Budgeting Cloud Service (PBCS), allows for cross dimensional security in Planning. While this feature has been available for years in Essbase it is not until PBCS that this functionally is available in Planning applications. This feature can be extremely helpful when creating your security model and designing web forms, because form input processes can be filtered using these definitions.
In this blog, we discuss how to create valid intersections and utilize the information in web forms.
Initial Security
In this example the initial application security is applied so all entities (rows) have access to write to all products (columns). We can see this because the input cells are gold.
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Creating Valid Intersections
In order to create a Valid Intersection, you will need to log in to the application through the simplified interface. Valid Intersections cannot be defined through the classic Workspace interface.
1. Once in the Simplified Interface, select the Setup screen
2. Click Create button
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3. Enter a name
4. Enter description (optional)
5. Click blue arrow and select dimension to use as the foundation of the security definition
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6. Click Add Dimension (definition must contain at least two dimensions)
7. Select dimension to be included
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8. Click Add Rule
9. Select Member by click the blue arrow
10. Click Edit
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11. Navigate through the hierarchy by clicking on members (new members will display on the right of the current selection)
12. Select the member by clicking the check mark or select the function icon to select a member function
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13. After selection is made, member will display in the left side of the window
14. Click Ok
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15. After defining members in all dimensions used in the intersection, select Save and Close to create
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16. New definition will be displayed
17. You are able to update a definition by simply clicking on the name
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18. Definition will re-open
19. In this example we will add an exclusion by clicking the blue arrow and selecting Add Exclusion
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20. Add a member definitions by clicking Add Member button (members are selected in the same way as before)
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21. Once exception is added Save and Close the definition
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Valid intersections to Entity rollup 100 and 200 have been added to help illustrate this feature:
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Data after Definition Creation
After the Valid Intersection definition has been applied we see that the entities will only have access to the products specified in the definition. We can see that now that many of the input cells have changed to gray as defined by the valid intersections created above.
- Children of Entity 100 are only valid with P_TP1 products
- Children of Entity 200 are only valid with P_TP2 products
- Children of Entity 403 are valid for P_TP products, except for Entity 410
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Web Form Suppression
You are able to suppress row and columns in web forms using these definitions. To do this, go into a web form layout and select Suppress invalid data – Rows and/or Suppress invalid data – Columns as needed.
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Valid Intersections finally allows us to have a security model with cross dimensional considerations. It is important to create a model that is sustainable, but having this ability opens new security options that were not previously available before PBCS.
Questions? Need help? Feel free to reach us at:
Bob Usset, busset@ecapitaladvisors.com
Amy Stine, astine@ecapitaladvisors.com
