Hello Group Reporting Community,

as part of the Project Management Team I have been asked, when we would enhance the validation capabilities to allow reporting items to be part of the validation framework.

From business perspective this request is understandable given the fact, that some reports are solely built upon Reporting Rules, as for example the Cash Flow that is completely built upon reporting item hierarchy.

Hence the next logical step is that in case of adjustments postings to be made, would there be a possibility to post directly on Reporting Items instead of the underlying Fs Item, which are used in the reporting rules. The answer is ‘ yes’ , it is possible to the post directly on reporting items.

Where most of our customers are stuck and request further enhancements is in the area of validation. If reporting items can be posted, why isn’t it possible to validate the postings made on reporting items.?

The reflection and need of such functionality is represented in this request below:

Improvement Request Details – Customer Influence (sap.com)

Whilst at this moment the count is sum up to 24 counts this requests is rather an important one to be taken into account.

Currently, Group Reporting Validation functionality is based on a framework that has been made obsolete, as there is new framework that is available today already for Accounting. The next step is to migrate from the old framework to the new framework and only after this new enhancements will be taken care of on the new validation framework.

However, there is a positive news to allow to introduce a workaround that would meet customer’s requirement.

As a matter of fact there are three ways to make this validation rules work to check Cashflow Items.

Option 1: Create Validation Rules / Selection Objects

The Validation Rules are restricted according to the dimensionality of the validation reporting rules framework. This can either be hard coded directly in the rules, or selected by selection object after creating prior a selection object.

This option has been already known before and is rather cumbersome, not to mention that if changes happen the validation rules and selection objects need to be changed accordingly.

Option 2:  Using Attributes in Validation Rules or Create Selection Object

Step 1: Access the Reporting Rules App

Go to Reporting Rules App

In the fourth column the corresponding Attribute Values for that reporting item can be found.

Step 2:  Create Validation Rules in the Define Validation Rules App

When creating a validation rule a alias is to be defined that will contain the restrictions for the dimensions. When restriction the dimensions there is a possibility to assign a cash flow attribute.

Here an attribute value is selected that equals the value that is defined in the Reporting Rules App in Step 1.

With the selection of the attribute value automatically the reporting item will be checked indirectly as there is a 1:1 relationship between the reporting item and the cashflow attribute.

Alternative and more elegant way would be to use the Selection Attribute.

Here before going to Step 2 the Define Selection App   is accessed.

In the Define Selection App a new selection is created which then is restricted to the Cashflow Attribute

Go to Define Selection App

Once saved and activated the next step would be to go to the “Define Validation Rule” app

Here instead of creating an alias with a separate dimension restriction, the “use Selection” option should be used by flagging this option.

Flag use Selection and add the selection

The Selection Test_Mike can be chosen from the drop down menu as it had been created and activated in the previous step.

Using Selection is advised because in case of any changes the Selections only have to be modified and not the rules configuration.