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Former Member
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As we all know, one of the most admired and user friendly feature of BPC is its Excel Interface. Business users are comfortable with flexibility and features available with excel to work on their different business plans. However they miss the secured and integrated planning environment. BPC is a tool which provides best features of Excel in an integrated planning tool with enhanced planning features like trends, spread, drilldown, commenting etc.

Commenting is a functionality which is used for sharing information among a set of people who work together in any system. And this function plays a vital role in any kind of planning scenario by bridging the communication gap between the people in different level of any organization.

Business users in general add comments for various needs like, to share their view points on the plan data, to specify any reasons for data fluctuations etc.

Posting any Comment in BPC is possible via three interfaces,

  1. Via Action Pane
  2. Cells of Excel – EVCOM
  3. Excel Pop Up – EVCOM

The procedure for adding comments from Action Pane and via cells of excel sheet using EVCOM function is very well illustrated in the How to Guide which is available in the link below,

http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/508b62ee-000b-2c10-2d91-a867451ad...

This blog details how to configure comment by Excel Pop Up and its advantage over other modes of commenting.

Steps involved,

1. Create any Input Schedule or Report in BPC Excel Client.

2. Set the value for Workbook Options à Read Option for Comment  to “As Excel Popup”(As below)

3. Set EVCOM function for various fields in the report and refresh the sheet.

      a. Select the cell where the function is to be written.

      b. Fill it with “=evcom()”

      c. Select insert function and define the cell value for different parameters of the function.

4. Select the cell for which the comment needs to be added then go to Review Tab and select  New comment,

5. Enter the required comment for the cell selected in the pop up screen and move back to Add Ins Tab,

6. Click on the button to save comment to the system,

7. The comment is saved successfully to the system and you have the comment in the Popup Screen as and when you move the mouse over the cell.

Advantages of having comment as Excel Popup are,

  1. Business have the feel of using the same Excel functionality for adding comments with data saved in system
  2. Can be used to comment any data cell in a Report or Input Sheet having dynamic expansion.
  3. No need for allocating any area for commenting in the IS/Reports.
  4. User Interface looks good having only the required set of data without explicitly displaying the comment entered for it.

Note: The Comments included via Excel Pop Up can also be viewed using EVCOM function in cells of different BPC reports or Input Sheet and can also be reported via standard system reports for Comment.

It is in general depends on the business user who demands for the interface of commenting, being a consultant it is always good to propose the best option available based on the business need.

The Table below clearly states what type of comment can be used in different business scenarios,

Business Need

Best Option

  1. Report or Input sheet dynamic
  2. Huge volume of data and commenting across any individual cell of the data

Excel Pop Up

  1. Report or Input sheet is static
  2. All Relevant comments to be displayed simultaneously.
  3. Sheet where comments are entered without any data.

Within Cell

  1. For any business user who maintains only comments and doesn’t need any access to see any plan or consolidation data.

Action Pane(Provide Access only to Commenting in Task Profile of that business user)

Thus comments can be added using Excel Popup function and the business users can be provided with the feel of their excel functionality for commenting.

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