Excel Import Utility

Contents

• Introduction
• Downloading
• Utilities installation
• Tutorial database
• Compatibility
• Known issues
• Purchasing

Introduction

We have developed Excel utilities for customers to provide additional functionality which is missing from FDC. We have included the most popular utilities in a fully functional demo you can download. The utilities included in the demo are:

• Create input workbooks - This utility can create input workbooks from template workbooks. The input workbooks can contain data from a FDC database but they do not need to be linked to a database when they are used. Select this link for details of this utility.
• Import workbooks - This collection of utilities can import spreadsheets directly into a FDC database without any intermediate processes such as general ledger import. Select this link for details of this utility.

The demo excludes some common utilities, such as batching FDC processes, because they are too specific to individual applications.

Downloading

To download the demo version of the utilities:

1. Select this link Utilities.zip.
2. Select Save this file to disk and click OK.
3. Select an empty temporary folder to save the file to and click Save.

The WinZip archive you have just downloaded contains:

• The Utilities.xla add-in.
• Sample Excel workbooks for the tutorials on this website.
• A sample FDC database for the tutorials on this website.

Utilities installation

Extracting the archive and loading the add-in

To extract the archive you must have WinZip installed on your computer. If you do not have WinZip you can download it at http://www.winzip.com. To extract the Utilities.zip archive and install the add-in:

1. In Explorer go to the temporary folder where you saved Utilities.zip.
2. Double click on Utilities.zip.
3. Click the Extract button on the toolbar.
4. Select the temporary folder to extract the archive to and click Extract.
5. Copy Utilities.xla to a folder say C:\Comshare\FDC\Utilities. The add-in can be stored anywhere but we think this is convenient place to keep it.

Loading the add-in

The add-in can be loaded by opening Utilities.xla in FDC Control Site:

1. From the Start menu select Programs > Comshare > FDC > FDC Control Site.
2. Login to the database you want to use.
3. From the File menu select Open.
4. Select C:\Comshare\FDC\Utilties\Utilities.xla and click Open.

Alternatively you might want to set up a new shortcut which automatically loads the add-in. To do this:

1. Copy the FDC Control Site shortcut from the Comshare FDC menu.
2. Rename the new shortcut Utilities.
3. Right click the Utilities shortcut and select Properties from the pop up menu.
4. Click the Shortcut tab.
5. In the Target textbox after the existing text add a space and then "C:\Comshare\FDC\Utilities\Utilities.xla".
6. Click OK.

You can now load Utilities add-in by double-clicking on this shortcut.

Tutorial database

Creating the tutorial database

If you want to follow the tutorials on this website you need to create a tutorial database by creating an empty FDC database and copying the tutorial database. To create a empty database:

1. From the Start menu select Programs > Comshare > FDC > FDC DB Maintenance.
2. Select Create a Database.
3. In the Name textbox enter ABC.
4. In the Data Directory textbox enter C:\Comshare\FDC\ABC. If FDC is not installed in C:\Comshare\FDC you will need to alter this path.
5. In the FDC User Directory textbox enter C:\Comshare\FDC\ABC\FDCUser.
6. Click Next.
7. Check the settings and click Copy.
8. Click Finish.

To copy in the tutorial database:

1. Go to the temporary folder where you saved Utilities.zip. You should have extracted the archive already.
2. Go to the ABC folder.
3. Copy all the files in this folder to C:\Comshare\FDC\ABC.

Database configuration

The tutorial database is very simple it contain four schedules:

• B1299 Profit and Loss
• B2299 Balance Sheet
• M1299 Profit and Loss
• M2299 Balance Sheet

The organisation structure is:

3000 ABC Group
  |-3010 ABC UK Group
  |   |-3020 UK IT
  |   |   |-1007 UK ERP
  |   |   `-1008 UK Networks
  |   |-3030 UK Consulting
  |   |   |-1009 UK Property Consulting
  |   |   `-1010 UK BPR Consulting
  |   |-3040 UK Technology
  |   |   |-1011 UK eProcurement
  |   |   `-1012 UK Point of Sale
  |   `-3050 UK Overhead
  |       |-1001 ABC UK Ltd
  |       |-1013 UK Marketing
  |       |-1014 UK HR
  |       `-1015 UK Directors
  |-1002 ABC Germany GmBH
  |-1003 ABC USA Ltd
  |-1004 ABC France SA
  |-1005 ABC Italy SA
  `-1006 Consol adjustments

The user id is COMSHARE and the password is FDC.

Compatibility

The add-in should work with:

• Infor/Geac/Comshare FDC 5.0 or later
• Excel 97 or later
• Windows 95 or later

It has been extensively tested with:

• Comshare 5.0.x and 5.2.x
• Excel 97 and 2000
• Windows 95, 98, NT 4 and 2000.

If you experience any problems we hope they will be related to Microsoft or FDC version compatibility but please contact me and we will do my best to solve them.

Known issues

We are aware of the following issues:

• Most versions of Excel malfunction after repeated macro driven actions, this is probably due to memory leaks in Excel. If the add-in stops working or behaves strangely quitting and restarting Excel or rebooting your PC should fix the problem. If you are importing hundreds of spreadsheets you may need to split them into batches to overcome this problem.
• To improve performance the add-in holds a list of reporting units in memory . If you add new reporting units you need to quit and restart Excel to add the new units to this list.

Purchasing

The full version of the add-in includes full source code and is superb value at £500, less than one days consultancy from the Big X. If you are interested in purchasing the add-in please contact me.