Hi. My name is Harrison, and in this video, I will show you how to configure reference data for the financial dimensions and cost object permissions in IT Planning.

As an Admin or Budget Process Owner, you use the Reference Data component in IT Planning to upload and manage built-in and custom dimensions, and their attributes as well.

Dimensions are the essential data categories in budget line items. They are the custom data you use to capture and report on the additional budget details you need to manage your budget process.

In the Summary view, Budget owners can select any of the dimensions to view the composition of the budget spend in the Treemap chart, also known as the Heatmap chart, and the Waterfall chart.

In the Expenses view, dimensions are represented as columns that allow Budget owners perform standard column actions, such as grouping and sorting the data in the Expenses table.

To display the Reference Data dimensions view, click the Component menu and select Reference Data. IT Planning displays the built-in and custom dimensions. You can directly edit some values of a few built-in dimensions, and then publish them to make it available for budget planning. You can also change, that is "Find and Replace", the identifier for Cost Objects and Dimensions for all plans. To do this, download the identifier template, map the old values with the new values, and upload it back to IT Planning.

The default financial dimensions in IT Planning include:

• Account
• Cost Center
• Department
• Location
• Vendor

These dimensions are the minimum I need to configure for working in IT Planning.

Let’s configure the Account dimension.

The chart of accounts is a built-in dimension labeled as "Account" in the Reference Data Tables list. In the Account table, you can directly edit the value in the Cost Pool field.

You can also edit the columns in the table by clicking Edit Columns. You can add a new column or rename an existing column, and when you’re ready, click Done.

To download the Account template, click Export Template at the upper right corner of the screen. The template is downloaded as a dot csv file, which you can edit as per the requirements. You can also export the data in the table to a dot CSV file, make changes to this file, and then import the file by clicking Import.

If the data is ready to be made available to the plans, click Publish. If you need to make some changes to the data before publishing it, click Revert

Next, we’ll configure the Cost Center dimension.

Cost Centers represent line-item attributes that map to Cost Objects.

Note that the cost center hierarchy as represented in the Cost Center dimension has no relationship to the budget or forecast plan approval hierarchy in IT Planning Foundation. The hierarchy is determined by your organization's Cost Object Permissions.

Just like with the Account dimension, you can

• export a template
• export the table to a dot csv file, make changes as per the requirement, and then import it back to IT Planning
• edit the columns in the table

Once you’re ready with the data, click Publish or click Revert to undo the changes.

Next, we have the Department dimension.

The Department dimension represents an organization’s hierarchical structure for budget planning and reporting roll-up purposes.

A Department can be associated with multiple Cost Centers, and can hold line items (volumes, labor or expense) recorded against more than one Cost Center. Note that the Cost Object Permissions reference data determines who can edit each Department, and who can approve budget plan submissions.

Once the data is ready to be uploaded, click Publish or click Revert to undo the changes.

We’ll move on to the Location dimension.

The Location dimension helps Budget Process Owners determine where costs will be incurred and define other dimensions, such as Labor, Value Added Tax etc.,

Click Publish to make the data available to the plans or click Revert to undo the changes.

Finally, we’ve the Vendor dimension.

The Vendor dimension helps Budget Process Owners account for costs that will come from external companies.

Click Publish to make the data available to the plans or click Revert to undo the changes.

We have configured the financial dimensions. Let’s now see how to configure the Cost Object Permissions reference data.

The Cost Object Permissions Reference dimension determines who can perform various actions with the Cost Objects. Cost Objects can include:

• Departments
• Services and Business Units, if Service Demand Planning is enabled, and
• Projects, if Project Financial Planning is enabled

From the view option, select:

• Hierarchy view to display the latest published Cost Object hierarchy
• List view to display users that are assigned to any Cost Object, including historical Cost Objects that are no longer in the latest published version

Using the Hierarchy view, you can assign users as an Owner, Editor, or Viewer on each level in your Cost Object hierarchy by clicking the Edit icon and selecting the username(s).

Owners have permissions to Edit and Submit for that Cost Object-level that includes any child Cost Objects. Editors have permissions to Edit, but not Submit for that Cost Object-level that includes any child Cost Objects. Viewers can only view, but not change, the given Cost Object's line items in a budget or forecast plans.

After the permissions are set up, the approval workflow is separated from the Cost Center hierarchy. If your Department hierarchy included multiple levels, but you wanted a flatter approval workflow, you can configure the Approval Hierarchy to skip certain levels, so that the Departments within the node you skip roll-up to the next-level Owner. The system uses your existing Cost Object Permissions to make a best-guess at aligning your current permissions to the new approval hierarchy.

Just like with the financial dimensions, you can:

• export the Cost Object Permissions template to a dot csv file
• export the data in the table to a dot csv file, and
• import the dot csv file

That was a quick walk through of configuring the reference data for the financial dimensions and cost object permissions in IT Planning.

Thanks for watching!