Understanding Allocations

Understanding Allocations

Brian ChizeverCognos Corporation

Terminology

• Allocations– General usage: to apportion among a group– Cognos Finance: a set of specialized steps in the calculation

process• Allocation Table

– The set of allocation rules for a specific submission• An Allocation

– One step in the allocation process• Allocation Line

– One rule in the allocation table– This rule may perform one or more steps in the allocation

process

Allocation Levels

• Determines when the allocation is executed– Level 1: Occur after submission rollups and currency

translations and before all other calculations– Levels 2-8: Each allocation level forces another round

of Input Component and Rollup Component calculations.– Level 9: Occur after all other calculations are

completed. No other calculations will occur after level 9 allocations.

– The minor (decimal) portion is used to order allocations within a major level

Allocation Types• There are six allocation types

– By Account: Use another account as a basis to determine the percentage of the source value that is assigned to the target

– By Specific Proportion: Use a specified weight as a basis to determine the percentage of the source value that is assigned to the target

– Combine: Add the sum of all source values and assign that sum to the target

– Distribute: Copy the source component/account value and assign that value to the target account for each target component

– Duplicate: Copy the source account value and assign that value to each target account within a component or set of components

– Reverse: Copy the source values, reverse the sign and assign that new value to the target

By Account

• Used to assign a value to the target component/account based on the value found in another account in the target component

SC

TA

SA

SA

SA

SA

TA

TA

TA

By Specific Proportion

• Used to assign a value to the target component/account based on weights specified for in the Allocation Table

wt3 %

wt2 %

wt1 %

SC

TA

SA

SA

SA

SA

TA

TA

TA

Combine

• Sum several source values and assign the result to the target.

SCTA SA

SA TA

TC

SC

TA

TA

SA

SA

SC

Distribute

• Copies data from the source to the target(s)

SC

TA

SA

SA

SA

SA

TA

TA

TA

Duplicate

• Copies values from the source account to the target account within multiple components.

SA

SA

SA

TA

TA

TA

Reverse

• Copies data from the source to the target and reverses the sign

SC

TA

SASA

TA

Reverse Sign

Component Hierarchies

Demonstration 1 & 2

• Demonstration 1– Allocate Rent By Account and Reverse in 2 lines

• Demonstration 2– Allocate Rent By Account and Reverse in 1 line– Allocate By Account & Allocate By Specific Proportion

• If some weights are negative and some positive, treat it as two separate allocations

– Those targets with positive weights get the source amount allocated– Those targets with negative weights get the reverse of the source

amount allocated

Demonstration 3 & 4

• Demonstration 3– Same as demonstration 2 (Allocate Rent By Account and

Reverse in 1 line), but add a line for Postage and a line for IT Expenses

• Demonstration 4– Same as demonstration 3 but all in one line using

Allocation map– Large performance improvement because number of file

reads are writes are greatly reduced– Eases maintenance because component groups are

selected once instead of multiple times

Allocation Map

• If you have multiple allocation lines that only differ by accounts, use an Allocation Map to merge the lines

• Faster performance– Eliminating file reads and writes is the single biggest

performance gain you can get• File Storage

– Each submission is a file– Within each file, a record contains all accounts and periods for a single

component group

• Easier to maintain– Only one line instead of multiple lines– Ensures that multiple allocations use the same component set

Demonstration 5

• Demonstration 5– Ease maintenance by using dependency– If more children are added to the calculated item, the

allocation table doesn’t have to change

Set Dependency Levels

• Self– Just use the selected item

• Input– Replace the selected item with all the input items which roll

into it– Has the effect of replacing one component group with many

component groups– Eases maintenance by ensuring the allocation is based on the

current hierarchy– Each input item uses the weight specified for the parent– Rounding Error

• If set to “No”, each input is “No”• If set to “Yes”, the first input is “Yes”, all others are “No”

Demonstration 6 & 7

• Demonstration 6– Same as demonstration 5 but add three additional

lines for remaining hardware products• Demonstration 7

– Same as demonstration 6 (allocating from multiple target component groups), but merge into one line of the allocation table

Multiple Source Component Groups• Some allocation types use multiple source component groups

– Combine– Duplicate

• Some allocation types use a single source component group– By Account– By Specific Proportion– Distribute– Reverse

• For those that use a single source component group, we allow the specification of multiple sources

– This is treated the same as multiple lines in the table with each line using a single source component group

– Merging lines by using multiple sources for these allocations may:• ease maintenance• have a slight performance improvement• create more allocations than intended

*MATCH

• *MATCH means to use the same item for the target as was specified in the source

• This is mostly used when specifying multiple source component groups

Demonstration 8

• Demonstration 8– Same as demonstration 7 (allocating from multiple

target component groups), but use hierarchy for source

– Hierarchy makes maintenance easier– Hierarchy makes it very easy to create a large

number of allocations• Possibly without realizing it

Demonstration 9

• Demonstration 9– Similar to demonstration 8 (allocating from multiple

target component groups), but use component library for source

Libraries for Component Groups• For each dimension, a library or single item is selected

– If no dimensions use a library, this is converted to a component group with one row

• The library is loaded at the time the calculation is performed– If a library cannot be found, the allocation is skipped and an appropriate

message is written to the log.• When specifying libraries be aware of the path since the calculation may be started

from different machines– The library may be either static or dynamic

• If dynamic, the hierarchy of the submission being calculated is used– All items have a weight of one and dependency set to “Self”

• If multiple dimensions use a library, each item in each dimension is paired with each item in the other dimension– For example if dim1 has a library with 3 items and dim2 has a library with

2 items, there will be a total of 6 (2x3) component groups.

Performance

• Minimize file access– Use Allocation Maps– Be aware of “exploding” nature of hierarchies

• Executing allocations based on calculation flags– In version 7.3 and earlier, all allocations were executed– In version 7.3SP4 we added logic to skip allocations if the

data had not changed• Must be run if any data changed

– Source or Target component group– Source, Target, or Basis account

• Set flags manually iff the allocation table changes (similar to Currency Translation and Submission Rollup Tables)

• Setting the Target Value to “Add” forces a lot of work to determine which allocations can be skipped

Target Value Option

• Overwrite– This is the normal action– The new target value replaced any existing value

• Add– The new target value is added to any existing value– Mostly used to allocate multiple rules into the same

account• Insert an allocation to ensure the initial value is zero

– Avoid if possible• Interferes with the ability to skip allocations based on

calculation flags

Source Value Option

• Copy– This is the normal action– The source value is retained after the target is written

• Move– The source value is set to zero after the target is

written– Removes the need for a Reverse allocation– Makes the calculation non-restartable– Only use for intermediate values

Create Component Groups Option• Yes, create component groups for allocation.

– Should (almost) always be used for these types:• By Specific Proportion

– The sum of the values in the targets should equal the value in the source. This may not happen if you don’t create new component groups

• Combine– The created sum may be first value in the target component group

• Reverse– The reversal may be the first value in the target component group

• No, ignore component groups that do not already exist in this submission.– Mostly used for Distribute

• If you want a rate in multiple components, you may only input into one of them and use Distribute to copy it to the other components

• If those other components have no other data, you don’t want to create them just for this• This option is ignored for

– By Account• If the target doesn’t exist, the basis is zero so the target would not receive a value anyway

– Duplicate• If the target doesn’t exist, neither does the source so there is nothing to do

Compare Allocations

• Compare the allocation tables in two submissons– Lines in submission 1 but not in submission 2– Lines in submission 2 but not in submission 1– Lines in both submissions that match– Lines in both submissions that are different

• Option for how many differences the line has between the two submissions before it’s considered a different row

• Option for which columns are used in the comparison– For example, may not care if the comment is different

Cognos Finance, moving forward.

Q & A