Reporting Tips

Please remember that monthly reports are no longer printed and distributed.

Reports from NUFinancials, InfoEd, and FAMIS are available via the Cognos BI tool from the Staff tab of the NUPortal
(NUPortal > Staff tab > Login to Cognos):

https://nuportal.northwestern.edu
or
https://reporting.northwestern.edu

To Access Reports in Cognos:

1. Log in using your NetID and password
2. Select the Cognos Connection link
3. Select the Project Café Reports folder
4. Select the School folder
5. Click the link of the desired report
6. Populate the prompts with values as appropriate
7. Press the Finish button

Please note: If we have issues with any of the reports, we will publish them on our Cognos status page.

Quick Reference: Old to New Reports

Additional information about the new Cognos reports, including a quick reference between several CUFS reports and their equivalents in the new system is available at:
http://cafe.northwestern.edu/reports

Updated Nightly

You can run reports daily, not just at month end—data is updated nightly.

Cognos Tips

Some tips about using Cognos reports:

General

  • Some new users may not see the Project Cafe folder in Cognos. It may be listed on another page.
  • Users must select the PDF view option BEFORE emailing a report AND select only “Attach the report.”
    • This allows the report to be sent as an attachment.
    • If another view option such as HTML is selected along with “Attach the report” the report will appear in the body of the email instead of as an attachment.
  • Viewing Cognos reports in Excel - some users may need to hold CTRL key down until the report opens
  • Users can update the preference for number of entries they can view:
    1. From Cognos Connection, locate the link for "Tools."
    2. Select My Preferences
    3. From General Tab, locate Number of Entries in List View. Increase this value.
    4. Click OK at bottom of screen.
      pgtool

Prompts

  • Required prompts are indicated with an orange asterisk
  • Reports will run faster if you fill out all of the prompts
    • If non-required prompts are left blank, the system will search all data which could increase processing time
  • You can use wildcards (%) in any of your prompt value searches

Saving Prompts & Scheduling Reports

Job Aid: How to Save Prompts and Run Reports on Demand in Cognos pdf icon
Job Aid: How to Save and Schedule Reports to be Delivered pdf icon
Job Aid: Tips: Saving Prompts & Scheduling Reports pdf icon

Sponsored Research Tips

See also: Expenses/Advances on Sponsored Projects
See also: Sponsored Project Balances, Payments, and Billing
See also: Sponsored Project Chart String
See also: Job Aid: Sponsored Payments Inquiry pdf icon
See also: Job Aid: Sponsored Billing Inquiry pdf icon

  • Expenses created from Expense Reports will be reflected in the reports as “expenses” once they are budget checked, even if all approvals have not been processed, BUT F&A will not be applied to these expenses until they have been completely approved.

  • No animal charges were expensed in December

Cognos Report Data Notes

  1. The budget shown on the GL005 report is the current budget for that chart string as of when the report is run.
    • If a budget is adjusted in the current month and then a prior month’s budget statement is re-run, the new budget will be displayed on the prior month report.
    • The GL008 report displays the budget as it existed in the specific period for which the report was run.
    • The Café team is working to resolve this different treatment of budget amounts.

  2. Employee expense reports and Actuals journals are shown in the Actual column on GL005 and the Transactions column on GL008 as soon as they are budget checked.  The GL Post Date column on the GL008 is blank if the expense report or journal entry has yet to be finalized and paid to the employee.

  3. The new Cognos reports are intended to show an up-to-the-day view of each chart string’s financial position.
    • It is possible that transactions that are not yet submitted or fully approved can be modified after the close of an accounting period and, thus, the budget statement for that accounting period can change.
    • These circumstances should be rare and will always be the result of user intervention (e.g., changing a chart string on a transaction after it was previously budget checked).
    • You can reduce the occurrence of such changes by approving any pending transactions from the prior calendar month before the close of the accounting period.  For target closing dates see Accounting Services' Closing Calendar pdf icon.
    • These transactions must pass through workflow after being modified, so changes will not occur without your knowledge.
    • Transactions that are cancelled will be reflected on budget statements for the month in which they are cancelled.
  4. The GL005 report will not return results for Project IDs that begin with a “6." Run GM045 or GL008 for these Project IDs instead.

Training Materials

Detailed training materials on basic and advanced topics related to running Cognos reports are located at
http://cafe.northwestern.edu/training/materials.html#reporting

These materials include further information about saving commonly run reports or scheduling them to run on a certain frequency and how to set your internet security options to run reports to Excel.

More Tips & Tricks

Also see related tips on our main Tips & Tricks page:
http://cafe.northwestern.edu/resources/tips.html

Help

For assistance, contact our Help desk at 847-491-HELP (1-4357) option 2
or email consultant@northwestern.edu