WebPBC Help

© CyberDemia Research & Services, 2002

Layout

WebPBC has two main panes :

The selector pane on the left allows the user to select a node or account to consolidate on.

The viewer pane on the right

• displays the results of the consolidation
• provides menu-bar functions like Print, Export and Lock/Unlock (for authorized users).
• allows editing of the budgets (for authorized users).

Selecting account

1. Click on a node in the hierarchy tree in the selector pane to select it. The full code of the selected node appears below the tree.
2. If a node has sub-nodes, a + symbol appears next to the node in the tree. Click on it to expand the node to show its sub-nodes.

Editing budgets (for authorized users only)

1. If the user has authority to perform editing, a    icon appears above the Level 1 Account selector, when a Project node is selected in the hierarchy tree. This indicates that the budget MAY be editable.
2. Select a level-1 account using the drop-down selector.
3. Click on the    icon to show the selected level-1 account in the viewer pane.
4. If the level-1 account's budgets are indeed editable, the accounts associated with the selected level-1 account are shown in a green table with checkboxes on the left column.
5. Tick the checkboxes of the accounts to be editted. Alternatively, tick on the checkbox in the top-left corner of the table to automatically tick all the accounts.
6. Click on the    menu item at the top of the viewer pane to begin editing.
7. The editing page appears in the viewer pane. The user can directly enter budget values into the textboxes. The textbox that is currently being editted has a yellow background.
8. Some menu items are available to facilitate data entry, such as Spread to spread the current value evenly to the end of the year and Copy to copy the current value to the end of the year.
9. The user can optionally enter a log message to accompany this editing session. This is intended for jotting down notes and reasons for the changes.
10. Finally, click on the Save button to save the changes, or Cancel to discard the changes. The viewer pane returns to the green table of accounts. Check that the saved values appear in this table.
11. While a project is being editted, it is locked for the user to prevent another user from editing it at the same time. This editing lock remains in effect until the user saves or cancels the editing, or until the default duration of 1 hour has passed (in case the user simply closes the browser).

Consolidating

1. Select a node in the hierarchy tree, then click on the    in the selector pane to consolidate the budgets at that node's level. For example, to consolidate the accounts under a Project, select a Project node, then click   . The consolidated values are shown in a blue table.
2. It is also possible to consolidate a higher-level node on a selected level-1 account. Select a node above Project, such as Department. Then select a level-1 account from the selector. Click on the    to perform this consolidation.
3. If the multi-year feature is enabled (by administrator), the    and    arrows will appear at the top of the viewer pane. They can be used to increment or decrement the display year.

Locking (for authorized users only)

1. If the user is a manager, a    menu item appears in the top menu bar of the viewer pane if the current node is not locked. Click on this menu item to lock this node and all its sub-nodes.
2. The user can specify the duration that the lock will apply. Once a node is locked, it cannot be editted or unlocked by anyone else other than the user who locked it. The lock will remain in effect until the same user unlocks it or it expires.
3. If the user is a manager, a    menu item appears in the top menu bar if the current node has been locked by the same user. Click on this menu item to unlock this node and all its sub-nodes.

Logout

1. Click on the Logout button at the bottom of the selector pane to exit from the current session of WebPBC. It is advisable to logout when WebPBC is no longer being used so that server memory can be freed up for other users.
2. If a user does nothing or simply closes the browser without logging out, WebPBC will automatically logout the user after 1 hour of inactivity.

WebPBC is still under active development. Please send any comments or queries to:
Alexander Yap