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Release Notes

ValQ-Plan 3.7

New

1. Templates

  • Undo/redo and bulk select options have been added to the Templates tab, allowing quicker template creation.

  • You can now reorder templates as per your needs.

2. Reporting

The 'Manage Columns' menu is now available in the 'Report' tab with options to display variance and variance%.

3. Node visibility

You can now hide nodes in specific tabs (Plan/Simulate/Report) using the node display settings. To access it, use the Edit Node option from any tab.

Enhancements

1. Model

  • Node setting options in the model editor are now organized based on their type, such as general, number formatting, conditional formatting, display options, constraints, composite nodes, etc.

  • Additional columns can be displayed in the model editor by enabling them in the Manage Columns dropdown menu.

2. Plan

In the 'Plan' tab, the user interface for custom distribution now opens in a separate pop-up allowing better visibility while configuring.

  1. The node selection pop-up window is improved across all the tabs. It is now bigger with a filter option and also displays the lineage of the selected node.

  1. Filter in the 'Simulate' and 'Report' tabs are also now enhanced similar to the filter in the 'Plan' tab.

Fixes

  1. Customer-reported issues are fixed. This includes the following:

  • data window size warning popping up despite setting the maximum size.

  • issues with ragged hierarchy levels.

  • issues with setting the start of the forecast in Model Settings>Data Settings while bringing in a new series for the first time.

  • formula aggregation issue while working with the hybrid formula (configuring formulas for open and closed periods).

  1. Performance issues in the 'Plan' tab are fixed.

ValQ-Plan 3.6

New

  1. Named Filters

You can now assign names to the filters, which enables you to set up multiple filters for an independent analysis. This feature is provided across all the tabs.

Find below an example where a named filter - 'Beverages' is created in the Report tab.

  1. Adding Template within a Template

When creating templates, apart from adding nodes, you can also add another template within the existing one. This allows the reuse of templates without having to start from scratch and saves time.

For example, the image below shows a template for calculating the net profit margin, which reuses two existing templates: the 'Net Profit' template and the 'Revenue' template to calculate net profit and revenue respectively.

  1. 'Is Not' Operator in Template Filter Rules

The Template Rules filter now includes the 'is not' operator.

  1. Hide Empty Nodes

The option to hide empty nodes has been included in the Plan and Report tabs.

Enhancements

Simulate

Following are the enhancements in the Scenario Analysis-Node Details window:

  1. Multiple tabs are now replaced with a single-level tab containing the trend, variance breakdown, simulation impact, and calculation components.

  2. Only the relevant nodes will have a variance breakdown tab now and not all nodes.

  3. In the trend chart, if there is no simulation the scenario line is displayed with baseline values for accurate representation. Previously simulation lines would not be shown if there were no simulations.

  4. In the variance breakdown chart, the scenario measure is represented with a different color.

  5. The Y-axis of all charts now starts from 0 to enhance readability.

Plan

In the plan tab, the series assigned in the Others field are also now available for weight distribution.

Fixes

  1. While choosing the template key, the issue of not being able to locate all the leaf nodes is resolved.

  2. Issues with the tooltip, legend, and bar colors in the Scenario Analysis Node Details page have been fixed.

ValQ-Plan 3.5

New

  1. In the Simulate tab's table view, both hierarchy and table layout are now supported. You can switch between both layouts using the Manage View dropdown and export them as required.

Enhancements

  1. The node search experience is now consistent across all the tabs with the new UI.

  2. The Expand/Collapse icons in the table view across all the tabs have been updated.

  3. Row height has been reduced across all tables.

The image below shows the above enhancements in the Model tab. These updates can be seen on other tabs too.

  1. The Plan tab has UI improvements in the auto-forecast screen as follows:

  • The forecast methods are now explicitly listed in place of a drop-down menu.

  • The forecast results are displayed based on the execution order.

  • On charts, the forecasted numbers are shown on the extended time axis after the actuals.

  1. In the Simulate tab, we now have an improved toolbar and the following enhancements:

  • The 'Manage View' menu at the top with some of the common display settings for a better user experience.

  • Options to minimize and collapse the toolbar.

  • Improved KPI cards.

  • Enhanced simulation summary and Key Inputs section for easier user input.

  • Presentation button in place of the 'Present' option.

Fixes

  1. Templates applied to the ragged hierarchy models now work seamlessly.

  2. Node mismatches between the Model and the Plan tab are now fixed.

  3. The issue with the quick menu for forecasts not being displayed in the grid total for complex formula nodes has been resolved.

ValQ-Plan 3.4.2

New

MODEL in Reading View

The model tab is now available in the reading view of the Power BI service, as shown below. Previously, you could use the model tab only in the editing view.

You can refer to this section to learn how to enable this feature.

Model: Hybrid Formula

In the Model tab, you can specify different node configurations for the open and closed periods separately, as shown below.

For template nodes, you can do the same through the Templates menu.

Go to the Model Settings section in the Settings tab to enable hybrid node configuration.

Enhancements

MODEL - Template key nodes with an unbalanced hierarchy are not shown as errors

When you configure template keys for data with a ragged hierarchy, they are no longer shown as errors in the model.

Before:

Find below a sample data model in which the Beverages category doesn't contain the level - Discount%. This is notified as an error.

Now:

Nodes with ragged/unbalanced hierarchies are no longer displayed as modeling errors as seen below.

Support for ragged hierarchy: In ValQ, the node values for the missing levels are shown as zeros. This allows the user to configure their values in the future if required and also accommodates them in the plan.

ValQ-Plan 3.3

New

PLAN

Driver based planning

Planners can now explicitly configure the drivers for the nodes and perform driver-based planning.

With the driver-based planning feature, users can configure drivers to a few nodes. This makes it easier to identify the key drivers and their impact on the KPIs while removing less relevant information to facilitate faster, well-defined planning.

In the above example, we can see that the headcount is a key driver of the transport cost of the organization.

This way, all stakeholders involved are aware of the drivers and their role in a transparent manner. To know more about the use cases and the configuration of drivers, refer to this section.

GLOBAL SETTINGS

Split Series by Fiscal Year

You can now split the data series based on the starting period you want for the fiscal year. Previously, you could split the series from January to December, or from quarter 1 to quarter 4, etc.

This can be done by defining the start period for your data series using the Data Settings in the Settings menu. The end period is automatically filled by ValQ based on the starting period.

Find below the example of a fiscal year that starts from April. ValQ automatically fills the end period as March.

You can also choose the starting period by quarters, weeks, etc. based on the periods assigned. For example, if 'Quarter' is the time period assigned instead of 'Month', you can choose the desired starting quarter.

You can refer to this section to understand more.

Enhancements

MODEL

Manage Templated Nodes - UI refactoring

The Datasource Node Editor has been added to the 'Manage Templated Nodes' pop-up window, along with the list of replaced and added nodes in the model. With this, you can quickly edit and manage the template nodes.

GLOBAL SETTINGS

Data Settings - UI refactoring

In the Settings menu of the Model tab, the Data Settings section has been updated to have a consolidated view of all the series management options, such as Split Series, Exclude Series, Previous Series, Series Type, etc., under a single table.

Node Layout Customization

Users can customize the node layout style from the two presets available. Preset 1, taken from ValQ 2.0 is the default layout style for the nodes.

SIMULATE

Default Expanded View in Table

When you switch to table view in the Simulate tab for the first time, it displays the model in expanded view, irrespective of the number of child nodes. Previously, just the top node would be visible which later you can expand.

Automatic view selection based on the number of nodes in level 1

While creating a new model, if the top node(level 1 node) has more than 20 child nodes, the model automatically opens in the table view in the Simulate tab.

You can change it to the tree view if required. Later, the model will open in the tree/table view depending on which view it is saved in.

Performance improvements

Modeling, planning, and simulation can now be done rapidly with quicker calculations and seamless expand/collapse views.

Fixes

Bugs in the Scenario Comparison window are fixed. Previously there were a few value mismatches in the baseline and comparison series.

ValQ-Plan 3.2

New

Scenario Initiatives: You can now add multiple initiatives within a scenario and easily merge or remove these initiatives as required to assess their potential outcomes.

To enable the initiatives feature, go to Model->Settings and turn on the respective toggle button.

Adding initiatives allows you to evaluate the outcomes for different what-if assumptions either individually or in specific combinations within a given scenario.

Find below a sample scenario that has two initiatives included. You can find the simulation impact of each initiative as well as their overall impact. To know more, click here.

Enhancements

Model Tab - Toolbar: Simple and straightforward UI flow for adding, editing and managing templates as well as for converting a dynamic model to an editable model.

  1. Create or Import template: Click the Templates menu.

  1. Apply Template: To apply the created template, click on Apply Template where you can choose from the dropdown, whether to replace the existing node structure with the template or just insert new nodes with the template nodes.

You can also click on the below icons for applying templates.

Convert Dynamic model to Editable model: Convert dynamic nodes to editable nodes by using the menu option - Convert Dynamic to Editable.

ValQ-Plan 3.1.0.1

New

  1. Configuring a Plan Series: Now you can choose to retain the initial source data while creating a new Plan series.

When creating a new plan series, the user is provided with the option to 'Keep Source Data in Report'. Upon checking this, the new plan series is unaffected and retains its initial source values, even if any changes are made to the underlying source.

For example, let's say you configured Plan Series 2 from Plan Series 1.

On checking this option, any changes made in Plan Series 1 do not impact Plan Series 2 and it retains the underlying data as shown below:

Note: Consider the data and report size while choosing to store the source data in the report as it can affect the loading time for larger reports.

To update the report similar to the source, use Refresh Data option.

If this option is unchecked, Plan Series 2 reflects all the changes you make in Plan Series 1.

  1. Introduced Filter option in Simulate - table view.

  1. Copy-Paste Feature: Copy and paste single or multiple cells in the table view of Simulate using the keyboard shortcut keys.

Enhancements

  1. Getting Data into ValQ: ValQ can now automatically detect custom time formats when non-hierarchical time periods are assigned in Time Period field.

  1. Simulate: Added an option to switch from tree view to table view on a click, when the number of children for a node exceeds 15 to avoid clutter, as shown below.

Note: The minimum number of children can be changed from 15 to any other number in the Settings menu, beyond which the table view would be the default view.

This feature can be disabled by turning off the toggle button 'Expand Children in Table view' in Settings.

  1. Enhanced chart configuration UI in Presentation Mode.

While creating charts, you can now preview the changes in real time before you apply them.

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