Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Can more than one person be in the same data entry form at the same time?
A: Yes, if more than one person has access, they need to coordinate plans.
Q: Why are faculty and staff who are not in my School/Center visible in the salary module?
A: In case you want to pay them.
Q: How do I login to PCBS for the first time?
A: This video demonstrates the procedure for logging in to PCBS for the first time.
Q: What is the procedure for selecting a member?
A: Users need to select members for a variety of purposes in Planning: to enter data on a form, run a report, or change user preferences. The procedure is detailed here.
Q: How do I configure the Smart View add-on?
A: Smart View, the Microsoft Office add-on for Windows machines. Smart View with Excel allows you view and analyze data from the PennHist database; enter data from a Revexp or Salary form; or run a canned report. To learn more about Smart View, including how to download the latest release, click here.
Click this video link to see the procedure for signing into Smart View for the first time. Please keep in mind that these steps may change as we are testing a new Oracle option that will bypass the Company Credentials screen, allowing you to simply enter your PennKey and Password.
Q: How can I utilize the Point of View (POV) Icons to more easily navigate my data in web forms?
A: The procedure is detailed here.
Q: What is Smart Push?
A: A Planning Cloud feature called Smart Push works behind the scenes taking a copy of the data in the account combination you’ve budgeted and placing it in the same location in PennHist. More information can be found here.
Q: How can I save forms as Favorites?
A: If you frequent a particular form for data entry, you can save it under Favorites on your Planning Cloud home page. The procedure is detailed here.
Q: How do I filter my school or center orgs and promote them?
A: Planning Cloud allows you to filter your individual school and center orgs and parents to help manage your approval process. The procedure is detailed here.
Q: What is the Copy Adjust Business Rule?
A: There are two business rules – “A. Copy Adjust Salary” and “A. Copy Adjust Revexp” - that allow you to copy your forecast or budget data from one year to the next. More information can be found here.
Q: My reports are taking longer than expected to run, how can I help them finish faster?
A: Report Parameter Do’s and Don’ts can be found here.
Q: What should I do if my report is taking longer than five minutes to run?
A: No report should take more than five minutes to run: If you notice your reports taking longer than five minutes to finish, or more than a minute to start, something is wrong: it is possible a previous runaway report is keeping any reports from running. Please report this to planninghelp-L@lists.upenn.edu so we can investigate. Is it you? If you recently ran a report that may have run away (e.g., you didn’t actually see it finish) please send details of which report you ran, with the parameters and when, so we can check and kill it if necessary. Although you may think you cancelled it, it might still be running.
Q: How should I budget overhead on endowments and operating gifts?
A: We pick up the overhead attributes of endowment and operating gift funds (capital gifts are not subject to overhead) from BEN each night. This process runs after the nightly overhead calculation process. Therefore, any changes to overhead attributes of a fund are lagged by two nights. For example, if a fund that was subject to overhead becomes not subject to overhead today, the overhead will be removed tomorrow night (the overhead process tonight will use last night’s attributes).
This all happens automatically, so let Planning calculate the overhead (rather than typing in an amount of overhead somewhere else). To budget more gifts with overhead, use the endowment and gift funds that are subject to overhead (individual funds or 479998 or 649998). To budget more gifts without overhead, use the endowment or gift funds that are not subject to overhead (individual funds or 479999 or 649999).
The overhead charge to a fund, if any, is calculated, posted to the fund and pushed to PennHist automatically when you save the income for that fund. We run the overhead calculation again overnight, in case any overhead attributes have changed since you saved the income. The overhead recovery to the school’s 000000 fund is calculated overnight.
To change the overhead attributes of a fund, contact the Treasurer’s Office. They will change it in BEN, and it will flow automatically to Planning.