Overview: About Financial Reporting Tools @ Stanford

There are several Financial Reporting tools at Stanford. This overview provides a summary of the tools and links to additional information.

On this page:

OBI Human Resources Reporting

Oracle Business Intelligence (OBI) Human Resource reporting provides a common reporting environment for Stanford's PeopleSoft applications (Payroll and Student Administration), Axess Timecard time and leave reporting system, Pinnacle (IT Services Billing System), and STARS (Stanford Training and Registration System).

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OBI Financial Reporting

Oracle Business Intelligence (OBI) Financial Reporting is being released in phases by business function. OBI provides integrated reporting on data from PeopleSoft and Oracle Financials via:

  • Robust and dynamic ad hoc analyses for experienced financial analysts
  • Simple and interactive reports for administrative and financial staff

For more information, see OBI Financial Reporting.

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Oracle Financials Reporting Using ReportMart3

ReportMart3 (RM3) is a reporting tool and environment for financial data in the Oracle Financials system. Key modules of the Oracle Financials system (used by distributed users across campus) include Internet Procurement, iBudgets, iJournals, Expense Requests, PCard, and Labor Distribution. ReportMart3 provides access to over 160 predefined, static reports with download capability.

For more information, see Oracle Financials Reporting Using ReportMart3.

Note:  Oracle Financials reporting is transitioning from ReportMart3 to OBI Financial Reporting by subject area. For more information, see OBI Financial Reporting.

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Oracle Financials Inquiry Tools (SU Inquiry Tools)

In addition to ReportMart3 and OBI Financial Reporting, several web based inquiry tools are available to access Oracle Financials information.

  • Expenditure Type Query
  • Fund Title Query
  • Requisition and Purchase Order Query
  • Signature Authority Query
  • Vacation Query

For more information, see Oracle Financials Inquiry Tools (SU Inquiry Tools).

To access, Launch Oracle and open the SU Inquiry Tools folder.

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Decision Support Services (DSS)

The Decision Support Services team provides access to the tools and data necessary for users to create their own reports on an ad hoc basis. Decision Support Services maintains its own DataMart (a.k.a. DSS) with data from Stanford's major administrative systems, including:

  • Oracle Financials
  • PeopleSoft
  • FAAS (Faculty Affairs Academic Secretaries database)
  • SPIDERS (Sponsored Projects Integrated Data Entry Retrieval System)

Data from these systems can be combined. For example, you can link faculty advising with research proposals. The DSS DataMart also contains data from legacy systems (i.e. NSI, CHRIS, GFS, and SUFIN).

Two tools are available to access the DSS DataMart. Business Objects is the most frequently used and most user-friendly. The other tool, which requires basic knowledge of relational database concepts and techniques, is Hyperion Interactive Reporting. DSS tools work best when; 1) users needs are not met by canned reports (such as those in ReportMart3), 2) users are comfortable creating their own queries and reports, and 3) users have thorough knowledge of the data they are retrieving. Reference Resources: Getting Access to Decision Support Services (DSS).

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Hyperion Reporting

Hyperion budgeting software is used by Budget Planners and Viewers at Stanford University to prepare and review budgets consisting of salary and non-salary expenses as well as beginning balances, revenues, and fund transfers for the coming year. Hyperion Planning and Reports is the master database for the University Consolidated Budget. Hyperion is pre-populated with data from core Oracle Financials and PeopleSoft HRMS applications.

For additional information about Hyperion Reporting and the budget process, see:

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Other Tools

Excel and Access are two additional tools that are often used for financial analysis and reporting at Stanford. Information Technology Services provides training classes for Excel and Access. For course information and schedules, visit the Information Technology Services Training web site.

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