1. SCOOP Training -- April 2014
10/10/2017
SCOOP
for the department business manager
Session 1. Intro to Scoop Basics

2. Agenda Getting ready for SCOOP What is SCOOP and why would I use it?
Getting around in SCOOP
Hands-on Exercises 1 & 2– basic navigation warm-up
Hints for customizing Excel
Hands-on Exercises 3 & 4– refining queries
Hands-on Exercises 5 & 6 – lists of Banner funds
Hands-on Exercise 7 – Use Scoop to match a Banner report

3. Getting ready for SCOOP
Install SCOOP on your computer
Scoop only runs in Microsoft Excel on Windows (if you have a Mac you must run a Windows app inside it)
You must have read access to Banner Finance at minimum; Banner HR & Payroll are helpful too.
(If you can run standard Banner reports, you can run SCOOP queries)
You must have basic understanding of Banner Finance concepts (fund, account, available balance, direct vs. indirect etc.)
You must have reasonable proficiency in Excel
No previous experience with SCOOP or other data query tools is necessary for this training course

4. How do I get Scoop? www.obfp.vt.edu/SCOOP Install the Oracle client
Install Scoop
Problems? Call Chris Sherman

5. What is SCOOP? Quick demo
Developed at Virginia Tech in 2002; hosted and maintained in the Budget Office
Sits inside Excel and allows you to pull data from the Banner data warehouse
Provides an alternative to manually copying numbers from a Banner report
Scoop is a data-getter, NOT a report writer
Allows you to ask YOUR question, such as…

6. SCOOP Training -- April 2014
10/10/2017
Typical questions…
FINANCE SUMMARY
Show a list of all my department’s funds with the current direct balance
FINANCE TRANSACTIONS
Show all budget actions on any state fund in FY15.
PAYROLL EARNINGS
Show all earnings on fund since it began, by person & pay period.
FUTURE SALARY COMMITMENTS
Show all salary commitments on Dr. Ekkad’s funds for this semester, including fringe commitments; include name, fiscal period, begin and end date of future funding period.
FUND DIMENSION
Show a list of all active Banner funds in my college (not just my department)
These were actual questions I had to ask on a particular workday.
Each has these characteristics:
I want specific columns, or pieces of information
I have very narrow selection criteria or filtering
Most involve summarizing numeric data at some level
All data resides in the Data Warehouse
Collecting from Banner screens or canned reports would be manual, slow and tedious

7. SCOOP Training -- April 2014
10/10/2017
More questions…
CURRENT JOBS
Show all the GRAs in my department and how they are funded
Show everybody currently being charged to any returned overhead fund in my department; include name, per-pay salary, filled FTE, funding percentage.
CURRENT EMPLOYEES
Show list of faculty and staff in my department with salary, rank and tenure codes.
FINANCE SUMMARY
Show my department’s expenses for telecommunications charges for each fiscal period in the current fiscal year.
These were actual questions I had to ask on a particular workday.
Each has these characteristics:
I want specific columns, or pieces of information
I have very narrow selection criteria or filtering
Most involve summarizing numeric data at some level
All data resides in the Data Warehouse
Collecting from Banner screens or canned reports would be manual, slow and tedious

8. Why use SCOOP? Makes the simple questions easier and quicker to answer
Makes the complicated questions POSSIBLE to answer
Gives you data-gathering super power (you can design your OWN reports)
Puts data right into Excel where you want it
It’s YOUR data – you should be able to get it

9. Everybody else
Scoop user
“Hey! Look what Zog do!”

10. Getting around in SCOOP
Everything happens inside Excel
A “query” is a single question that you ask
You can have one query per tab (or sheet)
All the queries get saved along with the Excel workbook.
The query returns data to Excel in “list” format

11. SCOOP Training -- April 2014
10/10/2017
Excel “list” data A B C D E 1
FUND CODE
FUND DESC
ACCOUNT CODE
ACCOUNT DESC
ACTUAL AMT 2
121030
M E Salary
1110
Employee Fringe Benefits Bgt
0.00 3
11110
Employer Retirement Contributions
92,578.56 4
11120
FICA for Salaried Employees
181,616.98 5
11130
FICA for Wage Employees
2,575.48 6
11150
Medical/Hospitalization Insurance
299,291.00 7
11153
Medical/Hosp. Ins. - Grad Std
13,369.69 8
11160
Retiree Health Ins. Benefits
31,190.38 9
11170
Long-Term Disability Insurance
17,144.21 10
11180
Employer Retir. Contri - ORP
203,843.28
To qualify as an Excel “List”:
First line contains text headers, preferably bold
Remaining lines hold only data
No white space
No subtotals
Data values appear on every line

12. Put Excel data in a “list” and you can…
Rearrange rows (SORT)
Rearrange columns
Sum values
Compute new values
Hide columns
Augment the data

13. Get a little fancier and you can…
Subtotal
Hide rows (with filters)
Sum values by groups (with pivot tables)
Make it presentation-quality

14. Get really fancy and you can…
Getpivot
Reference other sheets
Vlookup and Hlookup

15. Hands-on Exercise 1: Basic Navigation
Open the Business Managers Portal:
Click on SCOOP and find the sample workbook and open it
Scoop Session 1. xlsx
Save to the desktop for the duration of this class. If prompted, agree to “Check Out” and then “Discard Checkout”.
Get on tab 1-Warmup.
Click Add-Ins, then click the ice cream cone to open Scoop (use your BANNER password).
For now ignore the Scoop icon with the ‘X’ in front of it.

16. Basic Navigation (continued)
Hands-on Exercise 1:
Basic Navigation (continued)
This is the SCOOP interface. In this first exercise, don’t do anything to it. Just click on the Export to Excel icon to run the query.

17. The result should look like this…

18. Build the query yourself
Hands-on Exercise 2:
Build the query yourself
Get on tab 2-Acct List (which is empty)
Open SCOOP
In the Choose Model screen, click on the Plus sign next to Finance
Select Account Dimension
This is a “data model”, which allows you to ask questions along a particular line of inquiry, in this case getting lists of account codes and descriptions.
Double-click on Account Dimension

19. Select Account Dimension and click OK

20. 4. Click here to return the data to Excel
2. The “GET” box – drag the columns here that you want in your spreadsheet
1. These are the columns you can return to your spreadsheet
3. The “CHECK” box – specify exactly what rows you want

21. Drag these two columns to the “GET” box

22. Same result as before…

23. Warehouse Authorization
Where does the data come from?
BANNER database
Banner Authorization
Extracted nightly
Banner reports
Warehouse Authorization
Data Warehouse (WHDB)
SCOOP + Excel

24. Excel Quick Access Toolbar
HINT: some handy commands to put on the
Excel Quick Access Toolbar
Sum
Sort descending
Right-click in this white space to customize the Quick Access Toolbar
Sort ascending
Filter
Go straight to the Ice Cream Cone

25. Customizing the Quick Access Toolbar
Move these to here

26. Get a list of Labor account codes
Hands-on Exercise 3:
Get a list of Labor account codes
The Question: Show me a list of Banner account codes for labor only (salary & fringe); also include Account Subgroup and Object Code
Create a new tab and call it 3-Labor.
Open Scoop and select the Account Dimension.
Get these columns:
Account_Subgroup_Code
Account_Subgroup_Desc
Object_Code
Object_Desc
Account_Code
Account_Desc
Drag Account_Group_Code to the CHECK box.
Click Values and select LD- Labor & Benefits etc..
Run it.

27. This is what you’re trying to produce…

28. 1. Drag these six columns to the “GET” box
2. Then drag Account Group Code to the “CHECK” box

29. Click Values

30. Select the value LD and click OK

31. The CHECK box should look like this; now run the query

32. The result should look like this…
Try sorting the results by Account Code.
Turn on Data.. Filter and display only the Fringe codes
HINT: Turn OFF Filtering before re-running your query

33. How Scoop behaves… 1. It returns the columns in the order you put them
2. It also sorts the rows by the column values in order

34. Some things you can do… Search for a column by name
Change the column order with the UP and DOWN buttons
Remove a column from the list

35. Some no-no’s
Scoop doesn’t like FILTERS. Turn them off before re-running your query
Don’t switch tabs while Scoop is open. It will lose track of which tab is asking the question. Here’s the error message:
Open Excel only ONCE. Scoop doesn’t like it when you open multiple instances of Excel. You’ll have to close down the extra one, and possibly close Excel completely and open it fresh.

36. Refine your list of account codes
Hands-on Exercise 4:
Refine your list of account codes
The Question: Notice how many rows are in the 3-Labor list. Also notice how many account codes are in object code 1142; then create another list with only the columns Account Subgroup and Object.
Count the rows that were returned in the 3-Labor query.
Filter the Labor results to display only the rows with Object Code How many are there?
Create a new tab and call it 4-Labor Refined.
Open Scoop and copy the query from the 3-Labor tab.
Remove these columns:
Account_Code
Account_Desc
Run the query. How many rows are there now, for 1142 and altogether?
Run the query again adding the Count Records feature.

37. To copy a query… 1. Create a new tab
2. Start Scoop and click on the Copy tab instead of selecting a data model
3. Select the tab name that holds the query you want to copy

38. The results…

39. To use the Count Records feature…
Check this box

40. Scoop counted all the rows it found, then removed any duplicates.
Record Count tells you how many rows it found before collapsing the results.

41. While we’re in the Account Dimension, some handy columns:
REVENUES : Dept Acct Category Code = ‘R’
DIRECT: Dept Acct Category Code = ‘D’
INDIRECT: Dept Acct Category Code = ‘I’
Use Account Subgroup to match the OSP budget categories:

42. The query to show the OSP budget categories…

43. Show the fringe account codes and percentages associated with each Labor account code

44. The query to show the fringe accounts and percentages…

45. Run a list of Banner funds in your department
Hands-on Exercise 5:
Run a list of Banner funds in your department
The Question: Show all active Banner funds in my department with the available balance. Include the following:
Start & End date
Fund Class (shows federal vs. commercial)
Fund Source (more categories of federal vs. commercial and others)
Financial Manager (PI)
Agency (Sponsor)
OSP post-award admin
Organization code
Direct / Indirect / Total balance
Get on the 5-Direct Bal tab and open Scoop.
In the CHECK box, change ‘0103’ to your department number.
Run it.
Create a tab called 5-Indirect Bal and create a query for just indirect.
Create a tab called 5-Total Bal and create a query for Direct + Indirect.

46. Change to your department number

47. The result…

48. The three tabs (Direct, Indirect, Total)…

49. Customize your own list of funds
Hands-on Exercise 6:
Customize your own list of funds
The Question: Add or remove columns as you like to the established list of Banner funds & balances
Create a new tab called 6-My Bal and open Scoop.
Copy the query from 5-Direct Bal (just like in exercise 4).
Add or remove the columns you like.
Run it.

50. Use Scoop to match a Banner report
Hands-on Exercise 7:
Use Scoop to match a Banner report
The question – Show me the travel and supplies expenses during August 2014 in each of the funds , ,
Run the Banner Account by Fund report for account 128 & 130 for the three funds…

51. Hands-on Exercise 7 continued
Run the Banner Account by Fund report for account predecessors 128 & 130 for the three funds…

52. Returns the same numbers…
The Scoop query…
Returns the same numbers…