Sandbox Reference
Sandboxes are very powerful, useful tools that allow users to look at various hypothetical situations from their Working Plan, What If or other scenarios.
A sandbox is similar to having a linked spreadsheet, where all “cells” of the Sandbox are linked to the “cells” of the original plan. You can make changes in a Sandbox that do not impact the original plan, but when the original plan is updated, changes in the original plan flow back to the Sandbox, except to cells you have been written over within the Sandbox and essentially the link is broken.
A sandbox is private, meaning other users cannot see your Sandboxes and a sandbox can only be shared via export from a FAB Grid.
Key Points to remember with Sandboxes:
Sandboxing is not a good multi-task activity, requires some focus and concentration to keep track of where you are and what you are doing
Create easy to identify Names for your Sandboxes that will make sense later on - typically Sandboxes are created for a specific purpose. Good name conventions will make this much less confusing later on.
When you re-open a Sandbox, you need to use the same dimension filters you used when you created the sandbox to see the changes you made earlier.
- Include the Scenario you create the Sandbox from in your Sandbox Name, you can abbreviate, i.e., WP for Working Plan, WiF for What If, ABR for ABR.
Any cells you change in a Sandbox are indicated with small green triangle in the upper right corner. (If you change it back to the original entry, the triangle goes away.)
DO NOT COMMIT your Sandbox. Committing a Sandbox, commits those potential changes to your Base Scenario, normally, Working Plan or What If. This process should only be used with great caution and typically avoided - if you made other changes, for instance deleting lines for ease of viewing, these lines would be deleted from you plan upon committing the Sandbox.
A created Sandbox is available in all grids. While working in a Sandbox, prior to making changes, it can be helpful to set all open grids in which you are working to that Sandbox. (This can eliminate a lot of confusion later on.)
When work in a Sandbox is complete or you need to do other activities in FAB, again it can be helpful to set each grid back to base and close the Sandbox Option on each grid, essentially setting everything back to the original plan.
When you close FAB with an open Sandbox, your grids default back to your Base Scenario, Working Plan.
Sandbox Example: Determining Impacts of possible John Ritter’s reclass:
To use the Sandbox Function:
Select the Options Tab
Select Show Sandbox Functions (a check mark will appear on the left)
The Sandbox line / menu will show with the grid
To Create a Sandbox:
Select Create Sandbox on the Sandbox Menu
Type the new Name, reference WP, What If, make it easy to recall the purpose of the Sandbox
Note the current Sandbox is “Base”, this is the actual Scenario Plan you are in. Any changes to “base” will impact the actual Plan.
To Find a Sandbox from the Dropdown List:
Click the Down Arrow on the current Sandbox Name to see the available list of your created Sandboxes as well as the “Base” plan.
Note the Sandbox name appears in the Scenario Bar showing you in in Working Plan and in the Sandbox named “WP John R Reclass”
Once a Sandbox is created it is available in all other grids and can be selected from the Drop Down list.
To Make Changes within a Sandbox:
Make changes as you normally would and save.
Notice that all changed cells now show the small green triangle in the upper right corner.
Using Other Grids in the Sandbox:
Because this is all hypothetical, you will want any changes specifically related to this reclass question to be in your Sandbox and not in your Working Plan. To verify additional planning with regard to this Reclass you may want to be sure all grids you need to make changes in are all set to the appropriate Sandbox:
Open the Employee Account Allocation Grid, select “Options”, select “Show Sandbox Functions”, select “WP John Ritter Reclass” from the Dropdown List – Would Account assignments changed with this reclass?
Open the Employee Assumptions Grid - select “Options”, select “Show Sandbox Functions”, select “WP John Ritter Reclass” from the Dropdown List – Would Work Time or CSC assumptions change with this reclass?
To Determine Impact of the Sandbox Changes:
You are able to look at potential impacts of hypothetical situation without impacting your working plan and with the ability to keep confidentiality.
Open the Budget Forecast Analysis Report Grid to see estimated costs in the original plan
Open the Budget Forecast Analysis Report Grid, select “Options”, select “Show Sandbox Functions”, select “WP John Ritter Reclass” from the Dropdown List to see the changes associated with the hypothetical reclass – as of 1/1/2015 his FTE changed from .5 to 1.0 and his salary went from $50K to $65K – impact the overall Forecast.
One reason to select this Report Grid is that it includes all costs. If this change had included non-salary as well, you will see the full impact here. When only changing salary related items, you may also choose to compare the Employee Account Allocation Report where you can see how the fully loaded salary costs and all of the components change.
NOTE: An advantage of the linked abilities of a Sandbox Forecast, as the hypothetical situation is being assessed; changes in other planned or actual expenses on these account keys will be included in the overall totals.
Committing Sandboxes - CAUTION
Committing a sandbox essentially takes all the data that was in for original Sandbox based on your Dimension Filters PLUS any changes or deletions you made in that Sandbox and copies it over your original BASE plan.
Cautions in Committing Sandboxes:
Don’t use this when you first start using the Sandbox Function. (Many experienced users rarely or never commit data back due to the cautions and concerns.)
Test Committing and how this works on small selections on the TEST machine and not on Production. (The smaller selections let you more easily see how the data changes or if something just disappears.)
Selecting a FinOrg group in a sandbox and then deleting a few lines that are not applicable to the analysis to make it easier to work with will result in losing those lines if you commit the Sandbox back to the original plan. If you have lines and lines of entry, you may not realize those lines are lost until later when a key does not show up on a Time Card or when my forecast seems low.
