User annotations and attached documents that are linked to a plan are grouped together to form commentary. You can copy commentary between Contributor cubes and applications using administration, system, and local links.
Note: You can only copy commentary using links that contain data.
You may want to add notes to your plan. You can do this by annotating a cell, tab, or the whole model.
Audit annotations automatically record actions such as typing data, importing files, and copying and pasting data. They are useful if an e.List item has multiple owners and you want to see who made changes.
You can annotate e.List items in any workflow state, including locked. You can annotate a particular cell, tab, or the model once in a session. A session ends when you save it.
Important: After you save or submit a session, you cannot change or delete annotations. Only the administrator can delete annotations.
If you have only View rights to an e.List item, you cannot annotate it.
To add an annotation, right-click the cell, tab, or model, click Contributor, Annotate, and then select Cell, Tab or Model and then click Add. Type your note and then close it.
To view annotations, right-click the cell, tab, or model, click Contributor, Annotate, and then select Cell, Tab or Model and then click View. Cell and tab annotations have red indicator triangles in the upper-right corners.
If you want to edit an annotation made in the current session, right-click the cell, tab or model, click Contributor, Annotate, and then select Cell, Tab, or Model, and then click Edit.
Tip: Deleting all the text deletes the annotation.
In the Contributor Actions toolbar, click Save.
This also saves any data changes to the server.
Tip: To view all annotations for a model, right-click the model and click Contributor, Browse Commentary.
You can add links to Web pages, files, and email addresses from annotations.
Link to a file only if you expect the file to be viewed by two or three people. If you expect more people, make the file accessible from a Web site.
Before you link to a file, ensure that the file is in a shared network location. Also, use the universal naming convention instead of a fixed drive letter because a fixed drive letter may not be the same for all the people viewing the annotation.
Right-click the cell, tab, or model containing the annotation where you want to add a link.
Click Contributor, Annotate, and then select Cell, Tab, or Model and then click Edit.
Add a link:
To add a link to a Web page, in the annotation edit box, type a valid URL, such as: http://www.Cognos.com.
To add a link to an email address, in the annotation edit box, type the HTML command as follows:
mailto:email_address
Clicking this link opens a new mail message window in your default browser, and puts the email address in the To: field.
To add a link to a file, type the HTML command as follows:
file:\\unc_drive_name\docs\expenses.xls
Tip: To view a link, right-click the cell, tab, or model containing the annotation, click Contributor, Annotate, and then select Cell, Tab, or Model, and then click View. Links in annotations are not activated if viewed by moving your mouse pointer over the red triangle.
You can attach many types of files to a cell, cube, or model to help support your planning process. The types of files that can be attached are configured by the administrator in the Contributor Administration Console. The attachments are stored in a Planning Application database.
The following default file types are allowed:
Microsoft Word (.doc)
Microsoft Excel (.xls)
Microsoft PowerPoint (.ppt)
Microsoft Visio (.vsd)
Microsoft Project (.mpp)
ZIP Files (.zip)
RAR Files (.rar)
Web Documents (.htm, .html)
Text Files (.txt)
PDF Files (.pdf)
You can add or remove any required file type from the defaults provided. Executable files (.exe) are not included in the default list because of security reasons, but can be added by the Administrator.
You can attach a document to a cell, tab, or model in the Contributor Web application.
Note: You can also do this in Contributor for Excel.
In the Contributor workflow screen, click on an available e.List item you want to open.
In the Contributor grid, you can either click on the Attached Documents button or right-click in a cell and select either cell, tab, or model and click Add. The Attach a new document dialog box appears.
In the Source file location field, enter either the location, the file, or click the browse button and browse to the file location. The document name and file size appear in the following fields.
Enter comments into the Comments field. There is a 50 character maximum limit for this field.
Click OK to attach your document.
A red triangle appears in the corner of the cell to which the document is attached. A copy of the document is attached to the application, not the original file. This is similar to attaching a file to an email and is not meant to perform as a document management system.
Attached documents and user annotations that are linked to a plan are grouped together and are called Commentary. You can view an attached document by browsing the Commentary of an application. Attached documents do not download when the e.List item is opened. They are only downloaded from the application server when you select to view or edit them.
Note: Attached documents are not available when working offline and you cannot attach a document while working offline. However, it is possible to see if a document is attached to a cell while offline.
In the Contributor grid, click the Browse Commentary button or right-click a cell and select Browse Commentary. An icon also appears in the Contributor workflow screen notifying you that one or more documents are attached to an e.List item. However, you cannot open attached documents from the workflow screen.
In the Commentary Browser dialog box, select the commentary item that you want to view and click View Document to open the file. You can filter the items to just show user annotations or attached documents. You can also choose whether to view Commentary for the current page in the grid or Commentary for all pages.
To edit commentary, select the commentary item and click Edit Document. The item opens allowing you to make changes and save the new version along with the application. You will be prompted to update the repository if you made changes to the file.
To delete commentary, select the check box for the item you want to delete and click Delete.
Note: Only the owner or the Contributor administrator can delete an attached document.
You can print an annotation by selecting the file and clicking Print. To print a document, open it and print from the associated viewer.
Create a Local Link to copy commentary such as file attachments or user annotations.
Note: You cannot target calculated cells using a Local Link.
In the Contributor grid, launch Get Data.
In the Run Local Links screen, click New to create a new Local Link. Complete the information in the wizard.
In the Additional Options screen of the Get Data dialog box, you can choose to include annotations or attached documents. Do one of the following:
Note: You cannot select Model Commentary for a Local Link.
To include only Annotations, click Include Annotations.
To include only Attached Documents, click Include Attached Documents.
Click Finish when you are done configuring the link.