Bulk change Cost centers' names

[ppyrzynski]

Hi, I wonder if someone tried to create a BA that would let you bulk change  Cost Center names shown on Enterprise tab. Is it at all possible? Any other ways to achieve this?

Regards, 
Paweł

[mfranz]

Hi Paweł,

If you're running FNMS on-prem, you can just manipulate the database directly (see GroupEx). Business Adapter can work as well.

FNMS Cloud is is bit more complex, but should be possible. You'll need a pseude primary key that is exposed via the BA object model. While you might not have one by default, you should be able to create one on the existing additional fields, like Description. You cannot use the name as this key, because that's what you want to update. Then in the actual update step use the description as matching criteria to update the Cost Center name. You might just remove the pseudo key after that, like blanking the description field again.

This is all assuming that the actual structure does not change. Updating the structure (like moving linked stuff around) is more complex and afaik only possible on-prem.

Best regards,

Markward

[ppyrzynski]

Hi Markward, 

Thanks for your suggestion. Just to clarify- we are on prem. 

Tried  the pseudo key approach, but it doesn't work. Looks to me like it can't be done with BA. Simulation goes without an error but no updated records is being reported. According to documentation:

Type: varchar. Maximum: 128. Mandatory: adapters must provide values for this
column.
Individual groups in the path through the enterprise group hierarchy are
separated with the / character.
Maps to CostCenter.groupcn in the compliance database.
It is used (perhaps in conjunction with other properties) as a key for matching
existing records there.
However, updates to the stored value of CostCenter.groupcn are not
permitted.

Not sure if  'not permitted' means BA Studio won't do it, or if it would be somehow against license agreement or something.

Br, 

Paweł

[mfranz · Accepted solution]

Agreed, tested Description and ID as alternative matching criteria. While I didn't get an error from the BA (at least for Description), it just updated nothing.

I can only assume "not permitted" means that BAS/MGSBI cannot update that way. It fits the mandatory, makes kind of sense.

You can still use the BA to run some custom SQL code.

UPDATE ge
SET GroupCN = GroupCN + ' *new*'
FROM GroupEx_T ge
WHERE GroupTypeID = 3
	AND BusinessView = 0

GroupEx_T holds the tenant data. Everyone be aware this is code from my lab environment, do not run this in production.

[ppyrzynski]

Thanks for confirming and the tip, man. 

Best, 

Paweł