Financial Data Store (FDS)
Overview
The Financial Data Store (FDS) provides access to financial data from Accounting and Reporting at Columbia (ARC). Financial data accessed from the FDS will be up to one day old, with the exception of Budget/Consolidated Operating Budget (COB) data which is updated multiple times throughout the day. Reports run from FDS can be viewed online, downloaded to multiple formats, printed, or saved.
The main source of data for the FDS is the financial system (ARC) and Labor Accounting (LA). The ARC and FFE security model is applied. Please note: If you have applied for and received access to ARC, you will already have access to FDS.
Available Data
Predefined FDS reports are available from a wide cross section of subject areas including:
- Accounts Payable
- Chartfield Statements
- Claim on Cash
- Consolidated Operating Reports (COB)
- Endowment
- Financial Statements
- Fiscal Year-End
- Fringe Benefits
- Fund Balance/Overdraft
- General Ledger
- Payroll
- Pension Accounting
- Procurement
- Project Lifecycle
- Trial Balance
FDS Reports
Reports are written in either Crystal Reports or Web Intelligence (Webi). The BI Launch Pad is the entry point to accessing of all your provisioned reports. Reports are organized into folders by functional area. Examples of frequently used FDS reports include:
- Sponsored Project Financial - Summary By Budget Category
- Sponsored Project Financial Report - Detail
- Chartfield Summary Statement
- Chartfield Detail Statement
- Non-Sponsored Project Financial Report - Summary
- Non-Sponsored Project Financial Report - Detail
- Payroll Summary Report
- Payroll Detail Report
- Trial Balance by Account Detail
- Trial Balance by ChartField
- Project Summary Statement
- Purchase Order Open Commitment
Additional details on frequently used FDS reports is available here.
Departmental Advanced Reporting and Tracking System (DARTS)
DARTS is a legacy application that brought together diverse University financial data allowing users to run a variety of management reports. These reports were converted into read only Crystal Reports and are only available for data before July 2012. The reports provide only final June 30 summary data for fiscal years 1991-2001, and monthly transactional data for 2002-2012. Most of the reports are linked to one another so that when you run a report, you can navigate to previous months of the same report, drilldown to transactions, or view a different report with the same parameters. Payroll reports are also available based on your role and access.
If you have access to DARTS reports, they will be available in the DARTS folder on the BI Launch Pad. To apply for access to DARTS, please follow this link. Training materials for using legacy DARTS reports is available here. Refer to the Running Legacy (DARTS) Reports Training Guide for additional details.
Data Refresh Schedule and Frequency
The FDS data refresh cycle runs daily starting from approximately 12 midnight and completing at approximately 7am. During this refresh period, the FDS is loaded and refreshed with current data. To prevent the user community from seeing incomplete or partial data results in the reports during this refresh window, the folders in the BI Launch Pad containing the FDS reports (e.g., the "ARC" folder) are hidden. Once the FDS refresh cycle is successfully completed, the folders are made visible to the user community again. In addition, the latest refresh date and times are posted on this page for your reference.
Getting Access
In order to access the FDS, you will first need to apply for access, using the Financial Inquiry Application (FIA). For more information on applying for access, visit Apply for Access to Finance Systems.
Once access is granted, FDS reports are available by logging on to my.columbia.edu, clicking on the Enterprise Reports tab, and then clicking BI Launch Pad icon.
Training and Job Aids
There are a variety of trainings available in the Training Library that will guide you through FDS reports, including (but not limited to):
FDS On-Demand Reporting (job aid)
FDS Preference Settings (job aid)
FDS Scheduled Reporting (job aid)