Power Designer

Power Designer: Demystify Taxonomy Design

Power Designer is a rules-based, meta-data driven GUI design module that now gives business users complete control - streamlining taxonomy design and XBRL formula creation, as well as the returns definitions and data collection design process. Power Designer allows business managers and regulators to quickly react to changing legislation, standards, and policies without IT or 3rd party intervention.

Power Designer enables "self-service" at the business level in the same way Power Forms enabled "self service" for filers three years earlier. It demystifies taxonomy design and allows an organization to accelerate the rollout of complex data collection templates, often in hours or days instead of months.

Power Designer Architecture

Power Designer Demo

Detailed Functionality

  • No XBRL knowledge required
  • Java web start application launched from EAS
  • Security and updates handled through EAS integration
  • Metadata-driven data return design solution
  • Metadata Management
  • Create metadata items such as data elements, groupings, dimensions etc.
  • Stored and fully versioned in a database
  • Formula / Rule management
  • Design calculations and formulas for the population of a data element
  • Create rules for fatal errors and warnings using simple or complex formulas to improve data quality
  • Return design and management
  • Design schedules and their form layouts for information returns with an easy drag and drop interface from the defined metadata
  • Generates Power Forms configuration file and XBRL Taxonomy

Metadata Management

Power Designer has an extensive and easy-to-use metadata management facility, providing the following high-level features:

  • Intuitive, easy to use, graphic user interface that allows for rapid browsing and searching of the metadata objects (including the use of wildcards) and the identifying of relationships between objects
  • Creating, editing, and expiring metadata objects via easy-to-use drag & drop graphic user interface (no XBRL knowledge required)
  • Core metadata objects include concepts, groupings, dimensions, calculations, formulas, taxonomies, returns, and schedules
  • Core metadata objects are fully extensible using label and reference metadata objects
  • Metadata objects are validated against the XBRL processing engine to ensure they are valid XBRL objects
  • Users can add an unlimited number of comments about metadata objects
  • Metadata objects are defined based on key attributes to eliminate the possibility of duplicate objects being created
  • All metadata objects are stored in a database repository, providing a single version of the truth
  • All metadata objects have their own life-cycle with full retention of historical user changes and comments
  • Existing XBRL taxonomies can be imported into the metadata repository
  • Reporting on metadata objects is available from XBRL Analytics

Formula Management

Power Designer offers a Formula Management facility, providing the following high-level features:

  • Calculations (summations) and Formulas (complex equations) are created through an intuitive drag and drop graphical user interface
  • The user selects objects from the metadata repository and the operators and functions necessary to construct calculations and formulas
  • Formulas are validated against the XBRL processing engine to ensure they are valid XBRL objects
  • Users can add an unlimited number of comments about calculation and formula metadata objects
  • Calculations and Formulas are metadata objects stored in the metadata repository with their own lifecycle (with full retention of historical user changes and comments
  • Formulas can be bound to a dimension through a filter identifying which dimension members apply to the formula
  • Existing calculations and formulas can be opened and used as a template for new calculations and formulas
  • XBRL Formulas can be imported and exported into the metadata repository
  • Reporting on calculation and formula metadata objects is available from XBRL Analytics

Return Management

Power Designer offers a Forms Designer to manage return definition, providing the following high-level features:

  • Returns are created through an intuitive drag and drop graphical user interface where the user selects objects (such as data elements, dimensions, documentation, calculations and formulas) from the metadata repository
  • Data elements can be grouped together creating their own grouping object for reuse
  • Browsing and searching functions allow the user to rapidly find the desired metadata objects
  • Calculations and formulas can be defined as a rule or as an outcome that feeds into a data element
  • An unlimited number of schedules can be added to a return
  • Schedules are organized into a hierarchy

 

  • Users can add an unlimited number of comments about return and schedule metadata objects
  • Returns and schedules are metadata objects stored in the metadata repository with their own lifecycle (with full retention of historical user changes and comments)
  • Objects on the schedules can be formatted and renamed as desired by the user
  • Existing returns can be opened and used as a template for new returns
  • Existing schedules can be copied as a starting point for new schedules
  • Return definitions and XBRL taxonomies are exported for use by Power Forms, XBRL Analytics or any other taxonomy-consuming application
  • Reporting on return and schedule metadata objects is available from XBRL Analytics

Creating Metadata Management Components and Rules

Power Designer: Concept Editor View

Power Designer allows non-technical users to create concepts, calculations, dimensions and formulas and to add them to the metadata dictionary and/or taxonomy - allowing them to easily evolve the required data collection data elements and associated validation rules without needing to learn XML or XBRL.

The following figure shows the Power Designer Concept editor. Here a user can create and assign attributes to the various data collection elements (concepts). These concepts can then be used for end-user data entry or as part of a calculation or formula.

All created objects can be stored in the metadata dictionary or written directly to the taxonomy.

SQL Power Designer: Formulas, Assertions & Calculations

The following figure shows the Power Designer Assertion editor.

A user can create formulas, assertions and calculations by simply inserting concepts and operations, and assigning the result to a derived data element/concept.

Creating the Forms/Return Layout

Power Designer: Form Design View

Power Designer also allows non-technical users to access pre-defined taxonomy components (such as concepts, calculations and dimensions) from the metadata dictionary or an existing taxonomy and drag-and-drop them into the Power Forms layout playpen. Each page in the Forms layout playpen represents a schedule and the collection of all schedules form a return.

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