Catalyst Glossary

Every term, concept, and definition across the EBM Catalyst suite — in one searchable reference

Catalyst

EBM's core financial analytics and planning platform. Catalyst brings hierarchies, scenarios, cubes, Excel integration, Power BI visualizations, and planning modules together in a single web interface, with data fed automatically from your ERP each night. Users navigate via the left sidebar to areas like Planning, Analysis, Reports, and Administration.

See also: Cube, Scenario, Hierarchy

Smartload

EBM's data management engine inside Catalyst for importing, consolidating, and modeling large datasets — and for building your own custom cubes from fact tables, attribute tables, DAX calculations, and relationships. Built on Microsoft tabular technology with in-memory columnar storage, Smartload cubes integrate directly with Excel and Power BI.

See also: Fact Table, Attribute Table, Smartload Data Levels (L1 / L2 / L3)

Harness (Current Documents)

EBM's integrated file and document management system. In Catalyst it appears as Current Documents — a repository for custom Excel, Word, and PDF files, similar to a built-in Dropbox or SharePoint. In Ontario, Harness is the full file management layer with folder permissions, version history, comments, and audit trails.

Diligent

EBM and Blue Ops' data and analytics platform purpose-built for private equity firms, investment banks, and finance teams. Diligent consolidates data from multiple sources into structured cubes for reporting in Excel or Power BI, supporting the full M&A lifecycle from pre-deal through post-deal. It shares core technology with Catalyst, including the EBM Excel Add-In and Azure-hosted tabular cubes.

Ontario

EBM's cloud data platform that centralizes an organization's structured and unstructured data in one secure, governed environment. Ontario combines a modern data lakehouse with Harness file management, project workspaces, task workflows, and AI capabilities. It also underpins other EBM products — internal EBM/Blue Ops staff are provisioned into Catalyst instances through Ontario and Diligent rather than added directly in Catalyst.

Compass

EBM's "Do it For You" (DFY) platform for financial visibility and operational management, pairing software with EBM's analyst service model. Compass is organized into seven tabs — My Compass, Dashboards, Smith, Tasks, Lakehouse, Requests, and Marketplace — and Compass experts build dashboards and fulfill commissioned work through Requests.

See also: DIY / DWY / DFY

Smith

EBM's secure, multi-model AI assistant — a governed intelligence layer between your team and leading AI models (Gemini, GPT, Claude, DeepSeek) that keeps your data private and never uses it for model training. Smith is available standalone and as a built-in tab within Compass, where it grounds answers in documents stored in your Lakehouse.

Blue Ops

The finance consulting team that partners with EBM on Diligent and service-led engagements. Blue Ops helps configure projects and cubes, delivers pre-built databooks, and handles advanced work such as consolidations and complex DAX measures.

DIY / DWY / DFY

EBM's three service-model tiers and the products aligned to each: DIY (Do It Yourself — Catalyst, Diligent, Smartload, Ontario), DWY (Do it With You — Diligent, Smartload, Ontario), and DFY (Do it For You — Compass, Diligent).

Implementation

The process of creating and onboarding a new client onto an EBM platform — configuring hierarchies, scenarios, integrations, and users. Onboarding clients access their customized project plan, timelines, and training resources through the CSX customer success portal.

EBM Flex Support

EBM's support program that separates Basic Support included with your subscription (security monitoring, maintenance, standard account management, software updates, general product help) from billable services (custom development, tailored training, advanced data services, third-party troubleshooting, consulting). Tiered Enhanced Support packages are available for more extensive needs.

Maintenance & Release Schedule

EBM reserves a weekly maintenance window every Saturday 6:00–10:00 PM CT for critical updates and follows a biweekly release cadence with little to no downtime. Jobs paused during a deployment resume automatically — no manual reruns needed. Release notes for each version are published in the help center.

Resource Center

The in-app hub opened from the Catalyst homepage containing tutorials, getting-started guides, news and updates, and smart search with an "Ask the Expert" option. It is also one of EBM's channels for status communication during incidents.

AI Suggestions

The AI assistant built into the EBM Help Center and the "Need any help?" support widget in Catalyst. It answers natural-language questions by scanning help center content in real time, returns summarized answers with linked articles and release notes, and hands off to live chat or a support request when needed.

Support Widget

The widget in the bottom-right corner of every Catalyst page connecting to the EBM Help Center: search articles, ask the AI support bot, start live chat when agents are online, or submit a support ticket. Available 24/7, even outside live support hours.

Catalyst Modules

The menu tabs along Catalyst's left sidebar — Planning, Analysis, Reports, Visualizations, Administration, and others. "Modules" may also refer to cube types available in an instance, such as the Financial, Profitability, Journal Entry, AR, AP, Inventory, Payroll, POS, or Smartload cubes.

Analysis (Tab)

The Catalyst section where users download cube files, run the Cube Updater, use Query Builder, and view Smartload cube status indicators (Building, Last Refreshed, Failed). Perspectives you create also appear here as their own tiles under Data Cubes.

See also: Cube Updater, Query Builder, Perspective

Administration

The Catalyst area for configuration and management: Site Management (hierarchies, scenarios), User Management, System Configuration (Cube Configuration, Calendar, Beginning Balance), Manage Actuals, and the System Status page. Most tasks here require Client Admin rights or a delegated role like Business Owner.

Manage Actuals

The Administration area (Financial or Profitability Actuals) where you filter, view, and edit the actuals data stored in Catalyst — including Profitability Rates, Currency Exchange Rates, and Overrides. Edits made directly to actuals are overwritten by the next nightly automation run; use Overrides for changes that must persist.

See also: Override, Automation

Cube Configuration

A Catalyst feature (Administration > System Configuration > Cube Configuration) with three tabs — Perspectives, Calculated Measures, and Scenario Type — for tailoring what cubes expose. Note it is a usability feature, not a security feature: fields hidden from a perspective remain accessible in standard cubes unless security is also configured.

See also: Perspective, Calculated Measure, Scenario Type Filtering

Perspective

A customized, focused view of a cube that exposes only selected fields, dimensions, and measures — reducing PivotTable clutter for specific roles or teams. Created in Cube Configuration, applied with the Process Perspective button, and surfaced as its own tile under Analysis > Data Cubes. Keep perspective names under about 30 characters.

See also: Cube Configuration

Scenario Type Filtering

The Cube Configuration tab that excludes chosen scenario types from cubes (for example, hiding Forecast scenarios from a reporting cube). Exclusions apply to all cubes tied to the dataset and require processing plus a cube rebuild to take effect in Excel.

See also: Cube Configuration, Scenario Type

File Upload Center

The upload hub (under the Planning tab, or the top-right dropdown > Upload Center) for loading data files directly into Catalyst — best for large files that would time out through the Excel ribbon. It shows live statuses (Pending, Processing, Validated, Complete, Error), auto-detects data type, and keeps a full upload history by user. Also the workaround for uploading files stored in SharePoint or OneDrive, since Excel VBA uploads require local file access.

Export/Upload Pattern

The pattern used throughout Catalyst for bulk changes: export a templated EBM Excel sheet, edit only the data columns (never the headers), and upload it back through the ribbon, the Excel Options menu, or the File Upload Center. Uploads overwrite matching existing records.

See also: Full Re-Load vs. Partial Re-Load

Excel Options Menu

The dropdown on Catalyst data pages providing Export (Basic, Detailed, Advanced) and Upload actions for moving data between the interface and templated Excel sheets.

Tree View

The hierarchy-editing tab that displays a hierarchy's structure as an expandable tree. Used to view unassigned accounts, add or rename nodes and leaves, drag-and-drop re-sort, and reassign elements within the hierarchy.

See also: Hierarchy, Mapping

Manage Custom Content

The ability to structure and customize the Catalyst user interface — arranging tiles, pages, and custom content areas for your organization.

Favorites

User-specific links to the most-used Planning and Report pages, surfaced on the user's Catalyst homepage. Favorites are unique to each user.

Refresh Cube (User Menu)

The option in the top-right profile dropdown that manually triggers a cube rebuild from anywhere in Catalyst — refreshing all hourly scenarios in both the Financial and Profitability cubes. Daily-scheduled scenarios are excluded; refresh those from the System Status page.

See also: Cube Rebuild, System Status Page

System Info

A super-admin page (profile dropdown > System Info) exposing low-level instance configuration flags, such as the beginning-balance setting. Typically only EBM employees hold super-admin access.

Client QA

A QA/testing copy of a Catalyst environment. Jobs in Client QA are disabled by default for new or restored projects so test activity doesn't collide with production processing.

Datasets (Office Bridge)

Standard data views users create in Catalyst that can be pulled into and formatted within Excel, Word, or PowerPoint via the EBM Office Bridge.

See also: EBM Office Bridge

Subscriptions

The ability to receive standard reports or visualizations by email at a set frequency (daily, weekly, monthly) in formats like PDF, PowerPoint, or a URL link.

See also: Visualization Subscription

Cube

Catalyst's core analytical structure for pulling and organizing data, consumed primarily through Excel PivotTables and Power BI. Each data type has its own cube — Financial, Profitability, Journal Entry, AR/AP, Inventory, Smartload, and more — all drawing from the EBM data lake on a scheduled basis.

See also: Tabular Cube, PivotTable

Tabular Cube

Catalyst's modern cube format built on Microsoft's tabular model in Azure Analysis Services — using DAX, in-memory processing, and columnar storage. Tabular replaced legacy MDX cubes during the Azure migration. Two behavioral notes: tabular models don't support Excel PivotTable grouping, and they don't automatically hide zero-amount rows the way MDX cubes did.

See also: MDX Cube, DAX

MDX Cube

The legacy multidimensional cube format queried with the MDX language, used before EBM's Azure migration. MDX is no longer deployed for new clients; legacy MDX cube files must be converted to tabular format via the Cube Migrator to work in the Azure environment.

See also: Cube Migrator, Tabular Cube

OLAP

Online Analytical Processing — the technology category behind EBM cubes, optimized for fast aggregation and slicing of large datasets across dimensions. In Excel, cube PivotTables can be converted to OLAP formulas for fixed-format reporting.

See also: OLAP Formulas

DAX

Data Analysis Expressions

Microsoft's formula language for tabular data models, used across Smartload, Power BI, and Analysis Services to create calculated columns and measures — with functions like SUM, CALCULATE, DIVIDE, IF, and RELATED. Simple arithmetic is self-serve in Catalyst and Diligent; EBM does not provide custom DAX design support, and Microsoft's Learn portal is the recommended resource for advanced logic.

See also: Calculated Measure, Calculated Column

SQL

Structured Query Language — the language for managing data in relational databases. Catalyst's backend jobs (hourly, daily, nightly, CSPQ) are SQL jobs running against the instance database.

See also: Hourly Job (Process_Schedule)

Star Schema

The data modeling pattern underlying Catalyst and Smartload cubes: a central fact table of quantitative data surrounded by dimension (attribute) tables of descriptive data. The clear relationships between them make querying and reporting fast and reliable.

See also: Fact Table, Attribute Table

Fact Table

The central table in a data model storing quantitative records — sales transactions, journal entries, inventory movements, budget amounts. In Smartload, fact tables support scenarios, calculated measures, and automatic refreshes, and are configured column-by-column with data types, visibility, formatting, and aggregation. In an Excel cube, fact table fields appear under the Fact section of the PivotTable Field List.

See also: Attribute Table, Star Schema

Attribute Table

Also called a dimension table

A table adding descriptive context — the who, what, where, and when — to fact data: customer master, product catalog, geography, calendar. Each attribute table needs a unique, non-null, stable primary key matching foreign keys in the fact table. Attribute tables give cubes their filterable, groupable fields.

See also: Fact Table, Primary Key

Dimension

A descriptive field or category on a transaction — think column headers like posted date, location, account, customer, company. Dimensions with 1:1 relationships to a record suit hierarchies; 1:many relationships call for transaction attributes.

See also: Hierarchy, Transaction Attribute (TA)

Measure

A numeric value that can be aggregated — the "Values" of a PivotTable. Base measures (Amount, Quantity, Sales Revenue) come straight from fact data; calculated measures are computed with DAX at query time, responding to filters with no storage overhead.

See also: Measure, Calculated Measure

Calculated Column

A DAX-based column computed row-by-row once during cube processing and stored in memory. Best for categorization and row-level values; excessive calculated columns increase cube size and slow processing — prefer measures for aggregations.

See also: DAX, Measure

Primary Key

The unique-value column identifying each row of an attribute table and connecting it to fact tables. Duplicate or null keys break relationships and cause many-to-many errors in Smartload models.

See also: Relationship

Relationship

The link between a fact table's foreign key column and an attribute table's primary key, enabling filtering, grouping, and cross-dimensional analysis. Smartload primarily uses many-to-one relationships (many fact rows to one attribute row); a many-to-many warning usually signals duplicate keys to fix.

See also: Primary Key, Star Schema

Financial (Database)

The Catalyst database for General Ledger–based data — anything that comes from the P&L and Balance Sheet.

See also: Financial Cube

Profitability (Database)

Also called operational data

The Catalyst database for invoice-level data — customers, items, volumes, rates, and operational accounts.

See also: Profitability Cube

Financial Cube

The cube containing the financial (GL) database, downloaded from Analysis > Financial Cube and analyzed as an Excel PivotTable. Default visible measures in the tabular Financial cube are Activity, Ending Balance, and % of Net Sales.

See also: Activity, Ending Balance

Profitability Cube

The cube containing the profitability (invoice-level) database — customers, items, quantities, and operational accounts. Its default visible measure in tabular form is Amount.

See also: Operational Accounts

Journal Entry Cube

The cube containing journal-entry-level financial detail. Its large dataset makes it prone to timeouts when multiple levels of the same hierarchy are stacked in PivotTable Rows — best practice is one level plus "Expand" for drill-down.

See also: Journal Entry

Smartload Cube

A custom tabular cube built in Smartload from your own fact and attribute tables — often named for its content, like Invoice_Detail_Consolidated. Smartload cubes referencing a scenario can block that scenario from being archived.

See also: Smartload

Smartload Data Levels (L1 / L2 / L3)

Smartload's three-tier data organization. L1 is raw, single-source ERP data with minimal processing — ideal for auditing and transaction-level analysis. L2 consolidates multiple ERPs or sources into standard Smartload cubes — the format behind detailed invoice and JE style cubes. L3 is the standardized, validated Catalyst consolidated cubes (Financial and Profitability) required for the Planning Portal and enterprise reporting. L3 cubes are managed from the System Status page; L1/L2 from the Smartload interface.

See also: Smartload, System Status Page

Consolidated Table

A Smartload table combining multiple base (L1) tables into a unified L2 structure — with column mapping, a Source Table column for lineage, and hierarchy enablement handled once at the consolidated level.

Unassigned Tables

The Smartload staging area for uploaded tables not yet designated as fact or attribute tables, allowing review and classification (e.g., Convert to Attribute) before they join the model.

Add Data vs. Replace Data

The two Smartload upload modes: Add Data appends new rows (incremental updates), while Replace Data removes all existing rows before loading (full refresh). Using Add Data when matching records already exist creates duplicate keys and relationship errors.

Full Re-Load vs. Partial Re-Load

Two upload behaviors when loading data to Catalyst: a Full Re-Load replaces all existing data with the upload (usually not recommended), while a Partial Re-Load — the preferred approach — replaces only the records present in the upload sheet.

Azure

Microsoft's cloud computing platform, where the entire EBM environment runs — storage, databases, analytics engines, and networking across Microsoft's global data centers.

Azure Analysis Services (AAS)

The Microsoft-hosted analytical engine where Catalyst tabular cubes live. Excel and the Catalyst website consume AAS cubes directly, while Power BI uses the EBM semantic model that references them. Occasional Microsoft-side AAS reboots or maintenance can cause temporary blank cubes or rebuild failures — platform events, not Catalyst defects.

See also: Semantic Model

Azure AD / Microsoft Entra ID

Microsoft's cloud identity and access management service, which handles Catalyst authentication (SSO, MFA) and authorization through security groups. Catalyst users are provisioned as guest users in EBM's Entra tenant via B2B collaboration.

See also: Single Sign-On (SSO), Guest User

Azure Data Lake

The Azure storage layer where Catalyst standardizes and securely stores ingested ERP and uploaded data before it is modeled into AAS cubes and Power BI semantic models.

Compatibility Level

The AAS tabular model version (1200, 1600, 1700...) governing available engine features. EBM locks cube processing to stable major levels; the tabular architecture (1200+) is also why PivotTable grouping is unsupported in tabular cubes.

Data Lifecycle

Catalyst's four-stage data flow: (1) ingestion via ERP integrations or uploads into the Azure Data Lake, (2) analytical models in Azure Analysis Services, (3) the EBM Power BI semantic model, and (4) visualization through Power BI and Excel, embedded in Catalyst.

MDX-to-Tabular Migration

The EBM-managed conversion of legacy MDX cubes to tabular models: cube conversion, then connection-string updates. Afterward, saved Excel files are reconnected via the Cube Migrator and Cube Updater, and data is spot-checked.

See also: Cube Migrator

Hierarchy

A structured, multi-level arrangement of nodes and leaves used to organize and aggregate data — account, company, customer, item, location, and more. Managed under Administration > Site Management > Hierarchy, Catalyst supports unlimited hierarchies, and they drive how data rolls up in cubes, reports, and planning. Each hierarchy's levels appear as fields in the Excel PivotTable Field List.

See also: Hierarchy Level, Node, Leaf

Hierarchy Level

One tier of a hierarchy's cascading structure, moving from broad categories at Level 1 (e.g., Balance Sheet, Income Statement) to increasing granularity below — up to 9 levels per hierarchy. In Excel cubes, levels appear as numbered fields (A1 – Account Level 1, A2 – Account Level 2, and so on) that fold up into each other. Adding a level to an existing hierarchy is safe but requires rebuilding reports that use levels at or below the inserted one.

See also: Reading the PivotTable Field List

Node

A parent grouping level within a hierarchy that organizes and rolls up everything beneath it — think of nodes as folders (Revenue, Operating Expenses, Midwest Region). Nodes are not shared between hierarchies, and can be renamed and reordered in Tree View.

See also: Leaf

Leaf

The lowest-level data point in a hierarchy, directly tied to records in your source system — individual GL accounts, departments, locations, product IDs. Actual data lives at the leaf level, and leaves are shared across hierarchies of the same type. Mapping assigns leaves to the correct parent nodes.

See also: Node, Mapping

Primary vs. Secondary Hierarchy

A Primary hierarchy is included in all BI and Planning tools, is used for planning, and cannot be deleted. A Secondary hierarchy is optional, with its own settings for cube display and reporting. Some settings — like Sign Flip — are configured on the primary account hierarchy but apply to all secondary account hierarchies.

Account Hierarchy

The most common hierarchy type, organizing GL accounts into financial statement categories such as Income Statement and Balance Sheet groupings.

See also: Chart of Accounts

Company Hierarchy

The hierarchy grouping legal entities, subsidiaries, or business units. New company IDs are added here (via Tree View or the Export/Upload template) ahead of a new fiscal year, acquisition, or restructure so integrations and permissions keep working.

Automated Hierarchy

A hierarchy set up with EBM to ingest data directly from your ERP without manual mapping. Don't edit or add levels to automated hierarchies without EBM data development work — changes can break the automation code that maintains them.

Company Attribute Hierarchy

A hierarchy creation option used for single-level groupings (e.g., Color, Status) rather than multi-level parent-child structures.

Mapping

The process of placing records — accounts, companies, locations, products — into the correct position within a hierarchy so data rolls up correctly. Managed in bulk from the hierarchy's Export/Upload tab or individually in Tree View. Unmapped data either doesn't appear at all or shows up in the wrong place — the most common cause of discrepancies between your ERP and Catalyst.

See also: Unassigned Accounts, Tree View

Unassigned Accounts

New accounts, items, or companies that have entered the system but haven't been mapped to a hierarchy position. Amounts tied to them stay hidden from cubes and reports until mapped — the classic cause of "data is in the ERP but missing from Catalyst." Find them via the Export/Upload tab (Options > Unassigned) or Tree View.

See also: Mapping, Business Owner

Business Owner

A user or group granted rights to manage a specific hierarchy — including mapping — without full Client Admin access. Business Owners can opt into daily email notifications when unassigned accounts exist in their hierarchy (scoped to Always, 1 week, 2 weeks, or 1 month; each email samples up to 50 accounts, so verify the full list in Catalyst).

See also: Unassigned Accounts

Calculated Accounts

Standard (Gross Profit, EBITDA, Net Income) and user-defined accounts built by adding or subtracting other accounts. Managed within hierarchy configuration; a new calculated account adds a leaf to every account hierarchy for each company, visible in Cubes and Reports but not in Planning.

See also: Calculated Measure

Calculated Measure

A custom DAX-based measure — % of Sales, YTD, YoY Growth, Average Price — created in Cube Configuration or a hierarchy's Calculated Measures page, with a chosen folder and output format (%, $, $ 000's, Qty). Calculated measures let you view data on a percentage or per-unit basis, can carry time conditions like YTD or trailing periods, and changes affect all cubes on the dataset, requiring a cube rebuild to appear in Excel.

See also: DAX, Cube Configuration

Sign Flip

A display setting that multiplies selected accounts by −1 so credit-normal accounts (revenue, liabilities, equity) present as positives in reports, without changing underlying values. Configured on the primary account hierarchy's Sign Flip tab; applies to all secondary account hierarchies and only to Actuals scenarios — never Budgets, Forecasts, overrides, or planning modules.

See also: Debits & Credits

Transaction Attribute (TA)

An extra tag attached at the transaction level — a new column in the transaction table — used when a relationship is 1:many and a hierarchy's 1:1 model isn't enough (a customer buying through multiple channels; Sales Rep; Invoice Number). Created under Administration > Profitability/Financial Attribute. On automated instances, adding or removing TAs requires EBM data-team coordination, and keeping more than ~5 TAs per account can slow rebuilds noticeably.

See also: Dimension

Financial Attribute

A transaction attribute on journal-entry-level data — for example, tagging specific legal expenses as add-backs rather than reclassifying a whole GL account.

See also: Transaction Attribute (TA)

Profitability Attribute

A transaction attribute on sales/invoice-level data — the more common TA type, optionally linkable to a hierarchy. Invoice Number is the classic example: unique, and suited to granular drill-down.

See also: Transaction Attribute (TA)

Hierarchy Availability Settings

Per-hierarchy options controlling where it appears: Available in Cube includes it in Excel cube files, Available in Reports Filters lets it be added as a filter on existing reports, and Enable Report Category spawns a new report set based on the hierarchy. Disabling availability for unused hierarchies and scenarios is a key way to shorten processing times.

Scenario

A 12-month block of data representing a version of your financials — e.g., 2025 Actuals, 2026 Budget. Scenarios are created and managed under Administration > Site Management > Scenario and can be made available in cubes, reports, and planning. Think of each scenario as a lens on the same business.

See also: Scenario Type

Scenario Type

The classification chosen when a scenario is created: Actuals, Budget, Forecast, Plan, Pro Forma, TTM, or Dependent. Budget and Forecast share identical logic in Catalyst — the distinction exists so you can tell an annual budget apart from a mid-year reforecast.

See also: Scenario

Actuals (Scenario Type)

The scenario holding real, recorded results, typically fed nightly from your ERP. An Actuals scenario must exist for a fiscal year before data for that year can flow in — create the new year's scenario (and fiscal calendar) ahead of time or integrations will fail. Actuals scenarios cannot be archived without EBM backend support.

Budget (Scenario Type)

A planning scenario holding a fiscal year's approved targets. Once finalized, budgets are typically locked to serve as a stable benchmark, unlocked only for revision windows.

See also: Locked Periods

Forecast (Scenario Type)

A scenario projecting future outcomes by combining actual results with forward-looking data — commonly initialized with Actuals Thru plus source periods from a budget. Updated regularly through the year (3+9, 6+6, etc.).

See also: Partial-Year Forecast (3+9, 6+6), Actuals Thru

Plan (Scenario Type)

A scenario type reflecting strategic objectives, which can span multiple years for long-range planning.

Pro Forma (Scenario Type)

A protected scenario type that lets adjusted data live in parallel with actuals while remaining separate — effectively a replica of an actuals selection edited in Manage Actuals rather than Planning. Commonly used for GAAP adjustments, add-backs, and adjusted views of a prior year. Like Actuals, Pro Forma scenarios can't be archived or deleted without EBM backend support.

See also: Pro Forma

TTM (Scenario Type)

A scenario grouping the trailing twelve months of data from a given point in time, smoothing seasonality regardless of fiscal-year position. Created with a related scenario, base scenario, and Base Period — and rolled forward each month by updating the Description and Base Period.

See also: Base Period, TTM

Dependent Scenario

A scenario type that continuously synchronizes with a source Actuals scenario after creation — unlike source periods, which are a one-time copy. You can designate independent overrides (e.g., currency rates) to exclude from the sync so those data types can be managed separately.

See also: Scenario Source Periods

Base Period

The starting-month setting on a TTM scenario that defines which twelve trailing months it covers. Changing the Base Period (say, from 7 to 8) rolls the TTM forward one month.

See also: TTM (Scenario Type)

Actuals Thru

Also written Actuals Through

A scenario setting that defines how far into the year actual data is pulled into a budget, forecast, or plan. Periods up to the Actuals Thru period sync automatically from Actuals and are locked for manual editing in the planning scenario; later periods stay open for planning.

See also: Forecast (Scenario Type)

Scenario Source Periods

Period-by-period selections made when creating a scenario that determine which source scenario's data initializes each period — e.g., first half from Actuals, second half from a 3+9 Forecast. This is a one-time capture at creation: later changes in the source scenario do not flow through. A "Fixed" column option converts profitability data to end-result calculations by pulling fixed rates instead of percentage-based rates.

See also: Dependent Scenario

Locked Periods

Period-level editing locks set on the Manage Scenario screen's Lock Periods tab, by company and data type (Financial, Rate, Volume, Currency Exchange Rate) through a chosen period — selecting period 7 locks periods 0–7. Locking prevents edits to closed periods and finalized budgets, but also blocks data ingestion: ERP data for locked periods is received but not pushed through to cubes, so verify locks won't hold back expected integration data.

See also: Scenario Archiving

Scenario Archiving

Moving a scenario's data out of active processing into archive tables. Archived scenarios stop refreshing, disappear from cubes, reports, and planning, meaningfully improve processing performance, and can be restored anytime with Unarchive. Archiving is blocked while other scenarios or Smartload integrations reference the scenario — resolve dependencies or use visibility toggles as a soft archive.

See also: Scenario Visibility Toggles, Scenario Dependencies

Scenario Visibility Toggles

The Show in Cube, Show in Planning, and Show in Reports checkboxes that hide a scenario from dropdowns without stopping its processing — a "soft archive" when dependencies block true archiving. Note that changing cube/report availability triggers a data reprocess.

See also: Scenario Archiving

Scenario Refresh Frequency

A per-scenario setting (Hourly or Daily) controlling how often its data refreshes during scheduled jobs. Hourly suits current-year actuals and active budgets; Daily suits historical data and reduces business-hours processing load.

See also: System Status Page

Scenario Dependencies

References between scenarios — source-period links, dependent scenarios, calculations, Smartload integrations — that block archiving or deletion until resolved.

See also: Scenario Archiving

Associations

A scenario feature that creates variance calculations between scenarios for use in Volume Planning — select an association type and comparison scenario, and Catalyst calculates the differences automatically.

Financial Planning

The Planning-tab module for building budgets, plans, and forecasts against the P&L and Balance Sheet at four levels: Summary Planning (summarized P&L lines for teams that don't budget at account level), Account Planning (GL-account monthly activity — most common for Income Statement data), Balance Planning (account-level month-end balances — most common for Balance Sheet data), and Detail Planning (line detail within a GL account, such as individual salaries). A planning scenario must exist before you can plan.

See also: Scenario

Profitability Planning

The operational planning module combining Volume Planning (quantities by item/customer) and Rate Planning (prices, costs, percentages), through its Item Planning, Customer Planning, and Rate Planning pages. Because rates are stored, changing volume automatically recalculates sales, cost, and margin.

See also: Volume Planning, Rate Planning

Volume Planning

Forecasting based on the number of units expected to be sold or produced, at the item and/or customer level. Supports top-down spreading (summarized changes pushed proportionally down to Customer ID/Item ID) and bottom-up builds. Volume and a rate must exist for an item/customer before gross sales can be planned.

See also: Rate Planning

Rate Planning

Planning defined amounts per quantity — Selling Price per Unit, Materials per Unit — plus percentage and fixed rates. Rate types determine whether Catalyst calculates gross sales from volume × rate or accepts totals directly.

See also: Rate Type

Item Planning / Customer Planning

Profitability Planning pages for entering plans at the item or customer level (by ID or any level of the primary hierarchy), from a Selling Unit or Gross Sales perspective. Items and customers must already exist in their hierarchies or the upload will error.

Rate Type

How a planning rate is expressed: Fixed (constant amount per period), Selling Unit ($ per unit of quantity), or % of Gross Sales (percentage applied to gross sales). Fixed is the simplest way to plan when volume can be disregarded.

See also: Rate Planning

Gross Sales Planning

Forecasting sales from volume and rate assumptions — the combination of Volume Planning and Rate Planning that builds the revenue line.

Profitability Unit of Measure (UOM)

A conversion framework letting volume be loaded in units other than Selling Unit (Pounds, Cases), converted back via rates defined on the Profitability Unit of Measure page under Planning Administration. Uploads fail if a UOM rate doesn't exist for an item.

Abs / Net / % Edits

The three ways to apply a planning edit: Abs replaces the value outright, Net adjusts up or down by the entered amount, and % adjusts by a percentage of the existing amount.

Advanced Spread Tool

A planning tool giving granular control over how a change is spread across periods — evenly, seasonally, or by custom weighting — rather than accepting the default spread.

Planning Calculations

Rules that populate planning data via a defined calculation based on related accounts or fixed values — e.g., commissions as a percentage of a revenue account.

Advanced Export

An Excel Options export mode on planning pages that exports data for all companies and profit accounts at once (the standard export is limited by on-screen filters), with Basic and Detailed variants.

Override

A value entered in Administration > Manage Actuals > Financial/Profitability Overrides that replaces an actuals amount in Catalyst without touching the source ERP. Overrides are never overwritten by nightly automation — overrides always win. They apply only to activity (not balances), don't force accounting to balance, and should be removed once the source is corrected. To remove one, blank out the Override cell — entering 0 creates an override of zero.

See also: Manage Actuals, Automation

Profitability Rates

Rates (% of Gross Sales, Amount per Selling Unit, Fixed) used to generate profitability records for accounts like Discounts, Trade, and Freight that flow through to the P&L. Managed and bulk-updated via Manage Actuals > Profitability Rates with Excel export/upload — including for prior years.

See also: Rate Type

Profitability Allocations

The ability to spread amounts across multiple customers or items — for example, allocating revenue across all customers when the target is unknown. Allocations can be configured independently for Actuals and Pro Forma scenario types.

See also: Allocation

Profitability to Financial Mapping

A Planning Administration feature that automatically feeds amounts from an operational (profitability) account into a financial account — e.g., Gross Sales into a Sales revenue GL account — keeping dollar forecasts consistent between modules. Mapping is account-to-account only; items and customers cannot be mapped.

Roll Forward

Carrying year-end balances into the beginning of the following year: a 12/31 ending balance becomes the 1/1 opening balance, and prior-year net income rolls into retained earnings. Automated by the Beginning Balance configuration.

See also: Beginning Balance, Retained Earnings Mapping

Beginning Balance

The Administration > System Configuration > Financial Beginning Balance setting that automates rolling year-end balances into the next year's Period 0 (the FY Beginning Balance). Enable "Automatic Beginning Balance/Retained Earnings" and pick a starting year. The beginning balance is visible in the Catalyst UI but is not a selectable period in cube PivotTables.

See also: Period 0, Roll Forward

Period 0

The opening period of a fiscal year in Catalyst, carrying the beginning balances rolled forward from the prior year's ending balances.

See also: Beginning Balance

Retained Earnings Mapping

Configuration that automatically moves prior-year net income into the retained earnings equity account each year — set up on the Retained Earnings tab via an exported Excel template mapping Company, Source Account, and Rollup Account. Instances with custom integration logic may have this page managed by EBM.

See also: Retained Earnings, Roll Forward

Fiscal Calendar

The 12-month accounting calendar configured under Administration > System Configuration > Calendar — period names, abbreviations, and start dates, including custom structures like 4-4-5. New fiscal year dates plus a matching Actuals scenario must exist before new-year data loads, and calendars with existing scenario data cannot be edited.

See also: 4-4-5 Calendar, Actuals (Scenario Type)

4-4-5 Calendar

A fiscal calendar dividing each quarter into 13 weeks — two 4-week "months" and one 5-week "month" (with 4-5-4 and 5-4-4 variants). Common in retail to align weekends and holidays between years; supported by Catalyst's custom calendar setup.

Partial-Year Forecast (3+9, 6+6)

Naming convention for forecasts combining actual and projected months — a "3+9" uses 3 months of actuals plus 9 forecast months. Typically built by prepopulating actual periods via source periods and linking Actuals Thru.

See also: Actuals Thru

Currency (Hierarchy Setting)

The hierarchy tab where you define the currency data is stored in and the exchange rate type used to convert it — assignable by company and by node or leaf.

Currency Exchange Rates

The Administration > Manage Actuals > Currency Exchange Rates page managing conversion rates per period and company, with system-generated or user-defined rates across 170+ currencies. The UI displays 4 decimal places but full precision is stored — export to Excel to verify exact rates.

See also: System-Generated Rates, User-Defined Rates

Spot Rate

The exchange rate at a point in time — the period end — used to translate Balance Sheet accounts, since balances are snapshots. Catalyst's system-generated spot rates default to the day's high.

See also: Average Rate

Average Rate

The average daily exchange rate across a period, used for Income Statement accounts and profitability data because they represent activity over time. Using spot for the Balance Sheet and average for the Income Statement is why the two statements legitimately convert differently.

See also: Spot Rate

System-Generated Rates

Exchange rates automatically retrieved from Fixer.io — midpoint rates aggregated from 15+ banks and providers, updated continuously — used whenever the User Defined columns are empty. The default behavior; no setup needed beyond enabling your currencies.

See also: User-Defined Rates

User-Defined Rates

Manually entered spot and average rates that override system-generated rates — used to match treasury-locked, auditor-required, or consolidation-system rates. Caution: entering anything in a User Defined cell, even a single space, makes Catalyst prioritize it and stops automatic updates for that currency.

See also: System-Generated Rates

Single-Currency Best Practice

Each additional currency essentially doubles the dataset; instances with more than 5 currencies can push hierarchy, data, and cube rebuild times to 30–45+ minutes. Enable only the currencies you actively report in.

User Account

An individual identity in Catalyst, created under Administration > Users with an email address as username. Permissions define what each user can see and do; Catalyst supports unlimited users.

Users vs. Groups

Catalyst offers both user security (permissions set per individual user) and group security (permissions set once and applied to every member). Groups are the preferred, more efficient method — settings apply to many users at once, membership changes propagate everywhere the group is used, and access is easier to audit.

See also: Group (User Group)

Group (User Group)

A bundle of permissions assigned to multiple users at once (Administration > User Management > Group) — with member lists, Navigation Permissions, optional Hierarchy Permissions, and a Summary tab. Best practice: role-based groups (Data Uploaders, Executives) and a separate group per secured hierarchy.

See also: Users vs. Groups

Client Admin

The full-rights administrative role in a Catalyst instance — access to all scenarios, hierarchies, locking controls, Cube Configuration, and user management, bypassing individual permissions. Reserved for trusted power users; Client Admins always retain access to secured hierarchies.

Navigation Permissions

Access controls determining which sections (Planning, Administration) and tiles (Financial Planning, individual cubes and visualizations) a user or group can see. Two levels: Read (view without changing) and Edit (view and change); permissions are additive.

See also: Group (User Group)

Hierarchy Security

Data-level security enabled per hierarchy (Edit Hierarchy > Enable Security). Once enabled, the hierarchy's data is hidden from all non-admin users until explicitly granted through group or user permissions — an opt-in model. Changes require a cube rebuild (15–30 minutes) and should be verified via impersonation.

See also: Row-Level Security (RLS), Impersonation

Hierarchy Permissions

Per-user or per-group grants controlling access to specific hierarchy data (company, item, account — or levels within them) when hierarchy security is enabled. Used to limit visibility by region, entity, or business unit.

See also: Hierarchy Security

Scenario-Level Security

An opt-in feature (enabled by EBM Support) restricting which users can see specific scenarios. Access is additive: when first enabled, all non-admin users lose access to every scenario until granted per scenario via the Access tab — preferably through groups. Changes require a cube rebuild, and new scenarios default to no access for non-admins.

See also: Group (User Group)

Row-Level Security (RLS)

Data filtering that controls what each user sees inside cubes and embedded Power BI reports, driven by Catalyst's hierarchy and scenario security — one workbook or dashboard can be shared with many users who each see only their permitted data. RLS is the supported alternative to Excel password protection, which breaks external data connections. Security changes don't reach Power BI until cubes refresh.

See also: Hierarchy Security

Impersonation

An admin tool (Administration > Manage Users > Impersonate) that reloads Catalyst with a chosen user's permissions so you can verify scenario visibility, hierarchy access, and report views before rollout. You can't make changes while impersonating; click End Impersonation in the banner to exit.

Single Sign-On (SSO)

Catalyst's default authentication: users sign in with their organization's Microsoft 365 credentials through Azure AD / Microsoft Entra, with MFA support. EBM no longer manages usernames or passwords — resets happen through your internal IT and Microsoft tools. Excel cube files authenticate automatically when you're signed into other Microsoft apps.

See also: Azure AD / Microsoft Entra ID, MFA / 2FA

Legacy Login Environment

An older, non-SSO Catalyst setup where users still hold Catalyst-managed email/password credentials, with "Forgot your password?" resets (24-hour temporary passwords) and admin password changes via impersonation.

User Principal Name (UPN)

The unique identifier Microsoft uses to authenticate a user — it looks like an email address but is the source of truth even when a user has multiple aliases. Catalyst logins must use the UPN; a UPN/email mismatch causes login failures and requires EBM to update the Catalyst email and reset the Microsoft guest account.

MFA / 2FA

Multi-Factor (or Two-Factor) Authentication — additional verification beyond a password (Authenticator app, SMS, email, phone call), enforced through Microsoft Entra by your organization's IT policies, not by EBM.

Guest User

How Catalyst users are provisioned in EBM's Entra tenant via Microsoft B2B collaboration — authenticating against your own tenant while EBM security groups control authorization. Offboarded users immediately lose the ability to refresh cubes.

Cross-Tenant Access Settings

Microsoft Entra policies in your organization's tenant that can block collaboration with EBM's tenant. The most common cause when the Excel Add-In installs correctly but cannot authenticate or refresh — your IT team may need to allow EBM's tenant.

Permission Summary

The final tab in user and group setup showing a consolidated overview of configured access, plus a filterable all-users permission table in the admin section.

Automation

Also called Data Automations

The automatic nightly extraction of data from your ERP into the EBM data lake, so cubes and the Catalyst website stay current without manual loads. Values changed directly in Manage Actuals are overwritten by automation; overrides are not.

See also: Nightly Job (Process_Scheduled_Nightly), Override

Integration

The connection between one or more of your ERP systems and Catalyst so data feeds automatically each night. ERP migrations require notifying EBM at least four weeks in advance; server changes at least three weeks.

See also: Integration Runtime (IR)

Integration Runtime (IR)

The Microsoft agent installed on a client server that bridges on-premises systems (ERP/SQL) to the Azure Data Factory pipelines powering Catalyst. If it shows Stopped or Disconnected, data stops syncing — restart it in the Integration Runtime Configuration Manager or re-register it with a new key from EBM Support.

Nightly Job (Process_Scheduled_Nightly)

The custom SQL job on automated instances that runs each night at a client-designated time, extracting the prior day's ERP activity into Catalyst and then calling the Daily Job to process the changes through to cubes.

See also: Daily Job (Process_Scheduled_Daily)

Daily Job (Process_Scheduled_Daily)

A SQL job that processes scenarios on the Daily refresh list — manually runnable from System Status via the Refresh Financial/Profitability (Daily) buttons. It isn't set to a schedule when automation and the Nightly Job are enabled, to avoid overlap.

See also: Nightly Job (Process_Scheduled_Nightly), Hourly Job (Process_Schedule)

Hourly Job (Process_Schedule)

The background SQL job on every Catalyst instance that runs each hour: it executes the CSPQ and queued tasks, reprocesses dirty scenarios on the Hourly list, then rebuilds any cubes that need it.

See also: Core Server Process Queue (CSPQ), Dirty (Stale)

Core Server Process Queue (CSPQ)

A SQL job queue on the database server holding tasks — hierarchy rebuilds, permission changes, and similar — so the UI isn't locked while they execute. It runs every three minutes in the background and can be run manually via Run Job on the System Status page.

See also: Job Queue

System Status Page

The control center (under Administration or the user dropdown) for monitoring and refreshing the L3 Financial and Profitability cubes — per-scenario status icons, Hourly/Daily refresh buttons, the job queue, and integration sync info. The equivalent for Smartload (L1/L2) cubes is Smartload's own System Status monitoring.

See also: Smartload Data Levels (L1 / L2 / L3)

Status: Current

System Status state meaning all data is synchronized between the database and cubes — the ideal state, with data available in Excel, Power BI, and Catalyst.

Status: Pending Data

System Status state meaning the database is digesting data or structural changes (hierarchy updates, mappings, new scenarios) before cube rebuilding can begin.

Status: Pending Cube

System Status state meaning database changes are complete and the cube is queued for rebuild. Once processing finishes, refresh in Excel to see the new data.

Status: Processing

System Status state meaning changes are actively being applied — the scenario icon turns yellow and returns to green (Current) when complete.

Job Queue

The System Status section listing pending jobs created by changes anywhere in Catalyst (data loads, hierarchy updates, sort-order changes). Catalyst processes one job at a time, so tasks queue behind running scheduled refreshes.

See also: Run Job

Run Job

The System Status button that executes queued jobs immediately instead of waiting for the next scheduled refresh — also used to trigger configured ad-hoc jobs like L3-to-L2 planning pushes or on-demand ERP pulls.

See also: Job Queue

Last Build Time

The Integration-section indicator on System Status showing how long since the most recent automated ERP data pull completed.

Integrations Refresh Button

An optional add-on that lets clients trigger the ERP integration on demand from System Status rather than waiting for the nightly automation.

Dirty (Stale)

Database terminology for data, a scenario, or a file whose changes haven't been processed yet. Dirty scenarios are picked up and reprocessed by the hourly and daily jobs.

See also: Hourly Job (Process_Schedule)

Cube Rebuild

Reprocessing a cube so structural, data, or permission changes take effect — triggered by scheduled jobs or manually from the profile menu's Refresh option. Permission changes, calculated measures, perspectives, and hierarchy security all require a rebuild; allow 15–30 minutes.

See also: Refresh Cube (User Menu)

Landing and Staging

Sequential stages of Catalyst's ingestion pipeline: incoming ERP data arrives in Landing, is promoted to Staging, and then flows into cubes. Locking a scenario or period halts the flow after Landing — which is why locked periods can appear to "miss" expected data.

See also: Locked Periods

Process Deadlock

The "transaction was deadlocked… chosen as the deadlock victim" error, occurring when your upload or admin change collides with a concurrent background job. Wait a moment and rerun — support can check the job log for the conflicting process's ETA. In the File Upload Center, "Deadlocked" similarly means other jobs are running; retry later.

Attribute-Table-Only Processing

A Smartload processing option that refreshes only selected (or all) attribute tables without reprocessing the fact table — cutting wait times when only mappings or attribute changes need updating.

Azure Blob Storage SFTP

The secure file-transfer channel some clients use to feed data files into Catalyst. Microsoft rotates host keys periodically, which can trigger host-identification warnings — resolve by validating and adding the new published key, never by disabling host key verification.

Standard Reports (Web Reports)

The preinstalled report library in every Catalyst instance, under the Reports tab and linked directly to source data — including Calendarized, Pivot, MTD-QTD-YTD Full Year, Three Scenario Compare, Trend Analysis, Condensed View, Rate Volume Mix, Journal Entry, Financial Planning Detail, and Invoice Detail reports.

Calendarized Report

A standard report presenting data by period across the fiscal year.

MTD-QTD-YTD Full Year Report

A standard report presenting data grouped by month-to-date, quarter-to-date, year-to-date, and full-year views.

See also: MTD / QTD / YTD

Pivot Report

A standard report presenting data with a flexible, user-arrangeable structure — the web counterpart of an Excel PivotTable.

Three Scenario Compare Report

A standard report comparing data across three scenarios side by side — e.g., Actuals vs. Budget vs. Forecast.

See also: Scenario

Trend Analysis Report

A standard report comparing data across actuals scenarios over time to reveal trends.

Rate Volume Mix Report

A sales bridge (price-volume-mix) report showing the gap between budgeted and actual sales and its drivers: the price effect (higher/lower selling prices) and the volume effect (change in units sold).

See also: Price-Volume-Mix Analysis

Query Builder

Catalyst's no-code extraction tool under Analysis for sorting, filtering, aggregating, and exporting large datasets: choose a Financial or Profitability data source, select columns, add filter conditions (Equals, Contains, Between), and export to Excel (up to 100K rows) or CSV (up to 1M rows — or 50M+ with the Profitability Actual Data Query Model enabled by EBM). Queries can be saved, copied, shared, and subscribed.

Visualizations

Also called Dashboards

The Catalyst module presenting embedded Power BI dashboards built on your data. Users interact with filters, tabs, and drill-downs — filter changes are temporary and reset on exit — and access is governed by navigation permissions plus row-level security.

See also: Embedded Power BI Report

Embedded Power BI Report

A Power BI report published to your EBM workspace and surfaced inside Catalyst via Visualizations > Add. Embedded reports inherit Catalyst security automatically, require no viewer licenses, update in place when republished with the same name, and can be exported to PDF or PowerPoint retaining current filters and slicers.

Visualization Subscription

Automated email delivery of a visualization on a Daily, Weekly, or Monthly schedule as PDF, PowerPoint, or URL — configured via the Mail icon on the visualization tile. The permissions context setting determines whose security view generates the report: Owner sends the creator's full view to everyone; Subscriber applies each recipient's own row-level security. The Subscription Log shows delivery history and failures.

Power BI

Microsoft's business intelligence platform integrated with Catalyst: Power BI Desktop for building reports, the Power BI Service (app.powerbi.com) for publishing and viewing, and embedded reports delivered inside Catalyst. Dashboards auto-refresh from Catalyst data with row-level security applied from Catalyst permissions.

See also: EBM Power BI Workspace

EBM Power BI Workspace

Your organization's dedicated Power BI workspace under the EBM tenant (named "EBM [Organization]"), accessed via a Microsoft Entra invitation and found under Workspaces > From External Orgs — the most common reason a workspace looks "missing" is not checking that section or signing in with the wrong account. It holds Reports, Dashboards, and Semantic Models.

Semantic Model

The EBM-managed Power BI dataset that mirrors your Catalyst cubes — consistent naming, prebuilt measures and hierarchies, synchronized refreshes, and automatic Catalyst security inheritance. Report builders should always connect here (Get Data > Power BI Datasets), never directly to the data lake or AAS.

See also: Azure Analysis Services (AAS)

Publishing (Power BI)

Uploading a local .pbix report from Power BI Desktop to the EBM workspace so it's web-accessible and embeddable. Only the report file is published — the semantic model and refresh remain EBM-managed via a shared live connection — and overwriting with the same name preserves Catalyst embed links.

Shared Live Connection

The EBM-managed connection mode for Catalyst datasets in Power BI: no gateway or manual refresh schedule required, with data and security automatically aligned to Catalyst updates.

Power BI Licensing

Report creators need a Power BI Pro (or Premium Per User) license to build, edit, and publish to the EBM workspace. End users viewing embedded reports in Catalyst need no license — embedding is included with the Catalyst subscription. Accessing cubes built on Power BI semantic models in Excel additionally requires a Microsoft Fabric license.

Token Expired Error

The ClientError_TokenExpired message on Visualizations tiles when a Catalyst session's authentication token expires after idle time. Click the Catalyst logo to reset the session and reload the dashboard.

EBM Office Bridge

The connection layer between Microsoft Office and EBM data, appearing as the EBM ribbon tab in Excel with functions like Refresh All Cubes, Insert Cube, and Upload. Historically a VBA/macro-based add-in in .xlsm cube files; the modern EBM Excel Add-In carries the same name forward. It also lets users access and format Catalyst Datasets in Excel, Word, and PowerPoint.

See also: EBM Excel Add-In, Datasets (Office Bridge)

EBM Excel Add-In

The COM add-in (listed as EBMOfficeBridge) that connects Excel to Catalyst and Diligent cubes with live refresh. It replaces legacy macro-based .xlsm files with digitally signed standard .xlsx workbooks connecting to Azure tabular cubes, supports Microsoft SSO and MFA, and needs admin rights only for installation. Toggle it under File > Options > Add-Ins > COM Add-Ins.

See also: EBM Office Bridge, Cube File

EBM Tab

The ribbon tab added by the EBM add-in, providing Refresh Data / Refresh All Cubes (pull the latest cube data per your permissions) and Connect to Cube / Insert Cube (establish or switch cube connections).

Cube File

An Excel workbook — legacy .xlsm or modern .xlsx — downloaded from Catalyst's Analysis tab, containing a live connection to an Analysis Services cube for PivotTable analysis. Saving a legacy .xlsm as .xlsx strips its macros and breaks the connection; use the Cube Migrator instead.

See also: Cube Updater, Macro-Enabled Spreadsheet (.xlsm)

Refresh All Cubes

The EBM ribbon command that refreshes every cube connection in a workbook and triggers Microsoft 365 sign-in, renewing expired tokens. The standard first fix after hierarchy changes, for N/A errors in OLAP formulas, and for missing data after cube processing completes.

See also: Expired Login Token

Insert Cube

The EBM ribbon option for adding a cube of a chosen type (e.g., Tabular Financial) into a workbook — also used to restore a file whose cube definition has gone blank.

Cube Updater

Cube Update tile

The self-service tool under Catalyst's Analysis tab that repairs cube-enabled Excel files: reinstating the EBM connection, fixing Office-related errors, repointing files to the correct server, clearing cached connections, and converting Smartload cube files between instances. Upload the file, wait for Upload Success, and download the refreshed copy — the go-to first fix for most broken cube files.

See also: Stale or Corrupt File

Cube Migrator

The Analysis-tab tool (enabled on request) that converts legacy MDX .xlsm cube files to the modern tabular format. Two steps: run the file through Cube Migrate to Tabular, then — without opening it in between — through the Cube Updater in the new instance. Managed Sets and custom pivot fields must be removed first.

See also: MDX-to-Tabular Migration

PivotTable

Excel's data summarization tool and the heart of cube analysis: drag fields between the Filters, Columns, Rows, and Values areas to slice, total, and compare data stored in the cube — no formulas required.

See also: Reading the PivotTable Field List

PivotTable Field List

The panel on the right side of Excel listing everything the cube exposes: measures (marked fx) at top, then each dimension and hierarchy with its level and attribute fields. Fields are organized in folders per dimension — see the field naming guide below for how to read them.

See also: Reading the PivotTable Field List

Slicer

Excel's clickable filter buttons. Connected to external cube sources they are volatile and a leading cause of file corruption — EBM advises against slicers in Catalyst-connected files and doesn't support troubleshooting them. OLAP formulas or report filters are the recommended alternatives.

See also: OLAP Formulas

OLAP Formulas

Cube-referencing formulas created via PivotTable Analyze > OLAP Tools > Convert to Formulas — freeing a report from pivot formatting limits for stable layouts like a P&L or Balance Sheet. CUBEMEMBER formulas reference filter/row/column members (Scenario, Account Level, Company, Month); CUBEVALUE formulas return the numeric values for those members. N/A errors are typically fixed with Refresh All Cubes; hundreds of OLAP formulas in one file is a staleness risk worth reviewing.

See also: OLAP

Show Items with No Data

A PivotTable field setting (Field Settings > Layout & Print) that displays hierarchy members with no associated data. Enable it to confirm a newly mapped account exists in the cube before amounts post; disable it to hide empty combinations.

Queries and Connections

Excel's Data-tab panel showing a workbook's connections (the highway to the data source) and queries (the traffic requesting data). EBM best practice: one connection per cube type, named per the EBM_ pattern (e.g., EBM_Financial) — never rename them, delete duplicates, and use Properties > Used In to find references.

See also: Cube Definition (Command Text)

Cube Definition (Command Text)

The connection property (Queries & Connections > Properties > Definition > Command Text) identifying which cube a file queries — e.g., EBM_yourcompany_TabularFinancial. If it's blank (often because the file was last cube-updated by a now-disabled user), the file throws "You do not have access to one or more cube(s)" and needs a Cube Update or a re-inserted cube.

See also: Cube Updater

Expired Login Token

A timed-out authentication session producing the same "You do not have access to one or more cube(s)" error as a blank cube definition. Fully close Excel, reopen the file, and run Refresh All Cubes to trigger a fresh Microsoft 365 sign-in.

Trusted Location

A folder registered in Excel's Trust Center (File > Options > Trust Center > Trusted Locations) where EBM files run without security blocks — eliminating Enable Content prompts and blocked data connections. Check "Subfolders are also trusted" and "Allow Trusted Locations on my network" for network drives. A one-time setup that prevents a large share of refresh and login errors.

See also: Mark of the Web (MOTW)

Mark of the Web (MOTW)

The security flag Windows attaches to files downloaded from the internet, email, or Teams, causing Excel to block macros and external connections. Remove it via right-click > Properties > Unblock, or avoid it entirely by storing EBM files in a Trusted Location.

See also: Trusted Location

Macro-Enabled Spreadsheet (.xlsm)

The legacy EBM cube file format that relies on VBA macros — requiring Enable Content/Enable Macros prompts to connect. For organizations whose security blocks VBA entirely, macro-free cube options exist with setup help from EBM and your IT team. Modern add-in-based files are standard .xlsx with no macros.

See also: EBM Excel Add-In

Co-Authoring & AutoSave

Excel's simultaneous multi-user editing in SharePoint/OneDrive/Teams doesn't reliably support the OLAP connections and COM add-ins Catalyst files use — causing crashes, merge conflicts, and upload blocks. Best practice: open in Excel Desktop, turn AutoSave off, one editor at a time; co-viewing is fine. This is a Microsoft platform limitation, not a Catalyst defect.

Stale or Corrupt File

An Excel file degraded to the point it can't refresh — common culprits are 50MB+ size, excessive rows, duplicate EBM connections, slicers, old EBM code, hidden/locked elements, or long inactivity. Fixes: run it through the Cube Updater, remove duplicate connections, or rebuild key tabs into a freshly downloaded cube file.

See also: Cube Updater

Locking Conflicts Error

The "operation was cancelled because of locking conflicts" message, occurring when an Excel query hits the cube during exclusive backend processing (scheduled refreshes or heavy concurrent use). Usually temporary — wait 10–15 minutes and retry; recurring cases call for pivot optimization (fewer row fields, filters first, split reports).

Cube Session Timeout

Idle cube connections eventually time out or hit a rebuilt cube structure; refreshing re-establishes the session. If refresh errors persist after a rebuild completes, close and reopen Excel, then Refresh All Cubes.

Activity

The movement of money within a period — transactions, sales, costs — as opposed to a point-in-time balance. In the Financial cube, Activity is a default measure and the right choice for Income Statement analysis.

See also: Activity vs. Ending Balances

Ending Balance

The final amount in an account at the end of a period — a snapshot used for Balance Sheet reporting. Available as a cube measure; to see ending balances for accounts with no current activity, use a Financial cube filtered to the period rather than Manage Actuals, which only shows periods with data.

See also: Activity vs. Ending Balances

Activity vs. Ending Balances

The two core measure types in financial reporting: activity flows over a period (use for P&L accounts), while ending balances are point-in-time snapshots (use for Balance Sheet accounts). Mixing them up is the most common cause of a "wrong" number in a cube — a P&L account summed by Ending Balance or a cash account summed by Activity won't tie to your statements.

See also: Activity, Ending Balance

General Ledger (GL)

The complete record of a company's financial transactions, organized by account. Catalyst's Financial database holds GL-based data — everything that comes from the P&L and Balance Sheet.

See also: Financial (Database)

Chart of Accounts

The structured list of financial accounts used to classify transactions — assets, liabilities, equity, revenue, expenses. In Catalyst, the chart of accounts becomes the account hierarchy: summary categories are nodes, individual accounts are leaves.

See also: Account Hierarchy

Journal Entry

The record of a financial transaction in the GL, with debits and credits by account. Journal-entry-level detail is available in Catalyst through the Journal Entry cube and Query Builder.

See also: Journal Entry Cube

Invoice

The transaction-level record of a sale — customer, items, quantities, prices. Invoice-level detail is the foundation of Catalyst's Profitability database, and Invoice Number is a classic profitability attribute.

See also: Profitability (Database)

Income Statement (P&L)

The financial statement showing revenues, costs, and expenses over a period — activity-based accounts translated at average exchange rates.

See also: Activity, Average Rate

Balance Sheet

The financial statement showing assets, liabilities, and equity at a point in time — balance-based accounts translated at spot exchange rates.

See also: Ending Balance, Spot Rate

Debits & Credits

The two sides of double-entry accounting. Because revenue, liability, and equity accounts are credit-normal, they often arrive from the ERP as negative values — which is why Catalyst offers Sign Flip to present them as positives in reports.

See also: Sign Flip

Net Income

The bottom line of the P&L — revenue minus all costs and expenses. At year end, net income rolls into retained earnings on the Balance Sheet.

See also: Retained Earnings

Retained Earnings

The equity account accumulating profits kept in the business. Each new fiscal year, prior-year net income rolls into retained earnings — automated in Catalyst by Retained Earnings Mapping.

See also: Retained Earnings Mapping, Roll Forward

Gross Sales

Total sales before deductions (discounts, returns, allowances) — the top operational account in profitability data and the base for % of Gross Sales rates.

See also: Operational Accounts

Operational Accounts

Accounts used on the Profitability side of Catalyst — typically Gross Sales, Material Costs, Labor, and Overhead — as distinct from GL accounts on the Financial side.

See also: Profitability (Database)

Gross Profit / Gross Margin

Revenue minus cost of goods sold, in dollars (gross profit) or as a percentage of revenue (gross margin). Common standard calculated accounts and measures in Catalyst cubes.

See also: Calculated Accounts

EBITDA

Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization — a widely used operating profitability metric, available as a standard calculated account.

See also: Calculated Accounts

Variance Analysis

Comparing one scenario against another — Actuals vs. Budget, this year vs. last year — and explaining the differences. Catalyst supports this through compare reports, scenario associations, and calculated measures.

See also: Three Scenario Compare Report

Price-Volume-Mix Analysis

Also called a sales bridge

Decomposing a sales variance into its drivers: the price effect (selling prices changed), the volume effect (unit counts changed), and the mix effect (the blend of products/customers shifted). Delivered in Catalyst as the Rate Volume Mix report.

See also: Rate Volume Mix Report

MTD / QTD / YTD

Month-to-date, quarter-to-date, and year-to-date — cumulative views from the start of the month, quarter, or year through the current period. Available as standard report views and time-conditioned calculated measures.

See also: MTD-QTD-YTD Full Year Report

TTM

Trailing Twelve Months

The most recent twelve consecutive months of data, regardless of fiscal year boundaries — smoothing seasonality for run-rate analysis and valuation. Implemented in Catalyst as the TTM scenario type.

See also: TTM (Scenario Type)

Pro Forma

Financial statements adjusted for hypothetical conditions or normalizing items — acquisitions, add-backs, one-time events. Useful for evaluating potential outcomes, but interpreted alongside (not instead of) actual historical data. Implemented in Catalyst as the Pro Forma scenario type.

See also: Pro Forma (Scenario Type)

Budget vs. Forecast

A budget is the approved annual plan, set once and locked as a benchmark; a forecast is the living projection, updated through the year (3+9, 6+6) as actuals come in. In Catalyst the two scenario types share identical logic — the distinction is in how your organization uses them.

See also: Budget (Scenario Type), Forecast (Scenario Type)

Allocation

Distributing an amount across multiple dimensions — spreading overhead across departments, or revenue across customers and items — using a driver such as percentage of sales or unit counts.

See also: Profitability Allocations

Fiscal Year vs. Calendar Year

A calendar year runs January–December; a fiscal year is any 12-month accounting period an organization chooses, including 4-4-5 week-based structures. Catalyst scenarios and calendars align to your fiscal definition.

See also: Fiscal Calendar

Customer

A dimension within profitability data — often its own primary hierarchy, with levels for parent customers, regions, or sales reps above the customer ID leaf.

See also: Hierarchy

Item

A dimension within profitability data representing products or SKUs — often its own primary hierarchy, with levels like brand, category, or product family above the item ID leaf.

See also: Hierarchy

This glossary grows with the product. If you've run into a term, setting, or concept that isn't defined here, tell us and we'll add it.