One of the first things you will want to do in Allocate is create your Agency’s Structure. The Structure is one of the most fundamental pieces of data in Allocate. Your Structure consists of those items which you will be allocating to or from. For example, the Finance Department, a Utility Fund or an IT Division are all part of Structure. For the purposes of our documentation we will refer to these parts as Report Items, as they are items which will eventually end up on your Reports.
In Allocate there are four Structure Categories of Report Items: Organizations, Funds, Departments and Divisions. These Structure Categories have relationships with each other. Organizations are the parents of Funds; Funds are the parents of Departments; and Departments are the parents of Divisions. Because of these relationships, you should enter or import your structure data by the broadest to the most specific (i.e. Organizations, then Funds, then Departments, last Divisions). You will be able to define the parent relationship as you enter the subsidiary information.
You can enter your entire Agency’s Structure into Allocate, including Organizations, Funds, Departments and Divisions. Later, you will be able to select which particular Report Items you want to include in each Cost Plan. For now, you will just need to get the data into the system.
To open any Structure Category Table, locate the one you would like to open in the Navigation Menu. Click the View Icon to open the table in the Workspace.
For manual entry into the Structure Category tables please see the following articles:
“Creating Organizations”
“Creating Funds”
“Creating Departments”
“Creating Divisions”
If you would like to Import your Structure Category Tables, please see our article “Importing From Excel.”