General Setup Instructions for Diligent

Your EBM or BlueOps rep will handle most of your setup and onboarding procedures right away, but here are some common recommendations when first getting started with Diligent.

Set Up Your Team

• Client Administrator: Decide who will be the “internal Diligent admin” for your group. You can have more than one, but this will be the person who helps coordinate system requirement validation with your IT Department, and have full access to all features of Diligent. These duties may include making sure the software works with your local security settings, setting up new user accounts and making sure they can access the websites, ensuring that macro-enabled files are working fine in Excel, mapping of hierarchies, setting up new scenarios, etc..
• Users: You can have as many Diligent users as you want or need, although you should consider delineating what roles each user or group of users should have.
  • Each user should have their own username (e.g. email address) and password. Your Customer Success Manager will set you up with these at first, but you’ll need to have at least one Diligent Administrator that will be able to set up new accounts moving forward. To set up a new user account, follow the steps here.
  • Most users will only need to access certain sections, projects, cubes, reports, dashboards, or settings within the software. For these types of users you can create groups based on common permissions and assign your users to these groups.

Testing Prior to Use

Once you’ve identified who your internal Diligent administrator will be, this person will need to coordinate between us (EBM Software) and your local IT Department to run through some tests to ensure everything works as it should. These tests are essential in confirming that the technical requirements for software compatibility are all in place. This is primarily done on your end, but we are here to help you, especially if you run into any problems out of the gate:

• • Ensure you can access and log into the Diligent instance website(s) you are given. Confirm the site works on multiple devices and networks.
  • Request a password reset for your own account to see if you get the reset email from us. You can then change your pw back to what it was originally.
  • Create at least one user account you can impersonate that’s not you, to confirm the login works and works from multiple browsers, machines, and networks, as well as to confirm the site loads properly and their permissions look correct.
    • Click around through the tabs to see if any errors pop up. We recommend creating a fake user account first, using a temp email service. This will avoid having to use a real person with a real email address. Here is a free service that allows you to send, receive, and read emails on a temporary basis: https://temp-mail.org/en/
    • Try requesting a password reset from their account to see if they get the reset password email.
  • Microsoft Excel Tests:
    • Excel files downloaded from Diligent will be saved as an .xlsm file, oftentimes with the words “EBMOfficeBridge” in the filename. Play with downloading these files to confirm that Enabling Macros and Enabling Content works. Clicking the allow or enable option in the yellow bar that shows up once the file is opened will and should result in a login window. Login to pass through and confirm that it takes the login. The result should be that the dialog window goes away once credentials are entered.
    • Confirm the ability to download a Cube file from Diligent under the Analysis tab.
    • In that file, confirm that all the EBM Office Bridge Ribbon buttons work (i.e., they don’t produce an error message).
    • Do the same with an EBM Export/Upload sheet, which you can find under Hierarchy Management -> Select Hierarchy from the List -> Export/Upload tab.
  • Ensure your team can access our Help Center: support.ebmsoftware.com.
  • Ensure your team can receive emails from support@ebmsoftware.com.

Common Issues

Most issues will be resolved during the Client Admin – IT Department testing process, outlined above. These include issues related to antiviruses, firewalls, whitelisting, and macros. Additional issues you may need help with early on are listed below:

• Error messages: Issues with Microsoft Excel are quite common, but rest assured we’ve likely seen them before. Look through our Cube Troubleshooting page to search for your specific issue.
• Data refresh: After making changes in the system, you may need to refresh Diligent. Check out our help site for specific instructions.
• Quick Fix: Anytime you run into an issue with an Excel Cube, the first step you should take is running the file through the Cube Updater. It’s a simple and quick process, which will fix most issues with a Cube file if one exists.
• Excel Slicers: Slicers are and have been a functional way to introduce clickable buttons to filter tables in your spreadsheet, however due to their limitations with complex network connectivity, they are not recommended when setting up your Diligent Cube connected spreadsheets, reports, and schedules in Excel. Instead, consider using OLAP formulas. We don't offer support for Excel bugs and Microsoft limitations, but there are a host of forums and discords online where you can attempt to self-serve.
• Other Frequently Asked Questions: We’re always updating our FAQ page with new questions and answers, so if you can’t find yours at the link above, then please submit a support inquiry and someone will get back to you right away.