Best practices

The main benefit of working in IBM® Planning Analytics for Microsoft Excel in cell-based mode is that the features of Microsoft Excel become more readily available to you during your analysis. You are able to use features, such as formatting, sorting, and creating formulas using individual cells. This section describes some of the ways that IBM Planning Analytics for Microsoft Excel interacts with frequently-used Microsoft Excel features and functions.

Creating a chart

Charts update with new data as long as the data is after the current first cell and before the current last cell.

Cutting and pasting

Copy and paste from the cell, so that other cells that refer to it are updated to point to the new location.

Copying

To copy the exact formula without changing its cell references, copy from the formula bar, not the cell.

Creating formulas

Consider labeling measure and dimension cells so that you can refer to them by name rather than cell location.

If you are building a multisheet report with shared filters, such as date, consider creating a single page with the filters and referring to those shared filters from each sheet.