If you are building financial models or any other type of excel based decision models, chances are, there will be multiple scenarios in your model. Whenever you have multiple scenarios, you may want an easy, intuitive way to select one of them. In this post, I will present an interesting scenario display & selection technique that I received by email from our reader Itay Maor.
First see the scenario selection in action:
Download the sample workbook with scenario selection macro
Click here to download the workbook (.xlsm file) that Itay emailed me.
How does this work?
In order to understand how this works, first you must know the limitations of this file. It can only support up to 5 scenarios.
The workbook has a bunch of macros – ChangeScenario, AddTab, RemoveTab, RenameTab etc.
Here is how the magic behind this macro is cast:
- When you click any tab, that particular scenario’s input values are loaded by running ChangeScenario macro
- When you click the ‘x’ button, that particular scenario’s tab is hidden and other tabs are moved accordingly by running the macro RemoveTab.
- When you click the ‘+’ button, a new scenario tab is displayed by un-hiding one of the remaining tabs. This uses the macro AddTab.
- When you close the workbook, the tab order, scenario values are all preserved automatically.
The workbook uses very simple but clever macros to hide / un-hide tabs and display and select scenarios. I encourage you to dissect the macros and play with the file to understand it better. Go here to download the file.
Thank you Itay,
Thank you so much for sharing your work with us Itay. I have learned some valuable macro tricks exploring your code. I am sure our readers will be able to learn something from it. Thank you.
How do you handle multiple scenarios?
I never used a technique like Itay’s. Usually I prefer a scenario selection sheet with data validation and conditional formatting (more on this later in a post). I would like to know how you handle multiple scenarios. Please share using comments.
Share your workbooks, example files with us
I am always looking for new and interesting ways to solve problems using Excel. If you have something fun, exciting or useful to share, please email me your workbook / tip / article to at chandoo.d @ gmail.com. I would love to learn from you and share your ideas with others here.
11 Responses
Ciao Hui,
Collecting Excel tricks under the title “Notable Excel Websites (Non-MVP) Edition” is a brilliant idea…
Thank you in the name of all The FrankensTeam.
On our site there is a box with a picture and text highlighting:
This is a no-MVP site
we think ourselves “bad boys” a bit 🙂
For those who would like to know why our site is a no-MVP site, enough to click on the link:
http://goo.gl/lxDszY
Thank you again!
Thanks a lot
I really enjoyed this (newsletter). I must admit that I rarely read an Excel newsletter (and I subscribe to quite a few) all the way though, but this grabbed my attention and before I realized it, I was engrossed in it. I must also admit that most of this I don’t understand, yet. But, it excites me when I do learn something new in Excel. I can’t wait to see how much of this I can implement into my (constantly-evolving) ‘House Budget’ & ‘Family Medical’ worksheets that I have developed over the past few years! I sure hope to see more of these type of newsletters in the future! Thanks!
Thanks for doing this Hui! I appreciate being included.
I like Tom’s tip a lot. I posted about a tool I wrote to automate this at http://yoursumbuddy.com/tables-edit-query-dialog/
EXCELLENT !
Hui, This post is Superb! More over I have always been a fan of Roberto’s work and have learnt a lot from him.
Here are some of my recent contributions
1. Customising markers in a chart – http://www.goodly.co.in/customize-markers-in-a-chart/
2. Charting Hacks to work faster – http://www.goodly.co.in/5-charting-hacks-to-help-you-work-faster/
3. 7 Date formulas to make life easy – http://www.goodly.co.in/date-formulas-in-excel/
4. Customised scrollbar using VBA – http://www.goodly.co.in/customized-scroll-bar-in-excel/
5. Adding Direct Legends – http://www.goodly.co.in/customized-scroll-bar-in-excel/
Hope everyone enjoys!
I like the Excel Ninja Menus.
1. Select a cell or range then move till the 4-way cross appears. Right-Click and drag the selection to another place in the worksheet then, like a ninja, a menu full of skills and throwing stars pops up allowing me to do all kinds of awesomeness.
2. When you click the fill box on a Date and right click and drag it down, a lot of amazing Date options pop up.
I also brand my Excel to remind myself that I’m awesome. In my personal macro workbook I place the following code.
Private Sub Workbook_Open()
Application.Caption = “SuperKrishna’s Awesomeness”
End Sub
My favorite tip goes along with #17. If you try to copy subtotaled data (and in earlier Excel versions filtered data),when you paste it all the data displays instead of just the summarized data.
To get around this, select your summarized data, click on Find and Select tab and then select Go to Special. Click Visible cells Only and click OK. Now paste and you will see that only the summarized data has been copied.
You can also go CTRL+G and then click the Special icon at the bottom of the dialog box.
What a great idea, Chandoo! I’d love to be included in your next edition:) Perhaps a VBA exclusive version?
@Ryan
I will review this concept about 6 months out from the original post and be sure to keep your site in mind
Hui…
That sounds great, Hui:) I just realized I gave credit to Chandoo for the idea and I should have attributed it to you.
Sorry about that!