Over the course of the 30 Days to Become a Better Monarch Modeler series we’ve learned how to positively fill Monarch with actionable data. We’ve morphed reports that had content that was cast in stone into dynamic and practically living data that is now free to tell its once concealed story.

But all great stories need an audience, so today on day 17 of the series we’ll find ways to spread the story by exporting from Monarch with every means at our disposal. This particular story starts with the Export Wizard toolbar button…

Report Your Report

When the Export Wizard is launched, the first choice is to decide from which of the three Monarch windows you want to use as the basis for the export.

When the Report window is selected, we can use one of the following file types:

• Adobe PDF (.pdf), the standard Portable Document Format now commonly used to share documents.
• Portable Report Format (.prf), Monarch’s proprietary format used to distribute the original report and other Monarch features in a single package.
• Fixed-length text (.txt), which creates a plain text file that uses spaces to pad the lines so that the output matches what is currently displayed in the Report window.

Depending which format you choose, the Wizard gives you different options for your next decision.

If you’ve selected to output a PDF file, you’re presented with options with which to customize the PDF file:

• Do you want the file to be secure? The user will have to supply a password of your choosing just to view the file.
• How tightly do you want to control the use of the file? You can grant or deny the ability to print the file, extract content from it, edit it, or add comments to it.
• If you password protect the file, which level of encryption do you wish to apply?

For PRF files, you can choose whether to include the Tree Index, the model itself, and whether you want to encrypt the file (and optionally apply a password if you do), and what level of file compression that you’d like to apply.

There are no additional options for fixed-length text files.

Select * From Table

Things get more interesting when choosing to export from the Table window when you’re using Monarch v10.

You can take advantage the filters that you’ve built to create customized exports. You can ignore the filters and export everything, or you can apply any individual filter by name, or (this can be a great one) use all of the filters in the model. If you do choose to apply all of the filters, you have an additional choice to export each filtered data set to its own separate file, or to create different tables within a single export file so that each filtered set will create a unique table.

If you have defined custom sort orders, you can apply one of them in the export.

Next, you select the file format to create with the export. The numerous options include:

• Lotus 1-2-3 (.wk3) file
• “Classic” Excel (.xls) and Excel 2007 (.xlsx and .xlsm)
• Paradox (db)
• Fixed-length text (*.txt)
• Delimited text (*)
• Access database formats (.mdb and the 2007 format .accdb)
• dBase (.dbf)
• Adobe PDF (.pdf) and even
• Web pages (.htm and .html)

My first paying job required my building dBase and 1-2-3 files. To think that I can still use recently released software to create those formats… I never would have believed it back then.

The fixed-length text format and the PDF format offer the same options as described for the Report window exports and most of the other files have limited, functional if somewhat mundane options. The notable exception is the Excel 2007 format.

When exporting to .xlsx or .xlsm files, you have another multitude of powerful choices:

• If you’re planning to add VBA code, or you just want to essentially certify that you created that file, Monarch can add a digital signature to the export automatically.
• Excel’s auto-filter feature can be activated in the file.
• The feature recently added to Monarch, context, which allows you to attach the source report(s) to the file so that auditors and others can track data origins without your assistance.
• Finally, you can easily add a pivot table to the file by selecting which fields to use for each element of the pivot table. There are a number of ways to further customize this aspect of the export. We’ll probably further discuss Monarch’s pivot table creation in detail one day soon.

Conclusive Summaries

Monarch offers the same file types when exporting summaries as it does for exporting from the Table window, but some different options are available.

You can elect to export the summary in its most detailed form, regardless of its current onscreen presentation, or to export it as is.

There’s an additional option that can save you a ton of effort. For summaries that have multiple values in the first key field, you can elect to either create a new file, or a new table within a single file, for each different value for that key. So for a summary based on customer names, you could create a multiple exports using a single summary, and each export would represent information for only a single customer. How do you typically build your summaries, and how will this impact how you handle some of your work?

Well, that rounds out the basic exporting functionality that Monarch offers.

Your Task for Today

Odds are that you’ve got your favorite export formats and frequently use those same formats for all of your work. Spend some time today creating exports by using the other available formats.

Additionally, and more importantly, think about how you could overcome some pure modeling challenges that you may have encountered – you know those reports that you can’t seem to model properly no matter what approach you try – by using an export file as input file to somehow assist with modeling the original report.

Finally, think about what sorts of layouts work best for you for sharing certain data types, and for certain purposes. Which layout would make it easy for you to whip up some great Excel charts? Which would make that task more difficult? Monarch offers you the freedom to make your work as simple or as complex as you choose. You can learn to choose wisely, but at times it takes some practice. Start today.

Become a Storyteller

Sometimes exporting is just a means to an end when your aim is to simply populate one information system with data from another. But at other times, you’ve got a great opportunity to craft a tale and unlock the truth that’s hiding in that voluminous report.

The next great story need not be found at a bookstore; it could be what you create when you excel with Monarch.

—

Continue your commitment to Become a Better Monarch Modeler with Part 18 of the series, or review Part 16.

Do Monarch’s Summaries Leave You Wanting More?

You’ve learned how to use Monarch’s Summary feature (there’s a primer in this video), and you’re now comfortable with building summaries. They’re great tools in and of themselves.

But now that you have a general understanding of the concept, you may find that as useful as they are, the process of creating a summary is a bit cumbersome. The end result is a little static too. Sure, you can drill up and down, but if you want to change the basic structure, well, that takes a little more effort.

Wouldn’t it be great if your summary was a bit more interactive? What if you could reposition your fields just by dragging them around with your mouse? What if you could filter the data displayed in the summary on the fly, based on the live content?

These are the types of things that you can do with Excel’s pivot table feature.

Building a Pivot Table is Simple

It’s interesting. I’ve demonstrated the benefits of using pivot tables to literally hundreds of people, and what I usually hear is “I need to learn how to do that”. But when I follow up with them later, they’ve made no progress. Why is that?

People are somewhat intimidated by pivot tables. To some, it seems so difficult that they don’t believe that they can create pivot tables themselves, so they don’t even try.

That’s a real shame, because creating and using them can be very simple.

Start with the Basics

Pivot tables are a bit like Excel and Monarch in general: they’re packed with features, but you don’t need to use every feature all the time.

Let’s look at using a pivot table to perform a little monthly sales analysis. Let’s say that you’re reporting for a retail chain, and you want to prepare an overview of both the location unit counts and total revenues for multiple product categories and sub-categories. For instance, you might sell music CD’s and DVD (your product categories) and Classical, Rock, Pop, Action and Soundtracks might be your sub-categories.

Pivot Tables are Reusable Structures

It might take you few minutes to initially build the structure for your table, to get just the right layout. But when done right, it’s a one-time investment of your time. That’s because pivot tables are like Monarch summaries – once they’re built, they can be reused over and over again with new data.

This is a huge time saver. Think about it. Every time you want to update that fancy, complicated report all you need to do is make a couple of mouse clicks (once you have the data of course!). And if your computer is up to the task, you’ll have an up to date report in seconds.

Automate the Data Range for the Table

If you’re already a little familiar with pivot tables, you know that when you create a table based on an Excel list, the data is read into the table from a specific range which includes fixed columns and rows, such as $A$1:$Z:100. The next time you update your data, you may have more or fewer rows of data. So to get the table to point to the right data, you must edit the data range manually.

There’s a better way. You can create a named range that will always adjust itself to your current data set automatically – you won’t need to adjust it anymore.

Create a range named PivotData, or even better SalesData, as being clear lets you manage your data better.

Now for the “Refers to:” area, where you normally supply a range, type the following formula instead:

• The Offset function returns a range.
• ‘Sheet1′!$A$1 tells the function that cell A1 is the top-left corner of the area.
• Then go over zero rows, and
• zero columns from there.
• COUNTA(‘Shee1′!$A:$A) tells the function the number of rows that have data, including the heading, and finally
• COUNTA(‘Sheet1′!$1:$1) tells the function the number of columns that have data

As a test, hit the F5 key, type the range name you created (SalesData in our example), and hit Enter. You should see the data range highlighted.

Here is a short video of the process of creating a dynamic range name, and a little demonstration of its functionality.

Once the data is ready (best prepared with Monarch, then exported to Excel), you’re ready to build a pivot table. The second video today shows you how to create a pivot table and an overview of how you can manipulate the content.

Using pivot tables to summarize your data is an absolute necessity for great reporting that needs to be updated regularly. Building the right content in a manner that your audience will understand should make you very popular.

Pivot tables allow you to summarize and analyze a great deal of data, and there’s no better way to supply that data to the pivot table than to start the process with Monarch.

Driving Your Data to the Finish Line

You’ve worked hard to mine data from your reports. You’ve used calculated fields and external lookups to add value to your base data. You then used filters to isolate the most important data from the mountain of information you have at your disposal.

How are you going to present your newfound decision-making data to your management so that it will be seen as being prepared professionally and accurately? While we know that it’s not always true, we all recognize that a pretty package is more easily accepted than one that isn’t quite so presentable. So what are you going to do? How are you going to package your information so that it will be best accepted?

Nobody wants to sift through reams of raw data manually. Ideally, they want the big picture and the ability to drill down into various levels of details if required.

To that end, Monarch’s ability to create multiple summaries of your data is a fantastic feature of the product. There are a number of tools available to customize your summaries and prepare unique views of the data and give your summary you own tailored look. You can even export to Excel in a manner which simulates drill-down ability by opting to include the Auto-Outline feature.

If You Already Own Both Cars, Which Do You Drive?

Excel also has a tool which summarizes data nicely: the pivot table. In fact, comparing the Excel pivot table to the Monarch summary is like comparing Ferrari’s F340 to Honda’s Civic. They’re both automobiles and will get you from A to B, but their similarities pretty much end right there.

Excel’s pivot table feature is a very powerful device, and as is often the case, with powerful tools come some amount of complexity. Unfortunately this scares some folks away from using them.

A pivot table can be the foundation for your best presentation practices. Just as the best writers consider their audience, the formatting and layout of the final report is best done with its users in mind.

Think not only about what content they need, but how is it best presented. How are they going to use and interact with it? Even something as seemingly insignificant as your font selection can make a huge impact on readability and, more importantly, how receptive your audience is to your report. After all, we’re not getting any younger!

You can add some of Excel’s other features to your report to:

• highlight important data,
• show only as much or as little data as is needed,
• create visual differences between groups of data, and
• alternatively, use devices to create logical groupings.

One of the great things about pivot tables is their reusability. Once you’ve built a table, especially a somewhat complex table, you can reuse it each time you’ve generated new data.

Perhaps most importantly, you can automate all of your final presentation steps, including regenerating the table based on your freshly extracted data.

Racing to Win

If you’ve decided that your final report needs all kinds of manual tweaking and formatting after Excel generates your table, you can virtually eliminate the time it takes for you to produce the final product. Imagine converting stressful work under a deadline to effortless results.

As a final point, pivot tables allow the user of the report to dynamically filter the content of the table themselves, easily, which further enhances the value of your report in their mind. After all, there’s a very good chance that your reader has no idea how you create this magic in the first place. They just know that they can always count on you to regularly supply them with what they need.

Being adept at creating custom reports based on pivot tables which summarize data that you’ve extracted from reports is a great way for you to excel with Monarch.