This past weekend, it’s possible that a number of Excel users were introduced to Monarch for the first time. As they may not have even heard of the product before, I thought that this might be an opportune time to demonstrate how one can work with both Excel and Monarch simultaneously.Today’s video shows how to add to values from Excel to report data that you’ve extracted with Monarch. We’ll use Monarch’s external lookup feature to add some values (which we’ll use in new calculations) to the model we created in a previous video post.
While the data set in the video is small, you can see how you can have Monarch effectively use Excel files for both inputs and outputs.
Without custom programming or complex formulas in Excel, you can very quickly add new data elements to the report files generated by your existing systems.
If you haven’t seen the first video, in which the process of essentially teaching Monarch how to extract data from a specific report is demonstrated, view it now.
Today’s video extends the initial model by adding the external lookups and a calculated field. (View the external lookup demo video now.)
Monarch’s engine imports data from Excel workbooks far more quickly that even Excel does with its VLOOKUP function. Even if you’re accustomed to using Excel’s lookup functions, you’ll gain considerable performance advantages by having Monarch connect your data if you’re working with any nontrivial amounts of data.
Becoming adept at developing new decision support tools which easily connect related data is a great way to excel with Monarch.
