One great feature of Excel scenarios is that you’re not
limited to creating one alternative data set—you can create as many
scenarios as you like and apply them by using the Scenario Manager. To
apply more than one scenario by using the Scenario Manager, click the
name of the first scenario you want to display, click the Show button,
and then do the same for any subsequent scenarios. The values you
defined as part of those scenarios will appear in your worksheet, and
Excel will update any calculations involving the changed cells.Tip
If you apply a scenario to a worksheet and then apply another
scenario to the same worksheet, both sets of changes appear. If
multiple scenarios change the same cell, the cell will contain the
value in the most recently applied scenario.
Applying multiple scenarios alters the values in your worksheets.
You can see how those changes affect your formulas, but Excel also gives
you a way to view the results of all your scenarios in a single,
separate worksheet. To create a worksheet in your current workbook that
summarizes the changes caused by your scenarios, open the Scenario
Manager, and then click the Summary button. When you do, the Scenario
Summary dialog box opens.
From within the dialog box, you can choose the type of summary
worksheet you want to create and the cells you want to display in the
summary worksheet. To choose the cells to display in the summary, click
the Collapse Dialog button in the box, select the cells you want to
display, and then expand the dialog box. After you verify that the range
in the box represents the cells you want to have included on the summary
sheet, click OK to create the new worksheet.
It’s a good idea to create an "undo" scenario named
Normal that holds the original values of the cells
you’re going to change before they’re changed in other scenarios. For
example, if you create a scenario named High Fuel
Costs that changes the sales figures in three cells, your
Normal scenario restores those cells to their original values. That way,
even if you accidentally modify your worksheet, you can apply the Normal
scenario and not have to reconstruct the worksheet from scratch.
Tip
Each scenario can change a maximum of 32 cells, so you might
need to create more than one scenario to ensure that you can restore a
worksheet.
In this exercise, you’ll create scenarios to represent projected
revenue increases from two rate changes, view the scenarios, and then
summarize the scenario results in a new worksheet.
Set Up
Open the
MultipleScenarios_start workbook, and save it as
MultipleScenarios. Then follow the steps.
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On the Data tab, in the
Data Tools group, click What-If Analysis and then, in the list,
click Scenario Manager.
The Scenario Manager dialog box opens.
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Click Add.
The Add Scenario dialog box opens.
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In the Scenario name field,
type 3DayIncrease.
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At the right edge of the Changing
cells field, click the Collapse
Dialog button.
The Add Scenario dialog box collapses.
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In the worksheet, click cell C4 and then, in the dialog box, click the
Expand Dialog button.
$C$4 appears in the Changing Cells field, and the dialog box
title changes to Edit Scenario.
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Click OK.
The Scenario Values dialog box opens.
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In the value field, type 11.50.
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Click OK.
The Scenario Values dialog box closes, and the Scenario
Manager is displayed again.
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Click Add.
The Add Scenario dialog box opens.
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In the Scenario name field,
type Ground and Overnight
Increase.
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At the right edge of the Changing
cells field, click the Collapse
Dialog button.
The Add Scenario dialog box collapses.
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Click cell C3, hold down
the Ctrl key, and click cell C6.
Then click the Expand Dialog
button.
$C$3,$C$6 appears in the Changing Cells field, and the dialog
box title changes to Edit Scenario.
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Click OK.
The Scenario Values dialog box opens.
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In the $C$3 field, type
10.15.
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In the $C$6 field, type
18.5.
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Click OK.
The Scenario Values dialog box closes, and the Scenario
Manager dialog box is displayed again.
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Click Summary.
The Scenario Summary dialog box opens.
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Verify that the Scenario
summary option is selected and that cell E8 appears in the Result cells field.
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Click OK.
Excel creates a Scenario Summary worksheet.
Clean Up
Save the MultipleScenarios workbook, and then close it.
