By linking rows to cells in a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, you can combine the data from report building blocks and Excel to summarise and display information in additional ways.

A row definition typically contains links to financial accounts and dimension. These links allow for dynamic reporting. Management Reporter pulls the information from the links every time that you generate a report. In this manner, the report always uses the most current information available.

You can also create links from a row to a cell in an Excel spreadsheet file that is maintained separately from your Management Reporter reports. For example, you can create a report that compares actual expenses from Microsoft Dynamics ERP to the budget in an Excel spreadsheet.

When used with a reporting tree, linking enables each unit in the reporting tree to use a different Excel workbook or worksheet. This means that reports can be formatted to pull in the same data or distinct data for each level of the report.

You can access data in an Excel worksheet by using a combined worksheet link or a separate worksheet link. For more information, see Using a combined worksheet link and Using a separate worksheet link .

Using a combined worksheet link

A Financial Dimensions + Worksheetlink, also known as a combined worksheet link, combines references to cells in an external worksheet file into the same link column that you use for links to accounts or dimensions. When you use this method to access data in an external worksheet file, some rows in a column of the report will contain data from your financial data system, and other rows in that same column will contain data from the external worksheet file. We recommend that you use this method when you are importing limited amounts of data, such as work hours, head count, or units sold, that you do not have to associate with a specific unit in the reporting tree.

Note Note

This method does not require a reporting tree, but can only pull data from a single worksheet per link.

Using a separate worksheet link

A separate worksheet link lets you access multiple rows and columns of data in an external worksheet file, and to associate one or more external worksheet files with one or more reporting units in the reporting tree. You create a special column in the row definition that links to cells in the external worksheet file, and then add the names of the external worksheet files to the reporting tree.

Note Note

If you link to spreadsheets that have identical worksheet layouts, you reduce the number of link columns that are required in the row definition and the time that is required to maintain your report.

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