Flex for Windows, the Datarails Excel Add-in for FP&A

Flex, The Excel plugin, lies at the heart of the Datarails platform. It connects any data systems you may be using to your Excel environment through the cloud, so you can access all your consolidated data instantly. Through the plugin, a live representation of your Excel report can be published on a PowerPoint presentation or online dashboard.

Installing the Excel Add-in will allow you to:

• Create a Datarails ribbon in Excel, as shown here:

• Access the Datarails features and capabilities directly within your Excel workflow.
• If you don’t see the Datarails ribbon, follow the steps in this Help Center article to install it. 

Let’s dive into what you can do with the Excel Add-in:

• You can follow along the course material by opening a training file in a separate environment. Click here for instructions to access it.
• Clicking on the Submit button  saves your changes to the Datarails cloud. Previous versions of the file aren’t overwritten. Instead, a new version is created every time you press this button saving the date it was created and by whom, making it easy to maintain version control. Enter your Datarails web environment to view these versions. We cover the version audit functions in depth in the Web Environment module of this course.

Image: Datarails Web Environment

• Back in the Excel add-in, if your desired file isn’t connected to Datarails yet, the Datarails ribbon will show a Connect button  . Click the button and follow the instructions to create a FileBox in your Datarails environment. A FileBox is a type of folder we use to save multiple versions of an Excel file.
• The Refresh  button syncs your data in the Excel report with the latest information in Datarails. If you integrated Datarails with one of your ERP systems, you will see data from the latest synchronization between Datarails and your system.  

A yellow triangle on the Refresh button indicates that there is data in Datarails that hasn’t been loaded into Excel yet . 

Once clicking on the⌄-symbol on the Refresh button, you can choose between refreshing only Selected Cells or Selected Tables. Selecting which items to refresh helps reduce refresh time for large reports.

• The New Version button  appears next to the Refresh button if a new version of the Excel add-in software is available. Click the button to download the new version and gain access to new features and improvements.
• The Drill Down button  allows you to access transactional data associated with a given cell in your report. For example, if your report shows a P&L statement, you can drill down into all the line items that make up revenue or expenses for a given period.

Try it now: Drill-down practice

1. Open the Excel file “P&L - Practice Report”. It’s located in a separate Datarails practice environment, so you can use it to practice without impacting your existing reports.

Click here for instructions on how to open the practice report.

2. In the tab “P&L” select cell D13 (Operating Expenses Actuals for the month) 

3. At the top of your Excel file, in the Datarails ribbon, click Drill Down .

4. Select Drill Details

5. A new tab will appear with all line items associated with that cell.

6. Go back to the tab “P&L” and cell D14

7. Click Drill Down then Drill Down by Field

8. A pop-up window will appear that allows you to pivot the transactional data by any of your available fields

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Image: Drill-down by

9. Select the "Account Sub Type" field and click “Ok”. Edit and format the resulting pivot table and save it to favorites by right-clicking on it and selecting Datarails > Add to Favorites

Video: Drill-downs 

The Functions drop-down menu also includes other critical features:

• • Use the Formula Builder to create Datarails formulas simply by dragging and dropping fields into rows and columns.
  • The Report Builder helps you create entire reports from scratch without having to remember the Datarails formula syntax. You can simply drag and drop your fields into rows and columns and Datarails will create all formulas for you. We will cover this feature in-depth in a later module.
• Filters work similarly to the Pivot table filters in Excel. Filters give you the option to display only the data you desire. They can be simply toggled on/off via a drop-down list and affect every cell in your report. 

For example, you can filter your Income Statement report to show only one country or division.

There are two types of filters:

• The Table Filter allows you to select which Function you would like it to apply to.  This is useful if you are using multiple Functions in your report and want to affect only a specific one.
• Use the Global Filter if you would like it to apply to all Functions. You may have the same field across multiple Functions, for example, “Product Name”. If you want to affect all of them with one filter, use the Global one. 

The following video shows how to create a Filter:

Video: How to add a Filter

• Date Picker is a visual way to select your reporting period. You can think of it as a filter for different types of periods such as day, month, quarter, and year. Click on it to change the period and cells that reference a date will change accordingly. 

The following features in the Datarails ribbon will be covered in-depth in the Certificate Level 2 course (the course is currently under development):

• The Dynamic Ranges automatically add rows to your report when they get added to the database. 

• Roll Forward advances your Datarails formulas to the next period.

• The Lists button displays the data points from a selected column, similar to drop-down menus in Excel. This enables you to refer to them in your Datarails formulas. 
• You can Publish  your Excel report as an  online dashboard or a dynamic PowerPoint chart.
• You can Export your report as values or as a PDF so they can be viewed by others who don’t have a Datarails license. 

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Next: Datarails Formulas

Updated September 19, 2023 13:06