Excel 2010 PivotTable What-If Analysis (Writeback)
When thinking of Excel as an OLAP analytical tool the first thing that usually comes to mind is the ability to quickly and easily analyze data from an OLAP data source. With the introduction of PivotTable What-If Analysis in Excel 2010 you can now easily modify this data as well. Put simply, PivotTable What-If Analysis is the ability to modify values in PivotTable cells, recalculate the PivotTable with those values and, if the results are satisfactory, publish the changes so that they are reflected in the OLAP data source for other people to see. This feature is also called writeback, though it really goes beyond just the ability to write values back to the cube. “What if our sales for New York increased by 10%?” “What if the total number of product orders fell by 25%?” These are examples of questions that PivotTable What-If Analysis is aimed at helping the user answer.