IBM Support

PA for MS Excel formulas have a '@' added to the front

Troubleshooting


Problem

New Installation of Planning Analytics for Microsoft Excel and/or Microsoft Office
Workbook/sheet that contains PA for MSExcel formulas have a 'at sign' (@) added to their forefront.

Cause

New feature in Microsoft Excel.  This scenario will occur, only if Excel has the added option for ‘Working with formulas’ labeled "Suggest formula variations that are supported by older versions of Excel".

Environment

Issue was encountered on this known version and build of Microsoft Excel
Microsoft Office 365 ProPlus
Version 1910 (Build 12130.20410)
16.0.12130.20232 32-bit

Resolving The Problem

The addition of the ‘@’ sign in formulas appears to be associated with “structured references in Excel tables” as described in the link below (See link under Related URL section)

The context help for that option states "With the introduction of dynamic arrays, we upgraded Excel's formula language. As a result, you may enter formulas that are not supported in some older versions of Excel. This option will recommend an alternative formula."
In relation to PA for MSExcel formulas, specifically, please note the following:
- User opens an Excel file that contains DBRW formulas from a user with an older version of Excel, his version automatically adds in the ‘@’ sign and the data refreshes as expected.
- Another user, that has an older version of MS Excel (which doesn't have the option ‘Working with formulas’ labeled "Suggest formula variations that are supported by older versions of Excel") will NOT see any  ‘@’ sign in front of the same formulas.  And the data refreshes from Planning Analytics as expected.
Note.  Having the '@' sign in front of the formulas (on the Excel that has that 'structured references with Excel tables' features) does not affect Planning Analytics for Microsoft Excel functionality. 

Document Location

Worldwide

[{"Business Unit":{"code":"BU059","label":"IBM Software w\/o TPS"},"Product":{"code":"SSD29G","label":"IBM Planning Analytics"},"Component":"Planning Analytics for Microsoft Excel","Platform":[{"code":"PF033","label":"Windows"}],"Version":"All Versions","Edition":"","Line of Business":{"code":"LOB10","label":"Data and AI"}}]

Document Information

Modified date:
23 January 2020

UID

ibm11142578