Scenario and Cell History

You can view the changes made over time to a plan scenario and a specific cell within a scenario. This provides traceability and enables you to understand how a scenario and its cells have changed. You can also restore historic changes. This can be useful if a change was made by mistake.

Scenario History

When viewing a scenario's history, you can see who made changes to it and when. The description of a change provides you with information about what was changed.

History entries are created when you:

  • Create a scenario.
  • Edit cells in the table. In this case, the description provides the number of cells that you changed.
  • Restore cells to historic values. In this case, the description provides the number of cells that were restored and the version they were restored to.
  • Rename the scenario.
  • Mark the scenario as the default scenario for the plan.
  • Unmark the scenario as the default scenario for the plan and mark another scenario as the default.
  • Lock the scenario.
  • Unlock the scenario after it was locked.
  • Lock the entire plan.
  • Unlock the entire plan after it was locked.
  • Apply the Update from Analytics process, overwriting the plan data to match the Analytics dataset. The description displays the number of updated cells and the number of deleted obsolete cells.

Recalculations

If the scenario contains cells that use formulas to calculate the values, they are recalculated as needed. For example, when a cell referenced by the formula is changed. The recalculations are performed by the Automated Process user. This is a Salesforce system user used to run background processes. For more information about the Automated Process user, see the Salesforce Help.

Unlike editing cells, recalculation changes display the number of values that were recalculated since the last manual change to the scenario. This number can include multiple changes to the same cell. If recalculations span multiple days, they are grouped together by day. Note that the time displayed belongs to the latest recalculation.

Cell History

When viewing a cell's history, you can see who changed the cell value, when they changed it, and the variance from the previous value. The variance is calculated as follows:

New Value - Previous Value

If a unit is applied to the cell, this is also reflected in the history. In this case, however, the variance is not calculated. Note that units are always displayed using their code in the cell history, regardless of the plan's display settings.

Calculations

If the cell uses a formula to calculate the value, the definition of the formula is displayed.

In some cases, the cell history displays changes made by the Automated Process user. The cell history displays changes made by the Automated Process user for cells that contain formulas in the following cases:

  • When you update a formula that references another cell.
  • When you update another cell that is referenced by the formula.

In either case, the other cell can be in the same scenario, another scenario within the same plan, or in a different plan.

Cell Comments

If the cell contains comments, you can view them at the same time as viewing the cell history. This can provide you with additional context about why a specific change was made. Note that comments relate to the entire cell, not a single change.

Restoring Historic Values

You can restore cells to their historic values. This can be useful if the cells were changed by mistake. You can use the Cell History window to restore a single cell or use the Scenario History window to restore all the cells that were changed since a given point in time.

When you restore a cell to a historic value, its numeric value and Planning unit revert to what they were at that point in time. If the cell contains a formula, the formula definition is restored, rather than the result of the calculation. Once the formula is restored, the value is recalculated. If the cell contains an adjustment, the adjustment is also reverted to the selected point in time. This can result in an adjustment being applied to or removed from the cell.

When you restore a scenario to a historic version, the cells that were manually changed revert to their state at the point in time. Changes to the scenario itself, such as changing its name or marking it as the default scenario for the plan, cannot be restored.