Scenarios are part of a suite of commands sometimes called what-if analysis tools. A scenario is a set of values that Microsoft Office Excel saves and can substitute automatically on your worksheet. You can use scenarios to forecast the outcome of a worksheet model. You can create and save different groups of values on a worksheet and then switch to any of these new scenarios to view different results.In this article

Overview

Creating scenarios For example, you might want to use a scenario if you want to create a budget but are uncertain of your revenue. With a scenario, you can define different values for the revenue and then switch between the scenarios to perform what-if analyses.

worst case scenario

In the example above, you can name the scenario Worst Case, set the value in cell B1 to $50,000, and set the value in cell B2 to $13,200.

best case scenario

You can name the second scenario Best Case and change the values in B1 to $150,000 and in B2 to $26,000.

Scenario summary reports To compare several scenarios, you can create a report that summarizes them on the same page. The report can list the scenarios side by side or summarize them in a PivotTable report . For more information, see the section .

Create a scenario

  1. On the Data tab, in the Data Tools group, click What-If Analysis, and then click Scenario Manager.
  2. Click Add.
  3. In the Scenario name box, type a name for the scenario .
  4. In the Changing cells box, enter the references for the cells that you want to change.

    Note To preserve the original values for the changing cells, create a scenario that uses the original cell values before you create scenarios that change the values.

  5. Under Protection, select the options that you want.
  6. Click OK.
  7. In the Scenario Values dialog box, type the values that you want for the changing cells.
  8. To create the scenario, click OK.

  9. If you want to create additional scenarios, repeat steps 2 through 8. When you finish creating scenarios, click OK, and then click Close in the Scenario Manager dialog box.

Display a scenario

When you display a scenario, you change the values of the cells that are saved as part of that scenario.

  1. On the Data tab, in the Data Tools group, click What-If Analysis, and then click Scenario Manager.
  2. Click the name of the scenario that you want to display.
  3. Click Show.

Create a scenario summary report

  1. On the Data tab, in the Data Tools group, click What-If Analysis, and then click Scenario Manager.
  2. Click Summary.
  3. Click Scenario summary or Scenario PivotTable report.
  4. In the Result cells box, enter the references for the cells that refer to cells whose values are changed by the scenarios . Separate multiple references with commas.

Note You don't need result cells to generate a scenario summary report, but you do need them for a scenario PivotTable report .