Creating scenarios

With the “Scenario manager” in Excel we can do the “What if analysis” to analyze different data values without changing the data.
For example:

In a hairdresser’s salon, they sell certain services: haircut, hair color and hairdry.

Some days everything goes normally.
On a sunny day people cancel reservations.
And there are days when the salon is full, eg for a holiday.
To avoid changing the data in the cells, we developed a number of set scenarios.
We find the “Scenario manager” option under “What if analysis” in the “Data” tab in the “Ribbon”.
Click the downward pointing arrow next to “What if analysis”, and choose “Scenario Manager”.
In the dialog that appears, choose “Add”.
In the top box, you give a name to the first scenario.
I will name it as ‘Normal’.
In the second section, “Changing cells”, specify the cells that need to be changed depending on the chosen scenario. Click and drag over the cells with your mouse, hold the Ctrl key on your keyboard pressed when you want to select non-adjacent cells.
In the third field you can optionally enter a comment.

Click OK when all fields are filled
In the “Add scenario” window you give different values for the “Changing cells”.
Click the Add button.
Remember that we still need to enter two more scenarios.

For a sunny day and a holiday.

You repeat these steps for each scenario.
If you are ready then press OK.

In the “Scenario Manager” dialog box that appears, you see three scenarios.
Click Close

Playing scenarios

We can apply the scenarios we have created whenever we want.
Click the downward pointing arrow next to “What if analysis”, and choose “Scenario Manager”.
In the “Scenario manager” window, select a scenario, and click the “Show” button.
You can select the different scenarios and click on the “Show” button.
The values in the cells pertaining to the scenarios, will automatically be modified.

Changing scenarios

To modify a scenario open the “Scenario Manager” dialog box, select the script, and click the “Edit” button.
In the “Edit Scenario” dialog, you can change all your settings.
Click OK and again OK if you are satisfied.
Click “Close” button to close the dialog box.

Deleting a scenario

To delete a scenario open the “Scenario Manager” dialog box, select the script, and click the “Delete” button.
Excel will not give you any warning, and the scenario will be removed immediately.

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