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Scenarios are part of a suite of commands sometimes called what-if analysis (what-if analysis: A process of changing the values in cells to see how those changes affect the outcome of formulas on the worksheet. For example, varying the interest rate that is used in an amortization table to determine the amount of the payments.) tools. A scenario is a set of values that Microsoft Excel saves and can substitute automatically in 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.

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

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

You could name the second scenario Best Case and change the values in B1 to $150,000 and 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 (PivotTable report: An interactive, crosstabulated Excel report that summarizes and analyzes data, such as database records, from various sources, including ones that are external to Excel.).