Question

Class, let's take a closer look at the what-if analysis tools of Excel. What are the different types of these tools? How are each different in terms of the number of input variables and the number of output calculations?

Answer 1

Part first) There are three types of what if analysis

1) Goal seek

2) Data table

3) Scenario manager.

Second part

Goal seek is different from data table in the way that there are multiple inputs in case of data table which is not the case in case of goal seek. For eg. if we have price as 10 and quantity as 20 and total sale as 200(10*20), now if we want to use the data table feature, then we can find out how much changed needs to be made to either price of quantity to make a sale of 500. On the other hand if we have too many input variables like different quantities of an items like 10,20,30 quantity, we use data table feature.

Thirdly scenario manager is used to save one scenario for future use. For eg. if we have price and quantity of 10 and 20 and sale of 200, then we can save this sale as 'Sunday' sale if this sale was made on Sunday and change the data in the cells for Monday and again save it using 'Monday sale' as name. hence it helps us in saving input data for various scenarios. This we have maximum number of inputs in this case.