Revelwood Launches Adaptive Insights Tips & Tricks Series with How to Override Default Lookups

December 11, 2019

We’re launching a new, regular blog series of Adaptive Insights Tips & Tricks. These blog posts will help both new and existing users of Adaptive Insights for Finance get more out of the software, find shortcuts and discover new ways of working with the Adaptive Insights platform.

In our first Adaptive Insights Tips & Tricks post, Gary Leiffer, a senior consultant and trainer with Revelwood’s Adaptive Insights practice, explains how to override default lookups. A model sheet enables the user to refer to a lookup table for default values. For example, a Capital Asset Model may have fixed depreciation time-frames for types of assets. Very often, an actual asset may not use the fixed default. This tip will enable the model developer to create a process for the model user to override the default value while entering the asset itself. The process has numerous utilization potential in travel sheets to override default airfare for example, or as in the tip itself, specifically to enter a value for leasehold improvement which is variable by lease.

Select_Life: if(ROW.Lease_Term>0,ROW.Lease_Term, ROW.Useful_Life)

The Select Life is currently—–code: Select Life (or whatever you call it): if(ROW.Lease_Term>0,ROW.Lease_Term, ROW.Useful_Life)—- and if you use it whatever the column code is that is the variable to be entered if different would replace the “Lease Term” and the table or account/column being overridden replaces the “Useful Life”.

Literal English for the formula: If the value in the lease_term column is greater than zero, use it, otherwise take the value from the Useful_Life table (again, or take the value from anywhere you are possibly overriding a default … could be airfare cost or number of days in my travel example, or raise percentage or raise month in the Personnel example, which are not tables just entries in assumptions.

Then for depreciation, for example: replace “Select Life” with whatever code you assigned to the prior calculation in: if(this.version.positionof (this.month)>= this.version.positionof (ROW.InSvcDate.month) and this.version.positionof (this.month)<( this.version.positionof (ROW.InSvcDate.month)+ROW.Select_Life), div(ROW.Amount,ROW.Select_Life),0)

Literal English for this formula: If the month is greater than or equal to the month of the start date for the asset, and the month is within the range of the start month and life of the asset, divide the Amount by the life to get the depreciation for that month, otherwise enter zero.

This works for not just travel models, but for any variable you need to override.

The team at Revelwood has been recognized by Adaptive for its thought leadership in the space, commitment to its Adaptive Insights practice and its rapid achievements of milestones. Visit Revelwood’s Knowledge Center on Wednesdays for our Adaptive Insights Tips & Tricks. Not sure where to start with Adaptive Insights? Our team here at Revelwood can help! Contact us info@revelwood.com for more information.