Editing data
Change a model's numbers from the Data entry widget: per-period edits, a what-if or the base model, then run it.
Getting numbers into a model is covered in Data integration and Datasets. This page is the other half: changing numbers that are already in a model, and deciding where the change lands.
Nothing you type is written as you type it. Edits collect into a change-set that you save deliberately, and saving puts them on a what-if scenario unless you say otherwise.
The Data entry widget
Add the Data entry widget to a workspace to get an editable grid over the model's input tables.
Two things it tells you instead of showing an empty grid:
- "Loading input tables…" while it reads the model's editable tables.
- "No editable inputs for this model yet" when the model has none to bind to. The widget then offers Define a view with RIA.
Making a change
Find the rows
Above the grid are two boxes: an exact-match box for a row's key, and a Filter rows box that matches on part of it. Filtering runs against the whole table on the server, not just the rows on screen.
Decide where the values land
Apply to chooses the periods. All periods (base) sets the base value; picking a single period sets that period only, and the widget states the consequence — edits "set the value for <period> only (per-period override); other periods keep the base value." The select appears only on a table that has more than one period.
Apply changes to chooses the destination: This scenario (a what-if), the default, or The base model (permanent).
Edit
Type into a cell, or Add row to add one. A new row needs its key filled in before it can be saved. The footer counts what you have changed — edits, and new rows separately.
Clear the guidance
The Guidance rail beside the grid states what your change-set does and does not satisfy, each item counting the rows it covers and marked either blocks apply or ok to apply. With nothing outstanding it reads "Looks clean: nothing to check." Ask RIA on a card takes the item into the console.
While blocking guidance is outstanding the save button reads N to resolve and is disabled —
"Resolve blocking guidance first."
Save, then run
Save N changes stores the change-set on a new what-if scenario named for the edit, and the status line reads "Saved — press Run to solve." Saving again on the same set reads Re-save N changes. Discard throws the set away.
Saving does not run anything. Run scenario, under the grid and in the workspace toolbar, runs the saved edits: "Solves <scenario> with the edits you saved." When you have edits that are not saved yet it tells you so — "Save your edits first, then this will solve them."
The saved edits become a what-if like any other — compare it, keep it, or delete it from Scenarios.
Changing the base model
Set Apply changes to to The base model (permanent) and the save button becomes Preview N changes on the base model. It does not write. It runs your change-set against the base model and shows the result in an Apply to the base model? card, so you compare the outcome before anything is committed.
Two things can stop it, and both say so plainly:
- "Someone else is holding this model — the base model can't be changed until they finish."
- "You don't have permission to change this model's own data."
A change to the base model is the model's data from then on, and every scenario solved against the old numbers is out of date. Use a what-if when you are still deciding.
Large tables
Rows load a page at a time: the grid counts how many of the total are loaded and offers Load more. Where a model caps how many rows it will serve, the grid says only the first rows are shown, and that the filter searches only those — enter an exact key to reach the rest.
When two people edit at once
If someone else changed a value you were editing, eode stops before saving and lists the clashes, headed with how many values changed since you opened them. Resolution is per cell: each shows what it was, who set the new value, and what you set, with three choices — Keep mine, Take theirs, or Edit to type a third value. Keep all mine and Take all theirs decide the lot. Save resolved writes your decisions; until then, "Nothing has been saved yet."
Two notes keep the scope clear: "Your other N changes didn't clash and will be saved as-is." and "N still to decide — undecided cells keep your value." There is no automatic merge of two numbers.
If the view you were editing through changed shape rather than its values — different columns, a different row filter — there is nothing to reconcile cell by cell. eode says so instead: "This view changed while you were editing." / "Its columns or row filter are no longer what you started from." / "Nothing has been saved. Reopen the view to see its current shape, then re-enter the values you still want."
Per-scenario inputs
Some models take inputs on the scenario rather than the model. That panel is headed with the scenario's name and is explicit about its scope: "Edit cells above, then Save — the values land on this scenario only."
Each required input is tracked as awaiting or complete, and Run scenario stays locked — "Supply the required inputs first" — until every one is filled. With everything supplied it reads "All required inputs supplied — run when ready."
Define a view with RIA
A view is a named slice of a model's input tables — which table, which columns, which rows, and which of those columns you can edit. Define a view with RIA, on the Data entry widget, builds one from a description. It opens by itself on a widget you have just added.
Describe what you want under What do you want to work with? — the dialog's own examples, under Try one, are "A pricing sheet for our products", "Capacity by resource, in hours", and "Material costs and supply caps". Draft the view sends it: "RIA is drafting your view — mapping business terms to the model's real tables…"
RIA comes back with a proposal to check: a View name, and under Columns (N kept) one row per column where you set whether to include it, a business label, a display unit, and whether it is editable or read-only. Two rules are enforced — the row key cannot be excluded, and a view needs at least one editable column: "a view with none is read-only noise."
Every kept column is checked against the model before anything is saved, which is why making a read-only column editable, or adding a column that is not in the proposal, means asking again: Re-propose with a broader request. Create view saves it; Cancel drops it.
If RIA cannot map what you asked for, it says so rather than guessing, and offers Start from one of this model's tables — one chip per table, each drafting a view over that whole table.
Editing a dataset instead
Data sitting in the dataset library has its own grid, with a full toolbar, undo, find and replace, and one deliberate Save. It is a different surface with different rules: no scenario is involved, and nothing is written until you save.
Structural changes
Changing what the model is — a new limit, a different cost structure, a capability switched on — is not a data edit. See Changing a model.