Technical Documentation

Cell Types:

• Root Cells: These cells contain data, either hand-typed or set via external API calls, that are used by Formula Cells and represent the starting points of all calculation chains.
• Formula Cells: As noted above, a formula cell computes a value using one or more Root Cells, or the values of other formula cells, as inputs.
• Terminal Cells: A terminal cell is also a formula cell, but its value does not drive anything else in the model. Thus, a given calculation chain "terminates" with this type of cell. 
• Cell Ancestry: This refers to the computational lineage of a given cell, in the context of one or more compute chains. Values that a given cell relies up to compute its own value are called "parents", and cells whose values are controlled by a given cell are considered "children".

Relevant Case Studies

• Capital Markets Special Situation Screening, Calculation, and Visualization Tool
• Locking down models via End User Computing Tool declaration
• Portfolio-Wide Scenario and Risk Analysis

These are just some of the reasons ClearFactr provides a Model Engagement panel for every model that you have access to. Some people refer to this panel as ClearFactr’s “Virtual Data Room”, recreating how the manager of an old-time physical data room might control who has access to what, who’s been in the room and for how long, what items in the room they seem to be interested in, etc.

This panel is also the place where fine-grained, per-user, per-model permissioning is actioned. Roles for users span from read only, through limited editing, to the ability to make structural changes and more, and also include the abilities to merge scenarios and export the model back to a native Excel file. Management and auditing of the latter is crucial as this an opportunity for data and business logic to be transferred from a highly-controlled environment to an uncontrolled one. 

Relevant Case Studies

• Transparency and Efficiency In Public Finance
• Collaborative Budgeting and Forecasting

• Cmd-S: Save Changes
• Ctrl-Z: Undo cell changes
• Ctrl-Y: Redo cell changes
• Ctrl-X, C, P: Cut, Copy, Paste
  
  

Adding one or more queries to your model involves two steps, the first of which only needs to be done once:

1. Create a DataSource
2. Use the DataSource via a CFSQL function call.

Creating a DataSource

This a specially-permissioned feature. Ask your account system administrator (or the ClearFactr Customer Success team) about it.  If you have permissions to this feature, the DataSource Editor will appear on the Developer menu visible on any open model. Select the item and you'll see the following:

Click here to learn more about each section of the tool.

You only need a single person on the team (with perhaps a backup) to create and manage your DataSources. All other users can make use of them, as described below:

Using a DataSource

ClearFactr's propriety CFSQL function is the connector between the details of your model and the data in your Cloud Data Warehouse. You can certainly write one by hand, but it may be easier to use our Query Builder to do it for you. Yes, you can think of it as a "wizard for CFSQL".  Once you get your query dialed in, and tested, via the Query Builder, you just commit it back to your chosen cell, and the results come into the grid. If you ever want to change the behavior of the query, just double-click the cell as if you're editing a formula, and the Query Editor will open with your CFSQL configuration already in place. Notice we said "behavior" of the query -- not the inputs. The most powerful thing you can do with this feature is to have cell values from your model, even those computed or derived by other queries, drive your chosen CFSQL function. In other words, there's incredible power in making these things highly dynamic and interactive.

To get started, right click on a cell and select "Insert --> Query" from the context menu. That will bring up the Query Builder, where the very first step will be to select a DataSource.  Here's the Query Builder:

Click here to learn more about each field.