Bring your existing spreadsheet
Import a planning workbook, review what came across, and start asking what-ifs against it.
Most planning already lives in a spreadsheet. This walkthrough imports one, checks what eode understood, and gets you to what-ifs — without rebuilding anything by hand.
Before you start
Any planning workbook works. It doesn't need reshaping, but two things make the import cleaner:
- Sheet names that say what they hold ("Demand", "Capacity", "Costs") — they help the mapping.
- One scenario per sheet set, if the workbook holds several. eode will ask which to import first and can pull the others in later as what-ifs.
Step 1 — Import
New Model → Import a file, then drop the .xlsx (or drag it anywhere on the launcher).
A Google Sheet works too — paste the link, with the sheet shared "Anyone with the link →
Viewer"; all tabs import, like a workbook.
Multi-scenario workbooks pause here and ask which scenario to import as the base.
Step 2 — Let validation run first
Before any model gets built, eode validates the workbook. If there are blocking issues, the import halts and lists every one with its location — before any model authoring happens. Fix the workbook and re-import, or use Refresh from workbook on the model row afterward.
Warnings that aren't blocking stay listed as informational; you acknowledge them later.
Step 3 — Review what came across
Workbook imports land on Review imported data — the reconciliation screen. This is the important part, and it's worth reading properly.
The headline panel compares two columns:
| Column | What it is |
|---|---|
| Imported from workbook | The plan your workbook recorded, imported exactly as stated, traced to the source cell. |
| Optimized within your limits | What the model chose when it optimized inside the same caps your workbook set. |
A gap between them is not an import bug — it's what optimization found that your spreadsheet didn't. That gap is often the whole reason to do this.
Below, category panels show every imported field, its value, and the workbook cell it matched, with a traced percentage per category. Fields the importer derived rather than matched are marked "derived — no direct cell match" so you can check them.
Constraints from your workbook lists the caps taken straight from your sheets — demand, capacity, discounts. When one binds, the plan can't meet everything, and that's your workbook's own intent, not an error.
Step 4 — Accept and promote
Acknowledge any validation warnings, accept each category (or Accept all), then Accept Base & promote. The imported data becomes the model's Base, and the model is ready.
Step 5 — Now ask the questions your spreadsheet couldn't
With Base in place, ask what-ifs in plain English — "What if our biggest supplier raises prices 12%?" Each becomes a scenario with deltas against your imported plan.
If the workbook held other scenarios, the Scenarios screen offers to import them as what-ifs too (each takes a few minutes, since each re-runs a full solve).
Next
- Data integration — templates, validation rules, and re-syncing from a workbook.
- Reading results — how to read the optimized column.