Datalinks are available in our Desktop product, but not available in our Cloud product.
Datalinks were a well-loved feature, but as consultants, we no longer use Datalinks in forecasts we build for clients, nor do we recommend them in Desktop.
Going forward, Upload Forecast Data is our recommendation, because:
- it offers better governance: you decide when to upload the forecast vs automatic updates with Datalinks. Upload Forecast Data enables an approval/ confirmation/ sanity check step between changing the numbers in Excel and updating the forecast in Castaway
- it offers productivity in your setup: create an Excel template from Castaway, add your forecast numbers (or link them to other Excel sources) and upload. This is much quicker to setup than Datalinks when multiple lines are involved
- it offers productivity in ongoing use: in one spreadsheet, we upload every item of input data for every month for every element
- it offers flexibility: the upload spreadsheet is robust. Upload data for every Element, or delete rows to strip it back to just a few key input lines. You can even split it up into multiple spreadsheets, each uploaded separately … For example, one per Department
What Are Datalinks (in Desktop)?
Datalinks enable a live, dynamic connection between a row of numbers in Excel and a row of numbers in a Castaway element. After a Datalink is established, changes made (and saved) in Excel will show up in Castaway immediately.
Every Datalink must be set up separately … one row in Excel matched to one row in Castaway.
Datalinks use ‘absolute referencing’. If you set up a link to, say, row 57 in Excel, that link will always be to row 57, even if you insert/delete rows in Excel. Changes to your Excel spreadsheet would affect your Datalinks.