This article shows you the basics of reading parts of your existing Excel models into Openbox. But when you have done that, it is important to check that it has been brought into Openbox correctly. There are many different ways that calculations can be done in Excel, and it is not possible to guarantee that Openbox will always correctly convert them.

The first way to check is by running Validation. This will do a number of checks (click here for more detail) on the model which can identify issues with the original Excel as well as issues that have arisen when importing.

This will also create the preview spreadsheet. You can then compare that to the original spreadsheet to see if the results are the same. We strongly recommend you do this whenever importing from Excel.

The second way is to use the “Show in Excel” button in the Ribbon. If you click on an item in the Openbox window, then “Show in Excel”, Openbox will highlight the cell(s) in Excel that correspond to that item in Openbox. You can then compare the original Excel formula, and its Openbox equivalent.