Excel: find and insert functions#

Reportworq ships a library of worksheet functions you write into cells like any other Excel formula. You do not have to remember their names or their arguments. The Formula Library dock, pinned at the foot of the companion pane, is a searchable catalog that also writes the function into the sheet for you.

When to use it. Whenever you are writing a Reportworq function and want the signature, an example, and a correct skeleton in the cell rather than typing one from memory. It is also the fastest way to read a workbook someone else built.

Before you start#

• The shared prerequisites in The Office add-ins.
• The workbook open in Excel with the Reportworq task pane showing.

Find a function#

1. Open the Formula Library dock at the foot of the pane. It expands into a near-full-height sheet.
2. Browse a family, or enter a term in the search box to filter across all of them.

The dock groups the catalog into three families:

• Reporting functions control the output itself: naming a sheet from a formula, coloring a tab, suppressing a page.
• Data access functions retrieve values from a connected system. These are grouped by connector family, so the Planning Analytics functions look different from the relational ones, and the Workday Adaptive ones different again.
• Contribution functions belong to write-back forms rather than read-only reports. See Contribution functions.

Search does not require you to expand a family first. A query with no matches shows an empty state rather than an error.

Read what a function does#

Select a function to open its Learn page. It carries the function's goal, its signature, each parameter, a worked example, best practices, related functions, and a link to the full documentation.

Function names have a long form and a short alias. RW.Tools.SheetName and RWSHEETNAME are the same function. Prefer the long form in new work, because it says which family the function belongs to, and it is the form the library and the reference use.

Insert a function into a cell#

1. Select the cell on the worksheet where the function should go.
2. In the library, open the function you want.
3. Choose Insert.

Reportworq writes a skeleton call into the active cell and confirms with a toast. Fill in the arguments from the signature on the Learn page.

Open the Learn page for a function already in the sheet#

Select a cell that already holds a Reportworq function, and the library opens straight at that function's Learn page. This works for both the long form and the short alias.

This is the quickest way to understand a workbook you inherited: select the cell, read what the function does. Selecting a cell that holds a plain value, or a native Excel formula, does not open the library.

Notes and limits#

• The library inserts a skeleton, not a working formula. You still supply the arguments.
• Insert targets the active cell, so the cell you want has to be selected first.
• Reportworq functions are inert in desktop Excel. Nothing happens in the cell until the report runs. See Functions overview.

Going deeper. For the full catalog by connector family, what each function does, and which one to reach for when, see Functions overview.