For many supply and demand planners, Excel isn’t just a tool—it’s home base. It’s where models live, where forecasts are built, and where daily decisions are made. But as organizations push for more scalable, intelligent planning systems, there’s often an unspoken anxiety in the room: Will I have to give up Excel?
The short answer: No—and you shouldn’t have to.
At Promethean Analytics, we’ve seen this firsthand in countless sales calls and project kickoffs. Planners hesitate not because they doubt the value of more powerful systems, but because they fear the loss of control, speed, and flexibility they’ve come to rely on in Excel. That’s exactly why SmartView is such a critical part of the story.
Excel Is Still the Interface—But So Much Smarter Behind the Scenes
Cloud EPM is not a replacement for Excel. With SmartView, it’s an enhancement. It seamlessly connects Oracle’s powerful Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) and Planning tools to Excel, allowing planners to pull in real-time data, write back forecasts, and run sophisticated models—all without leaving the environment they already know.
What changes is what’s behind the spreadsheet.
SmartView gives planners access to a centralized, secure data model and the horsepower of machine learning-driven forecasting and optimization engines. That means:
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No more emailing versions back and forth.
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No more custom macros to patch over broken links.
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No more manual data updates before every meeting.
With SmartView, planners keep the flexibility of Excel while gaining the rigor, intelligence, and collaboration that only enterprise planning systems can provide.
From Local Hero to Enterprise Strategist
One of the quiet struggles planners face is this: the better they get at building Excel workarounds, the harder it becomes to scale or share their work. SmartView turns that corner. It enables planners to:
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Query and refresh data directly from source systems like Oracle EPM or NetSuite Planning & Budgeting (NSPB).
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Contribute to driver-based or intelligent seeding forecasts or scenario planning from Excel in real time.
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Collaborate across departments with confidence in the underlying data.
In effect, SmartView lets planners elevate from spreadsheet firefighters to true planning strategists—without forcing them to abandon the tools that made them great in the first place.
A Bridge, Not a Chasm
The digital transformation of planning doesn’t have to be a leap of faith. With SmartView, it can be a steady bridge—built on the foundation of Excel but leading to a future of more accurate, scalable, and intelligent planning.
At Promethean Analytics, we help our clients accelerate this journey through purpose-built accelerators, predictive-enabled planning models, and a focus on user adoption that starts with where planners are, not where we want them to go.
Let’s meet your team in Excel—and take them farther than they ever thought possible. Using Google Sheets in favor of Excel? SmartView works there too!
Want to see how SmartView works in action? Let’s schedule a live demo to see the fit to your team’s current Excel workflows.
Contact Us.