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Gravity - Using Variables for Reporting

Variables: 

Variables are effectively shortcuts to writing your reports. They allow you to grab numbers or phrases between documents without having to go through and update them all when something changes.

Your report if it uses variables will have a Variable Dashboard in the Supporting Documents. 

 

The two most popular documents that include variables are MDAs and Budget Summaries. Using the example of a fictional MDA, let’s learn about variables: 

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Variables are formatted in one of two ways:

Yellow highlighting for destination variables.

Blue highlighting for source variables.


 

Variable Panel:

Accessing the Variable Panel:

The Variable Panel is a tool to import and review variables in any report. To access the variable panel:

  1. Click on “Extensions”.
  2. Click on “Gravity Sheets Add-On”.
  3. Click on “Paste”.
  4. Click on “Variable Panel” to find a particular variable. 

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In the Variable Panel, we see two tabs

Import: All variables in your Gravity Environment.

Review: All variables in the object selected.

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If you notice that variables in your object are missing in the Variables Panel.

  1. At the top of the tab, click on three lines.
  2. Then click “Refresh All”.

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Inserting a Variable:

To add a variable to any report: 

  1. Click on the cell or space where you want the variable to go. If you are inserting a variable into a text document, make sure there you have clicked on a space between words. 
  2. Click on “Extensions”.
  3. Click on “Gravity Sheets Add-On”.
  4. Click on “Paste”.
  5. Click on “Variable Panel”.
  6. In the “Import” tab, find the variable you want to insert. 


 

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  1. Click on blue arrow button in the bottom right of the variable. 

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Alternatively, you can copy and paste variables by selecting a variable, then going to the Variables drop down menu and selecting “Copy/Create”. Then go to where you want the variable and clicking “Paste”. A variable must be inserted into a space. 

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Deleting a Variable: 

If you want to remove a variable from a report, you will need to remove in with the following instructions. If you do not remove the variable in the following manner, it will break the variable, meaning you will have to reconstruct it. 

  1. Select the entire variable with the mouse. 
  2. Once the entire variable has been selected with your mouse, click on “Extensions”. 
  3. Then click “Gravity Editor Add-On”. 
  4. From the drop-down menu, select “Variables”. 
  5. Finally, click “Delete”.

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Following this process will ensure that you will never have broken variables. 


 

Creating a Source Variable:

If you want to create a variable to help automate your report: 

  1. Select the cell or word you want to use as a source variable.
  2. After select the desired source variable, click on “Extensions”.
  3. Then click on “Gravity Sheets Add-On”.
  4. In the drop menu, select Variables, and then click on “Copy/Create”.

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  1. In the Create Variable menu, name the variable. It is advised to add a description to the variable.

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  1. Then click “OK”.

Note: If you want to verify that your variable has been created, you can review all the variables in the object in the Variable Panel. 


 

Variable Dashboard: 

The variable dashboard is a spreadsheet that gives a summary of all variables used in the report and whether they are working or not. This variable dashboard is found in the supporting documentation in each report. 

In the variable dashboard, to refresh, you will have to click on the three lines by the tab for the variable dashboard and then click on “Refresh All Imports”.

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A screenshot of a computer AI-generated content may be incorrect.

Refreshing variables

If you notice that your variables are not updating after a change made to the source variables, you can: 

  1. Click on “Data” on the top bar in your Gravity report.
  2. Then click on “Refresh Variables”. This will refresh all the variables in the report.

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Editing Variables and Fixing Broken Variables:

To edit a variable, you will have to go to the variable source and edit the variable. estination variables will be broken if they are just edited in the documents. Some variables are a particular cell, such as a year that can change. If you see that the variable is broken because it is probably not been properly calculated. 

How to investigate variables

If for instance, we wanted to know where a variable was coming from, we can go to the specific sheet or document where that variable is located. There are two ways to investigate variables.

Method #1

  1. Click on the Variable.
  2. Then click on “Extensions”.
  3. Click on “Gravity Sheets Add-On”.
  4. Click on “Variables”.
  5. Click on “Go to source”.


 

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  1. At this point, find the Variable in the Variable Panel. 
  2. You will have to delete every instance of the target variable before you can delete the source variable. 

Method #2

  1. Click on the Variable
  2. Then click on “Extensions”.
  3. Click on “Gravity Sheets Add-On”.
  4. Click on “Variables”.
  5. Click on Variable Panel. 
  6. In the Review tab, you can click on a variable and see its source object.

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  1. You will have to delete every instance of the target variable before you can delete the source variable. 

Note: If you want to remove a source variable, you must remove all destination variables beforehand. This is a failsafe that makes sure that you cannot remove a variable and cease all automation in the report. 









 



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