  Microsoft Excel is the most ubiquitous analytical tool ever built. Companies
around the world leverage it for its power, flexibility and ease of use.
However, spreadsheets are manually intensive and prone to error, making it
difficult for companies to control spreadsheet risk. The following solution is
designed to mitigate spreadsheet risk for a set of problems commonly addressed
in a spreadsheet defined as "complex multi-dimensional models". "Complex"
referring to certain types of applications that require functionality such as
sophisticated algorithms, challenging hierarchies and database write-back (i.e.
planning, forecasting, etc.) and "multi-dimensional" referring to providing
capabilities such as reporting, data input forms and ad hoc analysis on the
different attributes associated with the resulting model. The solution is
defined as a "PivotModel" because it works similarly to a PivotTable but is
designed to leverage the robust capabilities of the Microsoft Excel platform.
