Start from your workbook

Name the model and set the goal

In the rail, click New Model, then Next, Basic, Next. Type a name and click Next. On Describe your goals, click Add, then Add on What to optimize: leave Maximize, type weekly profit, click Finish, then Save.

Attach the workbook

Click Add on Upload or select relevant datasources, then Upload new datasets and attach them to this model. In Import Data, click Microsoft Excel and drop the file on Drop a file here, or click to browse. It reports 8 sheets detected · 8 tables; click Continue →.

⤢ Open

Every table is ticked. Click Add source, type a Dataset name, and click Import data →. The window closes with the dataset attached; click Finish. The window itself is covered in Import data.

Let eode read the sheets

Click Next. After Reading what you told me, Step 2 opens while the reading carries on; Next lights up when it's done (about a minute for us). Click it to open Your data, as I read it.

Check the lists, name the parts, use every sheet

Under WHERE THE NAMES COME FROM, check each list: products from Items, customers from Customer Demand, places from Places, and one period, Week 1. If a list came from the wrong place, Change it. Under What to call things, pick a name for each part (we took Stock at each site, Customer orders, Purchases, Production). Click Use all sheets; each sheet card then reads Used.

⤢ Open

Click Next.

Say what to decide

What you want to decide holds your goal. Replace it with one sentence that also says how long the plan is:

Plan for one week: decide how many sourdough loaves and croissants to bake, and for which customers, to make the most profit.

The words for one week keep the design to the one week your workbook holds; with only a word like "weekly", the design assumes 13 weeks. Click Next.

Settle the columns and terms

The columns and the terms shows what each column means to the model, with the ones it couldn't settle marked. Each offers its answers as buttons. Ours asked whether Qty Per on Recipe is kg of ingredient for each item made, whether the vendor Price is per kg, and whether the oven's 60 hours and its $150 are per week; we answered kg of ingredient per finished unit, currency per kg, and per week. When the heading reads EVERY TERM SETTLED, click Next.

Decide what the workbook doesn't say

What your data does not say lists what the model needs and the sheets don't carry. For each card, click Assume it, with my consent to take RIA's proposal, Type your own answer and Save answer, or Scope it out. RIA writes these from your sheets, so yours may differ. Ours were six: overtime on the oven, whether demand is a ceiling or a promise, stock from one week to the next, limits on what each vendor supplies, how the lane and oven costs apply, and whether vendor prices include delivery. Each proposal fit the bakery (no overtime, demand a ceiling, no opening or closing stock, no vendor limit, delivered prices), so we assumed all six.

⤢ Open

Click Design on this reading. The design took about two minutes.

Sign off the design

Click Next on The design is drafted. SCOPE reads one period. Under Rule choices from your brief, waiting for your word, Confirm The model is built for the most profit and click Leave this out on "Must every demand be met, or may the model leave some short, and at what cost a unit?": demand is already a ceiling. Approve the assumed value (what the model leaves out because your description doesn't ask for it), Confirm each section until it reads 5 / 5 confirmed, and click Confirm and map your workbook. See Review the design.

If the card says it assumed 13 weeks, your sentence didn't name the span: decide that value (Approve or Reject…), then pick One combined period under Planning horizon, which redraws the design.

Check how each sheet landed, then solve

Step 4 shows Your data, bound to the model: The model is built for the most profit. Demand is a ceiling; the model sells what pays. Under EVERY SHEET OF YOUR WORKBOOK, each sheet says what it feeds and how many of its rows are in the model; Items is kept as context.

⤢ Open

Mapping took about a minute. Click Build and solve on your data. It solved in about a minute. Click Next: Your baseline reads $1,422, the plan that sells all 350 croissants and 100 of the 120 loaves the oven's 60 hours allow.

Change a value in your own sheet

Click Go to Model Overview, then Scenarios. Click + New, name the what-if Pier Cafe pays $4 for croissants, and click Create. The editor reads Change values from your workbook for this scenario. Click Edit your sheets.

The panel shows your sheets as tabs. Open CUSTOMER DEMAND, double-click the Price cell on the Pier Cafe · Croissant row, type 4, and press Enter. Click Save 1 change: the change lands on this what-if only, not on your workbook or Base.

Run it and compare

Click Run scenario at the foot of the panel. It took about three and a half minutes. The profit tile reads $1,497, +$75 vs base, and the editor explains it: the 150 croissants were already sold, so the gain is the extra 50 cents on each. Value of an extra oven-hour reads $20.4: the oven is still what holds the plan back.

⤢ Open

To compare several what-ifs at once, tick them under Browse all and click Compare; see Turn a losing week into a plan.