Concept: Visual Cues in the Worksheets User Interface
Array Formulas
The color and appearance of the formula icon in the formula bar changes depending on the
active workbook cell:
Icon | Type of Formula/Cell | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Unconstrained formula | Orange with curly braces |
| Constrained formula | Blue with curly braces |
| Static formula or data cell | Gray without braces |
External References
Consumer workbooks display an indicator icon on the toolbar to indicate the presence
of data from a producer workbook, and whether the data needs to be updated.
Icon | Notes |
|---|---|
| Gray icon with arrow pointing out. Indicates that this is a consumer workbook and data
from the producer is up to date. |
| Green icon with arrow pointing in. Indicates that this is a consumer workbook and data
in the producer workbook changed after you opened this workbook. After the
producer workbook's data changes occur, there might be a delay of up to 2
minutes before the consumer workbook icon changes color. Click the icon to
update the data. This update action is the same as Recalculate All. |
Circular References and Iteration Limits
A red or yellow icon indicates that Worksheets didn't finish calculating; the
workbook is in a state where some formulas didn't fully run and are showing stale
values.
Icon | Notes |
|---|---|
| You can hover the cursor over the icon to see a tooltip with information about the
problem. There are two common causes for a workbook to prematurely stop
calculating: either the calculation limit was reached, or one or more
circular references exist in the workbook. If the problem is caused by a
circular reference, you can click the red icon to navigate to the cell
location of the reference. If you have more than one circular reference,
Worksheets navigates to the location of the first one. |
| A yellow icon indicates that during formula calculations a function such as ARRAYAREA,
INDIRECT, or IF has revisited cells more than 5 times. Essentially a kind of
chain reaction exists where an unconstrained formula changes data, which
causes another unconstrained formula to run, and it repeats until this has
continued 5 times. If this occurs, you need to simplify your usage of
unconstrained formulas. |
Protected Data
Icon | Notes |
|---|---|
| A lock indicator displays on the function bar when a user selects a cell or a row in a
protected range. |
| A lock icon displays in the header of a protected column. |
| A lock icon displays next to the sheet name of a protected sheet. |
Unread Items
Icon | Notes |
|---|---|
| A dot on the Comments icon indicates unread comments. To open the
Comments panel and mark all comments as read, click the icon. |
| A triangle in the corner of a workbook cell indicates that a comment
exists for the cell. To view the comment, right-click the cell and select
View Comment . |
Live Data
A blue dashed line surrounds a live data range when you select any cell in the range.
Additionally, by default:
- Report data columns are blue.
- Note columns are yellow.
- Formula columns are green.
If you change the formatting of data cells in the live data, Worksheets doesn't preserve the
changes when live data is refreshed..
You can toggle the live data highlighting off and on using the check box in the Live
Data Details panel.
Presence
When more than one user views or edits a workbook simultaneously, Worksheets assigns
a different color to each user and shows a cell border in that color to identify the
users interacting with the cells. Avatars for the users display above the
workbook.
Workbooks Containing Data from Integrating Products
Workbooks identify live, updatable, data from integrating applications such
as Workday Payroll and Workday Projects; a green dashed line surrounds updatable
cell ranges.
The formula icon becomes green with a lightning bolt shape at the lower
right when a selected workbook cell contains updatable data.