Hello,

From Google: "Excel's Stale Value Formatting applies a strikethrough to formula results that are outdated because the workbook is in Manual or Partial Calculation mode. This visual alert, available in Microsoft 365 (Version 2409+), warns that the data needs recalculation. Fix this by pressing F9, setting calculation to Automatic in the Formulas tab, or turning off "Format Stale Values" in Options."

Does anyone have any insights on the use of stale values in combination with TM1 formulas in PAfE? My current customer is often observing wrong and often random behavior (for instance, formulas without strikethrough after a recalculation, but when the user goes in Edit mode, Enters, then the strikethrough is applied.)

The PAfE version is not the latest (2.0.105) but recent enough. The upgrade cycle is quite involved with them, covering Controller, Cognos Analytics, PA server, PAW, PAfE, TM1 Web.

The current opinion is to disable the option of "Cells containing stale values", but a number of users find it useful though.

Bottom-right corner you can find that setting.

Thanks in advance,

Wim

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Wim Gielis
Senior Consultant
Aexis International
Sint-Stevens-Woluwe
+32496225001
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Hi Wim,

this looks like Excel's stale-value formatter and PAfE's own refresh disagreeing, rather than TM1 returning a wrong number.

Stale-value strikethrough is an Excel 365 Manual/Partial Calculation feature. It flags formulas that Excel considers dirty in its own calculation graph. DBRW / SUBNM / VIEW are updated by PAfE through its Refresh Sheet/Book mechanisms. That path does not necessarily clear Excel's stale state in the same way as an Excel recalculation - and F2 + Enter can put the cell back through Excel's calculation path, after which the strikethrough appears even though PAfE has already refreshed the value.

So the "random" pattern you describe (clean after refresh, struck after edit/Enter) is plausible. The formatter is effectively answering "does Excel consider this formula recalculated?", not "is this TM1 value current?".

Practically, I would separate the two use cases:

• PAfE-heavy input/report books: leave Cells containing stale values off. Users should rely on PAfE Refresh rather than the strikethrough indicator.

• Workbooks that are mostly native Excel formulas in Manual calculation: keeping it on can still be useful.

I would not treat disabling the setting as a PAfE bug fix, and I would not expect simply moving from 2.0.105 to a current PAfE version to change how Excel's stale-value formatter works.

If you can confirm whether the affected sheets are using Manual or Automatic calculation, that would be useful context. If the behaviour also occurs in Automatic mode, I think that would be particularly interesting to reproduce with IBM.

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Vitalij Rusakovskij
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