Knowing This Literally Saved My Job
Let me tell you a little secret that not many Excel users know—one that might just change how you build reports forever.
The CUBE formulas family in Excel is a hidden gem. They’re rarely used, barely talked about, and yet incredibly powerful. Why? Because they allow you to pull data directly from a data model loaded into Excel—straight into a single cell.
No pivot tables.
No complicated SUMIFS or COUNTIFS.
Just one formula.
Meet the Hero: CUBEVALUE()
Of all the CUBE formulas, the one I use most often—the one that saved me when everything else fell apart—is CUBEVALUE.
This formula allows you to fetch a measure—one that you’ve already created in Power Pivot—and display it in any cell in Excel. Here’s what the basic structure looks like:
=CUBEVALUE(“ThisWorkbookDataModel”, “[Measures].[your_Measure]”)
Let’s break that down:
"ThisWorkbookDataModel": This is a fixed name that refers to the data model inside your current workbook. In most cases, this will be the only connection name you can use."[Measures].[your_Measure]": This part tells Excel which measure you want to pull. The measure must be created in Power Pivot beforehand.
That’s it. One line. One cell. Clean, precise, and scalable.
The Real Game-Changer
Once you get the hang of this, you’ll start to realize the potential. You’re not locked into the rigid structure of pivot tables anymore. You can design custom dashboards, interactive reports, or clean summaries—all powered by your data model and driven by simple cell formulas.
You can even take it a step further and add slicers or filters directly inside the formula. But that’s a topic for another day.
For now, just knowing that this formula exists might be the edge you didn’t know you needed.
Want a follow-up post on how to apply filters or use slicers with CUBEVALUE? Let me know—I’d be happy to dive deeper.
Jaralytics 