Holder Cell

Note: This page has been replaced by an updated and extended help page for WrapCreator at https://help.excelwraps.com/support/online-help/help-the-holder-widget/

Set dummy values in a holder cell as a place to start a calculation thread. When converted to a wrap the holder cell's dummy value will be replaced with a reference cell. A reference cell could be another cell in the wrap or a live wrap value supplied from the ExcelWraps server. Using holder cells allows us to fully debug in Excel before wrap conversion. It may be used in a variety of situations:

1) Use with signature cells to get the DateTime or UserName of the signature;

2) Use with keywords ‘Creation’ and ‘LastModification’ to extract DateTime or UserName of the Wrap instance;

3) Use with WrapLinks, WrapLinkLists and AutoNumbers for debugging and forward calculations;

FORMATTING: It is good practise to match the formatting of the holder cell with the cell formatting of the linked cell. Problems will occur if the linked cell is formatted like this 1,205.00 (i.e. thousand separator with two decimal places) as the wrap may not be able to interpret the "," separator correctly. The simple fix is to also format the holder cell using thousand separators and two decimal place to ensure that the number is interpreted correctly. Similar problems can occur using % formatting, date formatting and time formatting. Conceptually it is important to understand that all wrap values are stored in the database as text strings, formatting the holder cell helps the wrap to interpret the strings and convert them to numbers correctly.

4) Use with input cells for debugging.

5) Use to count subdomain active users using role filters;

NOTE: Dummy values must be: 1) a numeric value or 2) a text value enclosed in quotes e.g. "a string" or 3) an OADate/OADateTime value like 42368.5. OA stands for OLE Automation where the whole part of the number is the date the fractional part is the time e.g. 42368.5 is 2015 Dec 30th 12:00:00. Holder cells must be formatted as decimal numbers - date formats can only be applied holder dependant cells (if cell A1 is the holder cell with an OADate dummy value a second cell a2, say, can contain the formula"=A1" and cell A2 can have any Excel date format applied).

Generally holder cells are invisible in the wrap (i.e. become hidden elements in the wrap). Occasionally you may wish to make them visible by unchecking the 'invisible' checkbox.