📤 Bursting Excel Report

The Bursting Excel Report feature in Slice lets you take a single master Excel template and automatically generate a personalised copy for every recipient in a list — then distribute those copies by email or save them to defined locations. It turns "send the monthly cost centre report to each manager" from an afternoon of copy-paste into a one-click operation.

A typical use case: monthly cost centre reports

A finance team sends a monthly P&L pack to 50 cost centre managers. Every pack has the same structure, but each manager should only see the figures for their own cost centre.

Without bursting, this typically means:

• Opening the master report 50 times

• Filtering it to each manager's cost centre

• Saving 50 separate files with the right naming

• Emailing each file to the right recipient

It is repetitive, error-prone, and ties up an analyst for hours every month.

With Slice bursting, the same job is configured once. Point at the master template, point at the list of cost centres, set the email mapping, and run. Slice generates one Excel file per cost centre — containing only that manager's data — and delivers each file to the right inbox.

Key benefits

Save hours every reporting cycle

Bursting eliminates the manual loop — open, filter, save, email — that consumes analyst time at month-end. A 50-recipient distribution that used to take half a day runs in minutes.

Each recipient sees only their data

The output is filtered to the relevant dimension element (e.g. cost centre) before each file is generated. There is no risk of accidentally sending one manager's numbers to another, and recipients don't need access to the underlying TM1 model to read their report.

Personalised at scale

Every recipient gets a report that feels handcrafted for them — their cost centre name in the title, their figures in the cells, their hierarchy in the rows. Managers engage with reports they recognise as their own.

Consistency across recipients

Every file is generated from the same template, so layout, formulas, formatting, and KPIs are identical for everyone. No bespoke versions, no drift, no "wait, why does mine look different?".

Fewer manual errors

Manual filtering, copy-paste, and ad-hoc edits introduce mistakes. Bursting removes those steps entirely — what comes out of Slice is exactly what the template defines, with the right slice of data applied automatically.

Recipients don't need TM1 access

Each manager receives an Excel file in their inbox. They don't need a Planning Analytics licence, they don't need to log in to anything, and they don't need to know how to use TM1.

Repeatable and auditable

The bursting configuration is saved. The same job can be re-run every month with confidence — and Slice records which reports were generated and when, giving finance teams a clean audit trail.

Other common use cases

• Sales territory reporting — each regional sales lead receives their territory's performance pack.

• HR headcount reports — each department head receives their headcount summary.

• Budget pack distribution — budget owners receive a workbook scoped to their area for input.

• External recipient reporting — partner or vendor statements scoped to a single account.

How it works in Slice

Slice bursting takes a regular Excel template — built with Slice's standard Active Forms, Slices, or DBR formulas — and runs it once for each element in a chosen dimension. For each iteration Slice:

1. Updates the relevant SUBNM or filter cell to the current cost centre (or whichever dimension you've chosen).

2. Refreshes the workbook so all formulas recalculate against that element.

3. Saves the result as a new Excel file, named according to a pattern you define.

4. Optionally emails the file to the address mapped to that element.

Because Slice connects directly to the TM1 REST API, the whole process can be run unattended once it's configured.

Summary

Bursting transforms how Excel-based reports get distributed. Instead of an analyst running through a manual checklist 50 times each month, a single Slice job produces 50 personalised, securely scoped reports and delivers each one to the right person — every month, the same way, from the same template. The time saved goes back into analysis instead of distribution.