Why Power BI is essential for business intelligence - Formula Trace Breakdown

Sample Data

Sample sales data by region for a business.

Cell	Value
A1	Sales
A2	100
A3	150
A4	200
B1	Region
B2	North
B3	South
B4	East

Formula Trace

SUM(A2:A4)

Step 1: A2 + A3 + A4

Step 2: 450

Cell Reference Map

    A       B
1 | Sales | Region
2 | 100   | North
3 | 150   | South
4 | 200   | East

Formula references cells A2, A3, and A4 for sales values.

The formula sums sales values from three regions.

Result

    A       B
1 | Sales | Region
2 | 100   | North
3 | 150   | South
4 | 200   | East
5 | 450   | Total Sales

Cell A5 shows the total sales calculated by the formula.

The total sales value 450 is displayed in cell A5 as the result of the SUM formula.

Sheet Trace Quiz - 3 Questions

What does the formula SUM(A2:A4) calculate?

A The sales value of the North region only

B The average sales per region

C The total sales from all regions

D The number of regions

Key Result

SUM(range) adds all numeric values in the specified cell range.