Turn a manual Excel report into an automated BI report
A migration plan from a recurring spreadsheet report to an automated, refreshable report, preserving the logic people rely on.
The prompt
Help me turn a recurring manual Excel report into an automated BI report.
What the report is and who uses it: [e.g. "weekly sales pack for 12 regional managers"]
Current process: [steps to produce it: exports, copy-paste, lookups, pivots, manual adjustments, time it takes]
Formulas and logic: [PASTE key formulas, pivot setups, or describe calculated columns]
Data sources: [systems the exports come from]
Target tool: [Power BI / Tableau / Looker / other]
Steps:
1. Document every transformation in the current process, including hidden ones: manual overrides, hard-coded values, filters, exclusions, and "fixes" people make by hand. Flag anything that relies on someone's judgment.
2. Map each step to where it should live in the new setup: source query, transformation layer, data model, or report calculation.
3. Translate the key Excel formulas into the equivalent logic for my tool.
4. Identify which manual adjustments should become rules, inputs from a maintained table, or be dropped.
5. Plan a parallel run: produce both versions for 2-4 cycles and reconcile differences before switching.
6. Plan the rollout: training, where to find the new report, retiring the old file.
Return:
- A process map: Step | Current method | New location | Logic | Owner.
- Translated calculations.
- Open questions for the report's users marked [CONFIRM].
- A parallel-run checklist and a cut-over plan.
- An estimate of time saved per cycle, using my numbers.
Highlighted [brackets] are blanks to replace with your own details.
Fill in the blanks and use this promptMore Data & Analysis prompts
What to fill in
- e.g. "weekly sales pack for 12 regional managers"
- systems the exports come from
- Power BI / Tableau / Looker / other
- CONFIRM
How this prompt is built
This prompt follows the RTF structure (Role, Task, Format). RTF tells the model who to be, what to do and what shape the answer should take. It is the quickest structure that still gives noticeably better results than a bare request.
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