Patent ID: 8386916

Claim:
A non-transitory computer-readable medium having stored thereon processor-executable instructions, to facilitate use of a spreadsheet application to access information stored in a multidimensional data source having an associated metadata structure, that when executed by a processor result in the following: pre-loading, by an analyzer module executing as a plug-in component of the spreadsheet application, names associated with a plurality of members of the multidimensional data source defined in the associated metadata structure; after said pre-loading, receiving, at the analyzer module, a change indication from the spreadsheet application, the change indication being associated with a spreadsheet formula of the spreadsheet application entered by a user into a spreadsheet cell; in response to the change indication, automatically translating, by the analyzer module, the spreadsheet formula into a multidimensional expression calculation associated with the multidimensional data source based at least in part on the pre-loaded names; and automatically removing, by the analyzer module, the spreadsheet formula from the spreadsheet cell and replacing the spreadsheet formula with the automatically generated multidimensional expression calculation.