What are Dynamic Ranges?
Dynamic Ranges automatically insert any missing child/descendant rows into a range when you click Fetch.
This ensures your Excel, Google Sheets, and Workspace reports/ranges always reflect the latest structure of your chart of accounts, vendors, customers, or any other dimension.
Key Capabilities
- Automatic row insertion
When Cube detects new children under a parent dimension, it inserts the appropriate rows into your range when you fetch. - Perfect for evolving data structures
Essential for workflows like month-end close, customer/vendor reporting, or any model that needs to update as your ERP changes. - User-controlled setting
Dynamic Ranges can be toggled on or off at the range level. - Respects Zero Suppression
If Zero-Rows is enabled, Cube only inserts children/descendants that contain values.
How to use Dynamic Ranges
Follow these steps to enable and use the feature in Excel or Google Sheets.
1. Create Your Range
You can use either:
- Select flow
- Build flow
2. Open Range Settings
Click Edit Range.
3. Enable “Auto-add Child Rows”
You’ll see a new toggle in the range settings.
- ON by default for any newly created ranges.
- OFF by default for ranges created prior to January 2026.
If you want to change the default behavior for new ranges, go to the User Settings from the spreadsheet app to change the default behavior for adding missing child dimensions.
4. How Cube Determines Which Rows to Insert
The algorithm inserts child dimensions using the following rules:
When new rows are added
New child dimension rows are added only if:
- Auto-Add Child Dimensions is turned on, and
- The parent dimension is present in your rows, and
- At least one existing child is visible directly above the parent
- If Zero-Row suppression is enabled, Cube only inserts descendants that contain values.
If the setting is off, Fetch will not change your row structure.
Where new rows appear
New children are inserted:
- Above the parent row
- After any existing visible children
- Below the first visible child row, even if earlier children are hidden or collapsed
This ensures your layout stays consistent.
What inserted rows look like
Inserted rows match the style and structure of your existing rows. Cube automatically copies:
- Indentation
- Number formatting
- Formulas
- Styles and colors
- Other dimension headers (e.g., Scenario, Time)
This keeps your report clean and consistent.
Note: Rows are only inserted within the Cube Range area—any cells outside this range remain unaffected. If your worksheet contains variance formulas or other calculations that reference cells within the Cube range, you'll need to expand your Cube range selection to include those formula columns. This ensures that formatting and formulas are properly copied when new child rows are added.
What won’t be added
Cube will not insert new child rows when:
- The parent row is collapsed
- The parent or its column is hidden
- The dimension is disabled
- Blank rows exist between current children and the parent
- The range overlaps a table (Workspace Reports)
These rules help prevent unexpected layout changes.
5. Fetch Your Range
When you click Fetch, Cube adds any missing descendants that match the selection criteria.
Why This Matters
Dynamic Ranges solves one of the most time-consuming pain points for FP&A teams: maintaining spreadsheets when your source data changes. Whenever Accounting adds new accounts, departments, vendors, or customers, traditional reports break or silently become outdated.
With Dynamic Ranges, Cube automatically handles these updates for you.
Practical Example: Month-End Close
Every month, Accounting may:
- Add new GL accounts
- Create new vendors/customers
- Make structural changes in the ERP
Before Dynamic Ranges:
FP&A manually identified and inserted dozens of missing rows across many reports.
After Dynamic Ranges:
- You fetch an existing range from Excel or Sheets.
- Cube detects any new child dimensions.
- The system alerts you and automatically inserts missing rows.
- Your reports remain complete and accurate—no manual cleanup required.
Outcome: FP&A saves hours every month, and reporting packages stay up to date automatically.