Does Excel have a built-in “hypothetical” function?

Question

I have an Excel cell with a complicated formula relating to many other cells.

Does a function exist that would allow me to look at what the value of that cell would be if I changed the value of another cell to a certain value?

Basically, I'm looking for the functionality of a simple data table in a function I can put directly in a cell. I can do this in VBA or by creating a data table, but I'm looking for a built-in method if one exists.

Answer 1

No.

As you have mentioned, you would be best served using a data table - there isn't an equivalent inbuilt function. The plus with data tables is that you can explicitly control their calculation

Answer 2

@brettdj's answer is correct. Unfortunately, I was wrong that I could do what I want even in VBA; the code below was what I was planning to write, but it does not work because functions called from a worksheet cannot change the worksheet:

Public Function Hypothetical(setthiscell As Range, tothisvalue As Variant, andobservethiscell As Range) As Variant
    Dim oldvalue As Variant
    oldvalue = setthiscell.Value
    setthiscell.Value = tothisvalue
    Dim result As Variant
    result = andobservethiscell.Value
    setthiscell.Value = oldvalue
    Hypothetical = result
End Function

Neither Scenarios or the Solver address my problem because I want to the solution to be automated. Apparently the only way to accomplish this task is to use data tables.