Excel is getting even more help to write formulas, look out for Argument Assistance coming to Excel on the web and hopefully beyond that.
Argument Assistance won’t solve loud disputes with your partner, boss or that annoying guy on the bus.
It’s a larger panel to guide people through completing a function. At the moment there’s a single line tooltip such as this in Excel 365.
Or click the Fx button to open more help with the function arguments.
Function Arguments is really useful because you can type in both cell references or values to try out the function ( PMT() in this case ) to see how it works with live data.
Why Argument Assistance not Function Assistance? Each of the items between the brackets in a function is called an ‘Argument’, so the name makes sense to us nerds <g>
What is Excel Argument Assistance
All we know is the description in the Microsoft Roadmap …
Argument assistance is a card that shows up when the user is writing a formula and accompanies the user during the arguments insert/edit.
The Argument Assistance helps the user to be more efficient while writing formulas and reduces risk for errors, without needing to look for help in external resources.
It includes descriptions of the formula and the different arguments, as well as an example.
The relevant argument (according to caret’s position) will be highlighted for better orientation.
The user can collapse the card and see only the top formula signature (like the tooltip today) in case he/she prefers not to hide much of the grid (we’ll save that preference).
Source: Microsoft Roadmap.
In other words, it sounds like a larger and enhanced version of the existing tooltip. Perhaps a mix of the tooltip and the function pane? Time will tell.
When?
Argument Assistance is due sometime in March 2022 on Excel for the Web only.
No word on if or when it’ll be added to other Excel releases.
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