Product updates

We’re excited to share an enhancement to Runway that brings greater transparency to how driver errors are surfaced in your models. This update is designed to help you identify and address potential issues more effectively.

What’s changing?

Previously, you might have encountered empty cells in some drivers. These empty cells could indicate a genuine null value or, less obviously, an underlying error in the driver or its input formulas. This lack of clarity could lead to unnoticed errors, potentially resulting in incorrect calculations that are difficult to trace.With our latest update, we’re making these errors more visible by replacing ambiguous empty cells with clear error codes. These error codes will help you quickly identify and resolve issues in your models:

• CIRC: This driver or one of its inputs is attempting to reference itself within the same month.
• DIV/0: This driver or one of its inputs is attempting to divide by 0.
• REF: This driver or one of its inputs references an input that no longer exists.
• TYPE: This driver or one of its inputs is performing an operation on incompatible types.
• FORM: This driver or one of its inputs has a malformed formula.
• ERR: A generic fallback error indicating an issue that doesn’t fit the other categories.

What does this mean for you?

You may start to see these error codes in drivers that you haven’t recently modified. Please don’t be alarmed—this doesn’t indicate a change in the functionality of your models, but rather that Runway is now surfacing pre-existing errors that were previously hidden.

How to debug and resolve those errors?

If you encounter any of these errors, the best way to debug them is to open the details view of the affected driver. First, identify whether the error is originating from the driver in question or propagating from one of its formula inputs. To do this, check the Inputs section to see if the same error is present elsewhere.

Resolving these errors will help ensure your models are accurate and reliable. If you have any questions or feedback, please let us know! We’re here to help you address any issues.

We're back from a team gathering in San Francisco and an official public launch of Runway!

Adding Drivers to your Pages just got easier

Nichole shipped some awesome improvements to make adding the right drivers to add to your Pages a snap. Assembling reports has never been easier.

In the "add" menu, drivers are now grouped by their dimensions, so you can find the exact cut of data you're looking for, and even add them all to a block in bulk

The menu for managing a driver's attributes is much more helpful. It used to error if you selected attributes of existing drivers, and there was a nasty state where you couldn't get out of this menu.
Now, we'll intelligently add the driver you specify to the page you're on, or take you right to them, if they're already there!

Early access to new features

In our next phase of product development, we're investing in a staged rollout approach so new Runway features keep raising the bar in utility and delight. There are a few betas available to enroll in if you're interested in getting your hands on our latest and greatest features. Interested? Drop us a line at success@runway.com.

• Charts: Improved charts, with more powerful configuration and display options, including several new chart types like Combination, Mixed, and more.
• Plans: A more intuitive experience for editing driver values, and interacting with Plans, including per-cell formatting.
• Integrations: A streamlined way to set up new integration data to be modelable in Runway databases without needing to write complicated SQL.
• Pages: Allowing blocks to be arranged side-by-side on pages to make customizing the layout of your pages even more flexible.

Improvements + fixes

While we're working on shipping big impact via the betas above, there's a host of quality of life improvements and bugfixes we've shipped. Here's a few that might make your day in Runway a bit brighter:

• We had an brief outage last week; Jon made our error and status pages more accessible in the case that Runway is unavailable so you know what's going on and what to expect.
• Shinjini made it clear when empty Actuals formulae are inheriting from forecast, by showing a lighter version of the inherited formula.
• Our Perf team made Database filtering, sorting, and page loads much faster.
• Seb fixed a bug with the wrong column icons showing up in databases.
• Jon fixed an issue where you were not correctly routed to a newly created database after pressing Create.
• Andrew enabled adding formula filters to find database items without a name.
• Xav made a fix for lookup columns: we removed options that would create a circular dependency.
• Shinjini ensured driver groups added to a page should preserve the source ordering.
• Joe enabled viewing and editing the dimensions a driver has in its detail pane.
• Rishi and Shiv let you reference drivers' values in the future via our Date filters to create forward-looking projections.
• Lars worked some UI magic to make the share menu and the Driver formatting look more consistent and accessible.
• Jon made it so the Customize button is always available on databases.
• Rishi included the current scenario's name in CSV exports so you know which set of projections the export came from.
• Amelia shipped a tooltip to make the guidelines for integrating Google Sheets much clearer.
• Justin fixed a bug where pressing Escape from the "Review and Merge" screen prevented users from getting back into that screen.

That's all for now!

Hey all! Here's the latest edition of updates we're shipping to keep making Runway better:

Selected cell summary in databases

Highly requested, and now live! Fresh off some PTO, Justin shipped a big one on his first day back: selecting value cells in databases will now show summary stats in the bottom-right of the screen, so you can do quick sums and averages without breaking your flow.

Filter menu improvement

Xav added a nice quality-of-life fix — the filter menu is now searchable, to help you find the right column to filter by.

Small improvements made along the way:

• Derrick and Andy fixed two styling issues related of text overflow in the formula editor
• Seb and Andrew made updates related to how driver group ordering is handled when adding drivers to a block
• Jon made some fixes that should cause popup menus to cover your context less frequently when adding drivers to a block, and when navigating to a page using a link shared from another platform.

Hey team! Check out the latest updates to keep you pumped and productive. 🚀

Main scenario renaming ✏️

Jon made it so you can now rename the Main Scenario, add an emoji, and description.

Filter menu enhancement 🔍

Xavier added a search field to the attribute dropdown for easier filtering, especially with long dropdown lists.

Stacked plans deprecation 🪜

Elysa deprecated stacked plans (stacked delta impacts). New Delta impacts now replace existing ones on the same cell, just like set impacts. Shoutout to our amazing customers and Nadine helping with the migration!

User profile syncing 📸

Jon improved our user name and profile photo syncing from google.

Plans display bug fix 🐛

Elysa fixed plans showing up as pills on the timeline even with no impacts. Your timeline is now cleaner and more accurate.

Better default landing page 🛣️

Jon improved the default landing page for smoother navigation.

That’s it for this week! Enjoy the updates and keep the feedback coming. 🌟

Database granularity is now controlled by the “Segment by” menu

Segmenting your drivers by the right dimensions in Runway is critical to unlocking the power and flexibility of dimensional modeling in Runway. We’ve improved the UI for how this association is defined — you’ll now see a “Segment by” menu in databases. These previously were referred to as “database keys”, and our hope is that this change makes it even clearer how databases work. Shinjini and Lars really worked some magic here!

• You’ll now also see some helpful tooltips when using drivers without segment-by set, or when multiple database rows are linked to the same segment of data.
• Let us know if this helps you use dimensional modeling capabilities more confidently — we’d love to hear your feedback!

• Derrick and Nichole rebuilt the “database timeseries” view. It’s now much faster, and adds support for database drivers. Check it out to see a fully expanded view of every property for every database item.

Assorted performance improvements

Making Runway faster and and more performant continues to be our top priority. This week, we shipped even more improvements to make the app snappy:

• Selasi made an optimization that makes the creation of a draft scenario faster, as well as improved performance on the “Review and Merge” screen.
• Andrew made creating snapshots much faster, and reduced the impact of product deploys on the user experience, so we can continue to ship fast without disrupting the user experience.
• Xav found a fix that should improve load times when navigating to large databases.

Cleaning up your unused drivers is now simpler than ever!

To ensure your data remains organized and to prevent the use of deprecated drivers, we've added a new "Unused Drivers" page in the left side menu. This page automatically displays any drivers that aren't referenced in any model, database, or page. Simply select the ones you wish to permanently delete, right-click, and choose Delete.

Don't lose your hardcoded Plans when you move Last Close

To enhance the experience of hardcoding assumptions in Runway, we've adjusted how the Runway computes values for months before Last Close. Here is the new order of precedence:

• If there are hardcoded values that you've manually added for months before Last Close, we display those numbers. If not present;
• We rely on the Actuals Formula for drivers or the integration data for databases connected to an integration. If not present;
• We use any hardcoded Plans that you've set for those months before moving the Last Close month forward. If not present;
• We depend on the Forecast Formula.

Performance boost for multiplayer

Have you ever experienced Runway flashing or hanging when another user is making changes in your organization at the same time? This happens because Runway automatically reloads in your browser when changes are made by others, ensuring you always have access to the most up-to-date data. While this is useful, it can also disrupt your workflow. We've made some improvements to ensure that reloading only occurs when necessary, reducing its frequency. This should result in a smoother multiplayer experience in Runway.

Last, but not least, Elysa shipped several Plans bug fixes and UX improvements🐛

This was the second week of our KTLO efforts — we upgraded dependencies, increased test coverage and improved alerting to continue raising the bar on how we continue iterating on Runway while being responsive to all of your feedback.

In conjunction with a litany of behind-the-scenes improvements that are making Runway more reliable, secure, and performant, here are some fixes you'll see in the app:

• Adam added a new keyboard shortcut ⌘ or ctrl + / for toggling the state of the navigation sidebar!
• Jonathan made an improvement to our page routing system that should make navigating to a Runway page via a link snappier.

We are shifting back into our regularly scheduled product work next week. We're excited for our investments in Keeping The Lights On to help our team continue moving quickly to keep improving Runway for you.

This week, the primary focus across the Engineering team is "Keep the Lights On" (KTLO) 💡

Although this work might not result in immediate visible product changes, it is crucial for maintaining top-notch customer service and product quality. The team is exploring various aspects, including upgrading the libraries we use, enhancing our system alerting and monitoring to detect emerging issues promptly, and improving our testing suite to reduce and prevent regressions, among others.

Simultaneously, Jonathan and Selasi have made enhancements to the performance of drivers' tables. These improvements are most noticeable when:

• Scrolling through a lengthy drivers table on the same model or page.
• Navigating between models or pages that contain drivers tables you've previously loaded.

That is for this week! Thanks for your continuous feedback 🙌

Hello! This week at Runway, we've been cooking up some exciting new updates. From streamlining Plans to boosting system performance, here’s what’s new and improved! 🤌

Default plans

We've simplified the Plans feature to make it more intuitive and user-friendly. Now, all edits will initially appear under a "Default Plans" group until you intentionally reassign them. This puts you in full control of organizing and naming your Plans, and makes it even easier to auto-group with AI!

Filter plans by name

You can now easily filter Plans by name on your pages. This allows you to showcase only the Plans you want to share, without including irrelevant ones that happen to impact the same model or database.

Merge screen enhancements

We've made the merge screen clearer and more comprehensive:

• Database column changes are now consolidated into one section per database, making it easier to review all changes at once.
• More changes to drivers (e.g., colors, references, names, precision) are now surfaced, providing a complete picture of what's been modified.

Database improvements

We've made numerous enhancements to databases to improve your workflow and experience. Expect a smoother ride while working with your data, especially with copy paste.

Performance boosts

Behind the scenes, we've deployed a number of optimizations and fixes to make Runway snappier and we're cooking up even more. Enjoy a more seamless planning experience.

Keyboard navigation in filters

Zip through formula filter menus using your keyboard's left and right arrow keys, even when the menu is open. It's like flipping through the 3 Body Problem!

And more!

• Squashed pesky bugs to keep things running smoothly
• Fine-tuned integrations for faster data syncing
• Polished up parts of the app for even better contrast

Another week in the books, and the engineering team continues to keep digging into every nook and cranny of the product to ensure that working in Runway feels intuitive, with several quality of life fixes coming in hot this week.

Huge shoutout to Xavier and Shinjini for leading the charge on the following improvements!

Formula editing is safer

• When you have focus on a formula pill in the editor, typing will not overwrite your formula value so you don't lose your work.
• Better handling of trailing whitespace when writing formulas with numbers in them to not inadvertantly create drivers.
• Made database columns easier to find in the formula search menu
• Fixed a bug where users could enter a jumpy hover menu state when selecting drivers to add to a block near the bottom of a page.

Filtering is more usable

• There's now auto-focus on the search input when opening a filter dropdown list: This lets you get right to searching for the values you want when filtering down your data.
• More natural upranking of selected items in filter dropdowns: This lets you quickly keep an eye on what's currently selected in a filter, so nothing falls through the cracks.

Copy-paste works more reliably

• Handle pasting in accounting-formatted values for "0" from Excel and other spreadsheet tools. Previously, these would mistakenly cause a type mismatch.
• More reliable driver initialization in databases on copy-paste, as well as when opening the detail pane. This ensures that as soon as you want to interact with a driver, it's there for you.
• Fixed a bug where copy-paste was not working when databases were "viewed as" a driver grid.
• Fixed a bug where copy-paste in databases used to not paste values on both sides of "Last Close".

Nichole from the Engineering team started this week with the mindset of "a little goes a long way," and she's been busy making some quality of life improvements.

Firstly, you can now display a legend in line charts that compare multiple scenarios or snapshots. To do this, simply click on "Show legend" at the top of the chart. It’s been long overdue but we’re thrilled to say it’s here 🚀

Next, when you're examining a driver's detailed view, the horizontal scroll of the driver and its dependencies (inputs, used by, plans) are synchronized. This makes it much easier to tie data from the same time frame.

Lastly, similar to the previous point, when inspecting a plan, the horizontal scroll is now synchronized between the plan's block and the inspector.

We're back from a team offsite in Nashville and have some new updates coming your way!

Driver changes are now fully scoped to scenarios

We've made significant updates to how driver changes are handled within scenarios to boost your confidence and clarity in modeling. Experiment freely with driver updates scoped to scenarios and understand your updates with a clarified "Review and Merge" screen.

You can see a detailed list of actions now scoped to scenarios, and a full overview of the changes, in a fresh Help Center article here.

Improved comparison view

You can now configure how snapshots or scenario data is shown (as rows, or as columns) when conducting forecast comparisons or BvA!

Bug fixes and small improvements

• There was an issue where integration syncs could leave extraneous drivers in your workspace, resulting in duplicated data. This has now now corrected.
• The formula filter selection menu is now sorted alphabetically, and selected items are pulled to the top of the list for scannability.
• We’ve shipped an improved view for raw integration output so you can see your query results in raw form - it’s much faster for viewing large data and confirming it’s as you expect.
• We’ve reduced visual clutter in comparison views and BvAs by representing zero variance as a - .