One thing you learn in Excel is that there are so many ways to display the same data. When working with Actual / Budget / Variance one structure can be a challenge to work with. See how the FILTER function can simplify it.
(more…)I did a post on the Pie in Pie chart a few weeks back, but it can be a bit clunky to use. I thought about using a few dynamic array functions to make it a bit more interactive and flexible. The source data is in a formatted table called Table1. In a separate sheet there are two input cells. One for the state to report on and the other to enter the number of “main” segments to use. The…
If you have a 2-dimensional spill range in Excel and you need to add up a specific column here is an easy formula to use.
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The recent TRIMRANGE function update to Excel makes it easier to determine the last used row in a column.
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The SORT function allows you to specify which column to sort by. You can also include a hierarchy to sort by more than one column.
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If you need to have a drop-down list automatically adjust and remove items as they are selected, here’s one technique.
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Averages are affected by outliers. If Bill Gates walks into a room the average net worth per person jumps substantially. In the Olympics some sports deduct the top and bottom scores before calculating the average score. Here’s a formula to do that in Excel. You need the subscription version of Excel for this solution.
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As a follow on from last week’s post you may want to create a text string of all of the lowercase and uppercase letters. Again we can combine some Excel functions to achieve this.
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If you need a listing of the letters of the alphabet you can combine a couple of functions to provide the list.
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Learn about the new way to create formula and functions in Excel. This webinar recording from April 2024 will get you started.
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In the previous post we looked at extracting initials when we only had a first name and a last name in this post, we will look at handling more than two names.
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Extracting initials in Excel can be challenging. That’s because the names can be separated by different characters and there can also be more than two names. Some new functions in Excel can simplify the extraction of initials.
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Currently spill ranges do not spill formats. Hopefully Microsoft will add this functionality soon. In the meantime, here is a macro that will copy the format from the top left cell of the spill range to the rest of the spill range.
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Benford’s law is used in auditing to identify data sets that may have been manipulated or adjusted. In actual data sets when reviewing values the 1st digit of the values tends to follow a predetermined frequency. For example, roughly 30% of the values should start with a 1.
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Excel has three functions that can provide random numbers. But the random numbers created may not be unique random whole numbers. Here is one way to get a list of unique random whole numbers.
(more…)Here's a technique I use a lot to speed up report development. Sheet names have to be unique, so they can't be duplicated. This makes them great for department names or states. This short video combines a few techniques to extract from a data set based on the sheet name. All in less than a minute. https://vimeo.com/780315328
The UNIQUE function has a bit of an issue with blank cells, formulas that return blank cells and zeroes.
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If you have a list of numbers that are a text numbers or a combination of text numbers with real numbers there is a technique I covered in this blog post to add them up. But if the range also contains text then the technique won’t work. There is the work around. The solutions below work in the subscription version of Excel. Check the comments section below for a solution for all versions.
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I wrote a blog post a while back about outliers and Excel and I thought I would revisit it thanks to dynamic arrays.
(more…)Let's say we need to do some testing and we need 1,000 random dates in 2022. We can use a new function to make this easy to create and easy to change. RANDARRAY usually works with numbers but in Excel dates are numbers, so we get it to create random dates for us. I set myself a challenge to do this in less than minute - see how I went in the video below. https://vimeo.com/692104077
I was recently helping someone with a budget which they had built vertically, with the months going down the sheet. They then asked to display it horizontally, with the months going across the page. In the latest version of Excel this is straightforward.
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Years back when I wrote my Excel book, I had to create an index for the book. I shared the file I used including the macro in this post. Recently I thought dynamic arrays could do much of the work for this.
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Dynamic arrays allow you to use a function normally built to handle a cell, with a range of cells. The TRIM function can remove extra space characters in cells. So with dynamic arrays it can handle ranges.
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I covered a solution to sorting and ignoring the sign a couple of years back, but it is time to revisit this thanks to dynamic arrays.
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It is now easier to create a distinct count formula in the subscription version of Excel. You can also use a criteria. A distinct count only counts each value once. Duplicate entries are ignored.
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A spill range is the result of a dynamic array formula. At the moment that requires the subscription version of Excel.
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In budgets, forecasts, financial models and even reporting models repeating the numbers 1 to 12 can be useful. The SEQUENCE and MOD functions can make it easy and scalable.
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Let’s say we need to put a prefix in front of a number to identify the period being used. Whether that be year, month or week. But we still need to use the number normally. Here’s one way to do that.
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One of the frustrations with using array syntax is that you always have to type all the entries between the curly brackets. You couldn’t link to cells. Well that has all changed with dynamic arrays.
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