It is no exaggeration that knowing excel formulas can give you a career boost. From someone starting at the long list of numbers, you can become a data god who can lookup, manipulate and analyze any spreadsheet by learning few excel formulas.
So when our little excel blog hit the 5000 RSS Subscriber milestone, I celebrated the occasion by asking you to share an excel formula through twitter or comments with rest of us. And boy, what an excellent list of formula tips you have shared with us all.
Here is the complete list of entries for the twitter formula contest.
Follow the links next to contributor’s name to see the original twitter post or comment
To return the full Path+Filename of your (saved) workbook
by Dmurphy on PHD comments
To return the full Path+Filename of your (saved) workbook (and dropping the [] characters) to get, for example, C:\Data\ExcelFiles\MyWorkbook.xls: =SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(LEFT(CELL(”filename”,$A$1), FIND(”]”,CELL(”filename”,$A$1))),”[“,””),”]“,””)
Create a Dynamic Range that Grows and Shrinks with Data
by ps62 on twitter [@ps62]
IF($A6=””,””, SUM(OFFSET(Data,$A6-1,StartDateIndex-1,1,NumCols))) – makes stuff dynamic
Find the last cell in a row
by govi on twitter [@govi]
Return last filled cell in a row: =LOOKUP(9,999E+307;A1:IV1)
Cleaning your data (Example, changing the values in a column)
by artjohnson on twitter [@artjohnson]
Excel. Cust name header in C9 and text datalist below. Formula in B9 moves name from C9 to B9. Copy down. =if(isblank(C8),c9,b8)
Extract the month from a date
by Alan on PHD comments
Probably a easier way of doing this , extracting the month from a date as text. A1 is date =TEXT(DATE(0,MONTH(a1),1),”mmmm”)
Clean your text before you lookup
by rushikul on twitter [@rushikul]
=VLOOKUP(CLEAN(TRIM(E20)),F5:G18,2,0). To make sure you are using clear text, as text is most used in vookup_value
Find if two ranges are statistically different
by nandoaires on twitter [@nandoaires]
=IF((1-(1-NORMSDIST(ABS(A1-A2)/SQRT((2*AVERAGE(A1:A2)*(1-AVERAGE(A1:A2)))/(A3))))*2)>0,95;”Different”;”Equals”)
Lookup 3 criteria and return the match
by Alan_xls on twitter [@Alan_xls]
=Index(return,Match(1,(1stRange=criteria1)*(2ndRange=criteria2)*(3rdRange=criteria3),0)) Return result where 3 values match,Array Form
Offset with Match, get data from somewhere else
by Arnab Bose on PHD comments
This formula looks up data from another sheet considering three parameters keeping into account the column A and column B with sub-components (both on another sheet) and matching them up with the heading on both sheets. =OFFSET(’Data Sheet’!$C$1,MATCH(D$2,’Data Sheet’!$A$2:$A$140,0)+MATCH($B5,’Data Sheet’!$B$2:$B$20,0)-1,MATCH(D$3,’Data Sheet’!$C$1:$J$1,0)-1)
Using SUM with multiple conditions
by ps62 on twitter [@ps62]
{=SUM(IF(shoes=”nike”,Units,0))} – array formula – two conditions
VLOOKUP but get values from the left
by bsamson on twitter [@bsamson]
VLookup to return values to the left of the lookup range: =INDEX(SearchRange,MATCH(LookupValue,LookupRange,FALSE))
Getting data from a dynamic range
by Arnab Bose on PHD comments
This formula extracts data from a dynamic data range and returns a zero value if there is an #N/A error. =IF(ISNA(HLOOKUP($A14,Data!$AB$2:$AW$9,MATCH(”P”,Data!$AB$2:$AB$2,0),0)), 0,HLOOKUP($A14,Data!$AB$2:$AW$9,MATCH(”P”,Data!$AB$2:$AB$2,0),0))
Find the difference between maximums of two ranges
by PreetAulakh on twitter [@PreetAulakh]
{=MAX(K5:M5-K4:M4)}, one step formula to determine the max of difference of two ranges! No curly brackets in excel, Cltr+Shift+Enter
Find the top 3 values of a range
by JassiAulakh on twitter [@JassiAulakh]
Large(A1:A100,{1,2,3}). Gives you 3 highest values of a range. Select three cells and enter this formulas. Then Cltr+Shift+Enter
SUMPRODUCT with multiple conditions
by Martin on PHD comments
Here’s my little contribution (previously posted 😉 Named Ranges (should be dynamic, but….) Ship $A$2:$A$8 Captain $B$2:$B$8 flights $C$2:$C$8 in F:F Summary_ship $F$2:$I$2 this 3:3 Summary_Captain $E$3:$E$6 data is in range A1:C8, and summary is in E1:I6. =SUMPRODUCT((Ship=in Summary_ship)*(Captain=this Summary_Captain)*(flights))
Get the name of the workbook
by Dmurphy on PHD comments
To return the name of the workbook only, e.g. MyWorkbook.xls: =MID(CELL(”filename”,$A$1),FIND(”[“,CELL(“filename”,$A$1))+1,FIND(“]“,CELL(”filename”,$A$1))-FIND(”[”,CELL(”filename”,$A$1))-1)
Excel Formula Fun – Should we fight… ?
by chrismelck on twitter [@chrismelck]
=IF(ISERROR(VLOOKUP(WOMD,Iraq,1,FALSE)),”Declare war”,”Declare war anyway”)
More ways to use IF and Then formula
by Olu D. on PHD comments
This formula determines the Active (=”T”) status or otherwise of Employees in an Excel spreadsheet: =IF(AC2=””,”X”,IF(AND(AC2=500000,AD2=””),”T”,IF(AND(AC2500000,AD2?”),”F”,”Pls Enter Leaving Reason!!”)))
Using INDIRECT along with VLOOKUP to make dynamic lookups
by squash86 on twitter [@squash86]
=VLOOKUP(B3, INDIRECT(B36), COLUMN()-1,FALSE) The INDIRECT returns the name of a named range that holds the data table.
Calculate the p-value of a t-statistic [Don’t ask me what it is 😛 ]
by David on PHD comments
=NORMDIST(-1*ABS((Z27-AE27)/AG27),0,1,TRUE). Calculate p-value for t-statistic based on means in Z27 and AE27 and the std err of mean in AG27.
What is on the right side of that string
by aniVy on twitter [@aniVy]
=RIGHT(A1,LEN(A1)-FIND(“-“,A1,1)) – Extracts right side string after a hyphen.
Find frequency distribution of a range of values
by Cody on PHD comments
=FREQUENCY(DY5:DY118,EU4:EU14) for creating frequency distributions. I can’t believe I went so long before discovering that there’s an easy built-in array function that does this. Constructing the distribution by hand was always a pain.
In-cell bar graph
by JohnCorp on twitter [@JohnCorp]
=REPT(“|”,A1/MAX($A$1:$A$5)*30) creates a bar graph from the data in the range a1:a5, change the font to change the look of the graph
Get the name of the current worksheet
by Dmurphy on PHD comments
To return the name fo the current worksheet, e.g. “Sheet1?: =MID(CELL(”filename”,$A$1),FIND(”]”,CELL(”filename”,$A$1))+1, LEN(CELL(”filename”,$A$1))-FIND(”]”,CELL(”filename”,$A$1)))
Excel formula fun – Usetheforce()
by _mikii on twitter [@_mikii]
=usetheforce(choke,”Moff Jerjerrod”)
UDF to calculate to royalty, I am not getting any
by chrislbs on twitter [@chrislbs]
=TieredRoyalty($R$16:$T$19,I5) @r1c1 Uses a UDF to calculate royalty on I5 based on a TierTable in R16:T19, saving nested vlookups
Find the Next Friday the 13th
by S3bast1an on twitter [@S3bast1an]
ARRAYformula – Next Friday 13th is =MIN(IF(((WEEKDAY(TODAY()+ROW(1:1000);2)=5)*(DAY(TODAY()+ROW(1:1000))=13))=1;TODAY()+ROW(1:1000)))
Split first name and last name
by Mahmut on PHD comments
=LEFT(A1,FIND(” “,A1)-1) =RIGHT(A1,LEN(A1)-FIND(” “,A1)) Split first names and last names.
IF with a VLOOKUP
by m4th1337 on twitter [@m4th1337]
=IF(VLOOKUP(C1,’Historical Data’!$A$2:$S$332,4,FALSE)>F1,”-“,IF(VLOOKUP(C1,’Historical Data’!$A$2:$S$332,4,FALSE)
And now for the winners
I wish I had more prizes to give. All the tips are truly marvelous. I have learned several cool uses of excel formulas. But alas, we have only 2 prizes in this contest.
Dashboard bundle from Bonavista Systems goes to Govi
The excel formulas 2007 book by John Walkenbach goes to DMurphy
Both the winners are randomly selected. I have already sent them an e-mail with the further instructions to claim the prizes.
Big thank you to Bonavista Systems, the contest sponsor
I would like to thank Andreas from Bonavista systems for sponsoring the dashboard bundle. Bonavista systems makes some really cool tools for excel dashboards, spark-lines and helps you make cleaner and better looking charts. Checkout their products and know more about them from their site.
Further Resources if you want to learn Excel Formulas
65 Responses to “Make Dynamic Dashboards using Pivot Tables & Slicers [Video & Download]”
WOW, is all I can say.
I could not have imagined a dynamic dashboard without getting approved software budget and a team of people involved to create it. Given that I am a relative newbie to excel and actually got here by looking for pivit table help, I imagine that i would not be able to make anything myself. But armed with the demo excel sheet I will press buttons (and I will report back how that went;-)
Claudia
Good stuff Chandoo, thanks
The slicer buttons take up quite a bit of room on the dashboard
Is there a way to make the buttons smaller so we can have more room for charts, tables, and commentary?
Kind regards,
Winston
You can resize the slicers! When you click the slicers you can change the height and width of columns and slicers. You can also, under slicer style click "New slicer style" where you can define your own style, which enables you to change most things, including font size.
I hadn't seen the Group Option used as you did for the Duration PivotTable. And thanks for showing how to remove the Field Buttons on a PivotChart, I loathe them with all my heart.
Fantastic design and a great dashboard.
@Claudia.. I am glad you like it. Do let us know how your adventures go.
@Winston: You can resize slicers or increase the number of columns inside. Unfortunately, we can not readjust the font sizes in slicers. So when you resize, you will see partial text.
@Gregory: Thank you. I am happy you like it 🙂
Hi Chandoo, your dashboards are really professional and simple. I do have some question, if I have the following scenario, could you help to advise : -different data sources eg monthly
-calculations percentile
-%difference between financial year
Thank you so much!
Hi,
Thanks for your great information.It has helped me a lot.
Now,I can build my excel addin for Excel 2010 better with your tips.
Hi chandoo i am new reader for ur site.and really found good stuff and temp. But i suggest u 2 put a guidance step sheet in temp so anyone can understand easily.and also help me to become awesome as ur noume.
[...] [Related: Dynamic Dashboard using Pivot Tables & Slicers] [...]
Chandoo, Wow these are very powerful reports. I will be implementing them straight away. It will save me hours of work. Thankyou so much.
Hi Chandoo,
I love the Slicer, but how do I link a slicer for different data sheets e.g.: Client data on one tab and products on another tab, as I find that as long as you use pivot tables off the same data you can link the Pivot tables using Slicer connections.
Regards
Paul
I appreciate the work you have posted on your website - very informative and easy to understand. I just wanted to inform you that you can make selections within the slicer too by using Ctrl and selecting the fields you want to group and use as filter.
I had a question regarding the data used in pivot tables. Is there a way to update the data (eg. a new customer entry) and have the pivot tables and the linked charts in dashboard automatically update? I will search for the answer in other posts so ignore if you have covered it elsewhere.
Thanks again and keep up the good work.
-Vivek
Dear All,
Me too is a die hard fan of Slicer. it's requirement was arise when management is feeling it difficult to juggle with filters for sales of a particular location, Product Category in Pivot Table.
Got very positive response when introduced to tackle the above situation. furthermore in slicer setting there would be option to enable or disable deleted data is handy for particular scenario.
These are eye catching color themes would be like icing on the cake.
There is one more feature of excel 2010 which proves to be tool for great time saving is "Repeat Labels" in Pivot Tables.
This is fantastic!! Your steps were super to easy follow. I can't wait to show my new dashboard off to the boss. Thank you so much!
This might be a little unrelated but I'd like to know which software was used to record your on screen actions? I'd like to use it for tutorials on models that I build for my customers. Thanks!
@Van
Have a look here: http://chandoo.org/wp/about/what-we-use/
The slicers are coming in a sorted order... How can i get it in the way it appears in my original data.... The settings show to sort them A to Z or the other way round but they are option boxes and can not be unchecked... What are my options????
[...] Using slicers to make a dynamic dashboard in Excel [...]
I watched the video and then worked through an example of my own, also telephone costs by coincidence. It took me about 30 minutes to do everything. Once you've understood the basics of pivot tables and slicers, all that limits you is your imagination!
The only thing missing from the video is now to change the number of columns in a slicer: Right click a slicer then Size and Properties, Position and Layout, Layout, Number of Columns ...
Good page and video.
Duncan
How do you insert 'Year' in the Pivot Table Field List if it doesnt exist in the Master table???
Thanks
Hi,
Can I disable the multi-selection of the slicer to only allow one selection at a time?
Thanks in Advance
@Manu.. as of Excel 2013, this is not supported yet. But you can remove slicer heading, clear filter button and style it so that it looks like a single selection. You can also use Macros to ignore previous selection upon multiple selection, but I would not recommend it.
For an example on styling see - Interactive Pivot Calendar
Awesome guide! The dashboard I made blew people away. I do have one question. I want the chart title to match what I have selected. How can I do this without writing macros?
@Devin
Lets say what you have selected in in A1
Select the Chart then Select the Title
Click in the Formula Bar and type =A1
enter or click the small arrow to the left of the Formula Bar
Enjoy
Love the slicers and use them often in my dashboards. Question about the data (specifically the date) I see the "date of call" column but was wondering how were you able to filter on slicers by year and month when there is only a date of call entered into the data?
Thanks for your help!
Thanks for taking the time to create this interesting and very useful tutorial!
I was able to create a similar dashboard in a short time after watching your tutorial. The problem I am having now is how to update the pivot tables and dashboard graphs when a change is made in the raw data. I tried two methods; Change data Source and Refresh. When I used Change Data Source (Options-> Change data source) the values in the pivot tables didn't update. When I tried refresh the values in the pivot tables disappeared as well as the information in the graphs, since the data in the pivot tables no longer existed.
I have been searching for a solution for a while now but I have unfortunately not been able to solve this problem yet. Any help someone can provide is GREATLY appreciated.
All the best
Hi, looks great, but how valuable is power view when it comes to financial data? I've been having trouble trying to visualize how I would use power view to report of financial data.
Hi Chandoo, you are awesome! Thanks for the good work!
there is duplication for my slicer, probably cause i choose date, time as my options. i changed it to date but still theres a duplication of the same date
Just Great! Thank you for the time to put this together and teach us.
Alex Cardoso from Indaiatuba, Brazil.
First of all I would like to thank you guys for this post I used this amazing tool with the help of your tutorial to create a dashboard for one single account and my regional manager said "good job, it looks very profesional" she was so impresed that now she wants one daschboard with all the acounts and services she is going to replace her KPI reports with my report !! I smell a promotion!! My demand was a new laptop with MS 2010 and it was granted. now I have allot of work and many many questions to post .. kudos
Hi Chandoo
I want to say thanks first because i loved ur tutorials
i have a small doubt how to insert slicer from external connections
i searched every where could you please explain how to insert a slicer from external source
@Krishna Prasad
use external source data as pivot table then you will be able to use slicer.
Hello Chandoo,
How to get rid of the > items in Months slicer?
They are appearing when there is a grouping on the date field in pivot
Thanks
Hi Chandoo,
One problem always bothers me when i use slicer. I have no idea aobut how to change the number format in slicer. Want to display number in slicer as general format, but it always displays other number format such as date.
I check my source data and it doesn't effect the number format.
Look forward you or any EXPERTS to solve it. Thanks very much!
In the end, This website is awesome!!!
Hi Emma,
Were you able to resolve your query? I have a similar problem. I use Excel 2013 and the field I'm dropping into the slicer is a currency field ($1.00, $1.05, $1.10 etc.) representing the exchange rates that the user can choose from. The items in the slicer revert back to general format (1, 1.05, 1.1, etc.) although the source field is formatted as currency field. Is there a way to fix this?
@Sunil & Emma: You can create a new column in your raw data which has currency as text, using the TEXT formula like this =TEXT(currency_val, "$#,##.00"). Use this column to create the slicer.
Thanks for the response Chandoo. It works as you suggested. However, if the users were to pick more than one item in the window I'd like to know what is the max value and utilise that value in a DAX formula.
Also... there is no issue if I were to throw a slicer over a normal pivot. The trouble comes when I choose the 'Add this data to the Data Model' option which I need for the PowerPivot.
Hi Chandoo (Or others)
Is there a way to make the color change, when the value changing after the use of a slicer?
Lets say the value is 4,5, when i press the slicer, and the value change to 3,5 i would like the color to change. Can anyone help?
Thank you.
Hi Chandoo,
It was very useful video for me. Thanks.
But I have one question to ask.
How can I connect data which is growing in size (rows, records) by time (daily, monthly etc.) to this kind of dashboard?
Or it is only on select number of data?
Thank you.
Chandoo zindabad!
Hi Chandoo,
I have been able to create something similar quite easily. The problem that I am facing is that I want to keep the Top 10 filters permanently. If I select one option and then clear the filter, the chart removes the Top 10 filter; I want it to go back to Top 10 filter.
Is there a solution to this problem?
Regards
Thanks a lot for the tutorial and for the demo file!
I have the same problem of Angela: after clearing the filter applyed on P1, the filter on P1 shows all the customers without filtering top 10 (as it was before).
Thanks!
Federico
Go to your pivot table, right-click and choose "pivot table options." On the "Totals & Filters" tab check "Allow multiple filters per field."
Justin, thank you so much!
now after clearing the filter applyed on P1, the filter on P1 shows again top 10 customers.
[…] Slicers – how to use them – case study […]
Chandoo!
Just find out your website, I´ll follow your tutorials from now, very useful!
Great thanks from Brazil!!!
Very useful. Learned a new skill today. Thanks a ton!
Hi Chandoo,
This is fantastic! It's going to really help me with some operational reports I develop regularly. Two questions I'm hoping you can answer for me:
1. How can I use one slicer to manipulate two different pivot charts that came from two different pivot tables?
2. If I have a slicer in an excel and share that with someone who is on older versions of Excel - what will it look like to them?
thanks!
Hello Chandoo!
I love the dashboards and have been able to make quite a few, my puzzle is when I am connecting the pivot charts to the slicers, I have to do each individual one and check every single slicer (usually I have about 12, so I end up having to check the 12 check boxes 12 times to connect everything) am I missing something? Is there an easier way to do this?
Thanks!
elisa
Hello Chandoo,
You make my life easier, am in love withe the slicers!
I greatly appreciate
Thanx
Hama
[…] Slicers. Easy for me to do, but not as easy to explain how I did it. Fortunately, Chandoo has a Make Dynamic Dashboards using Pivot Tables & Slicers video and download that will do the job nicely. Suffice it to say it took me <3 minutes to put […]
thank you very much..... 🙂
You are a legend!! Thank you so much - very clear, very helpful indeed.
nice player...
i like to play like chandoo sir.
i learn somthing about slicer by watching posts.
it was too difficult to watch and easy to prepare..
thank you boss.
God Bless You
Hi,
I've built a dashboard on Excel 2010 using Pivot tables and slicers.
What I would like to do now is duplicate the dashboard on another tab, having it extract from another data source (format is identical to the 1st data source).
I'm extracting the same metrics, but each data sources measure different product lines.
Could anyone help me out?
Thanks in advance,
M
@M
Can you please post the question at the Chandoo.org Forums
http://forum.chandoo.org/
Please attach a sample file for a quicker more targeted response
Thank you so much. I learned so much about the slicer because of the video. Just got a quick question. Say I got 100+ Customer name bottons in one of the slicer, and it is time consuming to scroll up and down to find the one to select. Is there anyway I can set in the slicer setting that when I type "E", it automatically take the selectionto to where all the "E" starts? Thanks
Hi there,
This looks great - is there a way I can use it to compare vs budget, forecast? Is it just a case of renaming one of the field Comparison with the data being "Actual, Budget, Forecast"?
Thanks!
hello master!
please help me.
i am looking for many file example for Dashboard, but because my English is weak i couldnt fint it in hear.
please help me.
thankyou so much.
@An
Goto: http://chandoo.org/wp/welcome/
Have a look under dashboards http://chandoo.org/wp/excel-dashboards/
Also use the Search Box at the Top right of every page at Chandoo.org and search for Dashboard
thank you brother.
i love all of you!
Dear Excel Guru,
Hope everything is fine with you?
Can you please help in this Logic, it is a thought only to increase my knowledge SIR?
Please note that I have been working in Excel file contains two times of our teammates who claims overtime an each calendar month
My excel file as like this :-
ROW 1 Days of Month
ROW 2 Date of Month
Cell -1 [Time IN(06:00Hrs)], cell -2 [Time OUT(15:30Hrs)] no break in our factory and anything after Eight hours assume as overtime as standard in all across.
Appreciate if you could help me in providing the best an Exclusive Excel formula to calculate each day overtime excluding staff eight hours regular duty and Friday consider as full day overtime.
Kindly help me at the earliest convenience.
awaiting for your expertise.............
Best Regards / Ikram Siddiqui
Thank you for video , will you please provide pivot table with header and sub header like year main header and under that three sub header. How to make dashboard for that.
Dear Sir,
How to seperate amount, mention in remarks.