Comments on: Findout Thanksgiving Day’s Date for Any Year [Excel Formulas]

By: Rick Rothstein (MVP - Excel)

Rick Rothstein (MVP - Excel) — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 05:50:19 +0000

@Andy… there is an “error” in the formula the way it got posted… there should be *two* minus signs (I am pretty sure I typed two of them) in front of the expression containing the MOD function, not just the one minus sign that got posted.

By: Rick Rothstein (MVP - Excel)

Rick Rothstein (MVP - Excel) — Thu, 26 Nov 2009 05:21:19 +0000

@Andy… I think this formula will produce the same results as your last posted Boxer Day formula…

=WORKDAY(date,–(MOD(date,7)<3))

although I'm not sure why we are using "date" as an argument with that date will always be December 26th of the given year (right?).

By: Andy

Andy — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 20:29:53 +0000

Ok, so a correction on my part: you don’t need to specify Christmas Day for the Boxing Day formula. It should be as follows:
=IF(OR(WEEKDAY(date)=1,WEEKDAY(date)=2,WEEKDAY(date)=7),WORKDAY(date,1),date)

By: Andy

Andy — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 20:25:08 +0000

Rick: When Dec 26th is a Saturday, the stat holiday is Monday (28th). When a Sunday, it will be Tuesday (28th) (due to the Christmas Day stat holiday moving from the Saturday to the Monday). When a Monday, it will be Tuesday (27th) (due to Christmas Day stat moving from Sunday to Monday). Any other days of the week it will be the normal day.

By: Rick Rothstein (MVP - Excel)

Rick Rothstein (MVP - Excel) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 20:17:34 +0000

Andy… I don’t think I understand the rules governing Boxer Day sufficiently to address your question. I tried looking it up online, but can’t find an explanation that satisfies my lack of understanding. I realize that if December 26th falls on a Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday, the stat holiday is observed on that day… can you list what day it is observed on when December 26th falls on Saturday, Sunday or Monday?

By: Rick Rothstein (MVP - Excel)

Rick Rothstein (MVP - Excel) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 20:14:38 +0000

Chandoo… The only reason I mentioned the Analysis ToolPak is because in my volunteering efforts in the online newsgroups, I see quite a lot of people who do not have this add-in activated, more than I think you are imagining (they usually write back asking about the error they are getting when an Analysis ToolPak function is used in a posted answer to their question). If a worksheet using your WORKDAY solution is given to one of these types of users, then they may not know what to do with the error they see. As XL2007 and XL2010 take hold more and more, this problem will diminish to almost nothing; but, for now, I think it needs to be acknowledged.

By: Andy

Andy — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 20:08:04 +0000

@Chandoo: thanks for that, I’m really not sure how I missed that function! However, it still needs to only advance the date if it falls on a weekend. So putting the WORKDAY function within an IF as follows seems to work:
=IF(OR(WEEKDAY(date)=1,WEEKDAY(date)=7),WORKDAY(date,1),date)
Again, a modification needs to be made for Boxing Day, but this is now simpler as the WORKDAY function can be defined to exclude specific dates (ie Christmas Day). So this can be amended as follows:
=IF(OR(WEEKDAY(date)=1,WEEKDAY(date)=7,WEEKDAY(date)=2),WORKDAY(date,1,date-1),date)

By: Chandoo

Chandoo — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 20:03:50 +0000

@Rick.. true… WORKDAY requires the analysis toolpak. Considering the fact that most users have it anyway, I am sure it is an easy way than writing date manipulation formulas (which are more difficult than traditional arithmetic or lookup formulas)

Also, my comment counter include trackbacks / pingbacks as well – there is a pingback from deb’s site to this article…

By: Rick Rothstein (MVP - Excel)

Rick Rothstein (MVP - Excel) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 19:59:27 +0000

Chandoo… true, but only if you have the Analysis ToolPak add-in activated (except in XL2007 where the WORKDAY function is an always activated function). As an aside, why does your Comments “counter” shown under the tip’s title show one more comment than there actually are?

By: Chandoo

Chandoo — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 19:52:07 +0000

@Andy & Rick … I assume you are using the “advance weekend dates to monday” in the context of finding the next working day, in which case, the formula =WORKDAY(date,1) is good enough. It gives you next working day’s date no matter what.