Most of you know that during day time I work as a business analyst. Today while preparing some test scenarios for our latest insurance application, I came across a weird problem.
There are some steps in testing. For each test scenario, a combination of these steps is required. It is my responsibility to identify the steps as well as their combinations for each of the scenarios. So I quickly prepared a table with all the steps in left most column and one scenario each in one column. I put “X” in a cell if the step needs to appear in that scenario. But when I gave it to our testing team, they asked me if the scenarios can be explained a little better. See this picture to understand what they want and what I made.
So I immediately converted the “X”s to actual step names using a simple IF formula. (Copied the table, and wrote ‘if there is an X in the previous table, get the actual step from left most column otherwise empty‘).
Then the problem of actually removing various blank cells. First I tried to select all the blank cells and remove them using our technique from last week. But it failed as the blank cells are actually formulas with empty values. So I copy pasted the entire table as values (CTRL+C, ALT+ESV). But even then excel wont recognize blanks as true blanks (because the value is actually “” instead of being plain empty.)
Now I didnt want to manually select all the blank cells as the real testing scenario table had 50 scenarios with 68 possible steps.
Then it stuck me, why not use FIND (CTRL+F) to find all the cells containing nothing? So I selected the scenario table, opened the find and looked up all the cells that contain empty values. Now I clicked on “Find all” and selected the entire list of values from that. Finally I removed all these cells and bingo!
PS: Our testers was more than happy as it took very little time and they had all the scripts ready.
PPS: Thanks to Rick, who taught me FIND ALL approach to select blank cells (here).
9 Responses to “CP044: My first dashboard was a failure!!!”
CONGRATS on the book!
Thanks for this podcast. It's great to hear about your disaster and recovery. It's a reminder that we're all human. None of this skill came easily.
Thank you Oz. I believe that we learn most by analyzing our mistakes.
Hey chandoo
this really a good lesson learned
but as I have already stated in one of my previous email that it would be more helpful for us if you could release videos of your classes for us
thanks
The article gave me motivation, especially you describing the terrible disaster that you faced but how to get back from the setbacks. Thanks for that, but with video this will be more fun.
Hi Nafi,
Thanks for your comments. Please note that this is (and will be) audio podcast. For videos, I suggest subscribing to our YouTube channel. No point listening to audio and saying its not video.
You always motivate me with respect of the tools in excel. How we can really exploit it to the fullest. Thanks very much
Thank you Amankwah... 🙂
Thank you very much, Chandoo, for your excellent lessons, I am anxious to learn so valuable tips and tricks from you, keep up the great job!
I truly appreciate the transcripts of the podcasts, because as a speaker of English as a second language, it allows me to fully understand the material. It'd be great if you can add transcripts to your online courses too, I am sure people will welcome this feature.
Dashboards for Excel has arrived in Laguna Beach, CA! Thanks!
Now I need to make time to "learn and inwardly digest" its contents as one of my high school teachers would admonish us!