Switch Scenarios Dynamically using Slicers

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Slicers are my new favorite feature in Excel. Introduced in Excel 2010, Slicers are like visual filters.

A simple example of slicers:

Let us say you have a sales report (pivot) for multiple salespersons. Since you want to show the report by one person at a time, you used report filters in pivot tables to display this. But you find that switching between regions is a pain using the report filter.

Enter slicers.

Now, you can just click the region name to show the report for that region, like this:

Using Slicers to dynamically show sales report by person

Using Slicers to Switch between Scenarios Dynamically:

Now, we can use slicers creatively to make an interactive scenario manager in Excel, some thing like this:

Using Slicers to Switch Scenarios in Excel

This technique gives the same outcome as the Display and Select Scenarios using VBA article, but easier to implement

How to use slicers to switch between scenarios?

Step 1: Set up various scenarios in a table

You need to define various scenarios in a table, like this:

Scenario-wise data - setup

Step 2: Create a pivot table from your scenario data

Select the table you created in step 1 and insert a pivot table. Use variable name as row label and variable value in value field area.

Step 3: Insert a slicer for the scenarios

Select anywhere inside the pivot. Now, from options tab, click on Insert Slicer button. Click on Scenarios field to insert a slicer.

Add a slicer to select scenario

Step 4: Create your model, in our case a break-even model

I will skip the explanation of model creation as that is not relevant here.

Once the model is set up, just refer to the pivot table for each of the variable values.

Step 5: Move slicer to Model

Go to the pivot table worksheet and Select the slicer, click CTRL+X to cut it.

Go back to your model worksheet and paste the slicer.
Disabling Slicer Heading and Clear Filter Button

Step 6: Format the slicer

Excel slicers by default show an option to remove the filtered slicer. You can get rid of this button by,

1) Right click on the slicer
2) Go to slicer settings
3) Un-check Display Header option

See aside.

Step 7: Use the slicer to interactively switch scenarios

That is all, our smart scenario switching slicer is ready. Now, you can extend this in many ways. For example, you can write some clever formulas to handle selection of multiple slicers. You can compare between one scenario and another when more than one option is chosen from the slicer. So much more is possible. But I will let your imagination run wild.

Download Example Excel File:

I have made a simple example to demonstrate this technique.

Please download the file and open it in Excel 2010.

Examine the worksheets “Scenario Pivot” and “Model” to understand how the slicer is setup and how this works.

Do you slice?

As I said, Slicers are my new favorite feature in Excel. I have been using them as much as possible because they are simple to use and very powerful.

What about you? Do you slice often? What is your experience like? Please share your ideas and tips using comments.

More examples on Slicers & Pivot Tables:

1) Creating a Dynamic Dashboard in Excel using Slicers
2) Creating a Dynamic Chart using Pivot Table Report Filters
3) Remove Duplicates and Sort a list using Pivot Tables
4) More on Pivot Tables & Modeling

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25 Responses to “Shift Calendar Template – FREE Download”

  1. Alvin says:

    Hi Chandoo,

    your recent postings include only Excel 2007 templates. Unfortunately the company I work at still runs Excel 2003. Is it possible to get your awesome files in other excel version as well?

    Thanks so much for your great excel stuff!

  2. Stelios Tserkezis says:

    Is it possible to do this for shifts with hours instead of days? To organise a three shift day?

    Thanks in advance,

    Stelios

  3. MASTHAN says:

    In my organization there are 45 employees i need split then into three shifts ex:A shift:14,B shift:14,C shift:14 and week off:3 kindly help me on this.

  4. Hui... says:

    @Masthan

    You need to understand what rules your company has for the various shifts / roster combinations

  5. Georges Lacombe says:

    Chandoo, I once did a shift control spreadsheet for my team. I put one person in each line, the columns were the days. I put a shift code in each cell indicating in which shift that person should work, or if the person were out that day. I have two codes for being out. One is for vacations and one is to compensate days worked in weekends. This way I was able to count how many persons I have in each shift, how many were on vacations and how many were out compensating (that's the term we use here) weekend worked hours.
    Later I included the possibility of a person be in two lines one for normal hours other for overtime. This is mainly used for planning purposes. If you would like I can send you an example. The only problem of this spreadsheet is that we don't have a person view, only this consolidated view.

    • Chuck Vaughan says:

      Hi George, I would like to have a copy of your spreadsheet if you can share it.
       
      Thanks in advance, Chuck   

  6. Idan says:

    Hi Chandoo,

    Where is the code located ? is it VBA ? If so , how do you hide it ? Or it is .NET ?

    Thx

  7. Hui... says:

    @Idan
    .
    No VBA or code, it is all done with Mirrors.
    Only Joking,
    .
    But there is no VBA or code,
    It is all done with Named Formulas and Lookups.
    Have alook at the cells in the calander area and Named Formulas in the Formulas, Name Manager Tab.

  8. Anand Sant says:

    How can i calculate between two or more different workbooks? Please, reply me as early as possible.

    • Hui... says:

      @Anand
      Open the workbooks you want to link to
      Start a formula = and click and change between workbooks as required.
      You can use the View, Switch window menu to change workbooks mid formula

      The format for using workbooks is
      =[Workbook.xlsm]Sheet1!$A$1
      or
      =SUM('[Book2.xls]Sheet1'!$A$1:$D$10)
      etc

  9. Shemi says:

    Hi Chandoo,
    I am working with a call centre wherein i ned to update at the month end 20 to 30 employees login hours which are defict to track it at the month end is very difficult is there any template which can be made to track that why on a particular day a guy who needs to be on calls was why not on calls.

  10. Denice Lognshaw says:

    Thank you so much Chandoo. This is really helping me. As usual, you rock.

  11. Mukesh Verma says:

    What's FortyTwoDays and Calendar in Name manager?

    Both are unused and FortyTwoDays doesn't make any sense.

  12. Dave says:

    I have a SQL db that contains records of events scheduled/completed on a particular date. Can this method ous building a calendar be used to display those events on the respective day?

  13. Jan Halliday says:

    Positively awesome!
    I'm attempting to help a friend create a schedule for adult classes - and of course its not"paid help".  Here is the scenario:
    20 classes, instructor, room#, student class size, start date, number of class days (need to subtract weekends)

    class
    instructor
    room
    students
    start
    #days

    PATH
    karen
    201
    21
    01/01/13
    11

    BILLING
    jane
    401
    15
    01/12/13
    13

    MEDISOFT
    mike
    301
    11
    01/25/13
    9

    he'd like to see these classes show up in different colors within the same month's calendar chart.  He can draw it, but I'd like to see it done automatically through data, and I just can't visualize it, but I KNOW this will work - can you help?
    Jan 🙂
     

  14. Chan Tean says:

    Dear chandoo,

    Try many way to download still can't access. Any way we want to try out 3 shifts with 3 guys in a group .eg Group A Morn, Group B Night and Group C Rest. And every each group must work on sunday to take turns. In fact we are security teams so that's why sunday is required to work. Pls guide and show how to put in the working calendar. Thank you in advance.

  15. Veronica Burggren says:

    I've been trying to copy and/or recreate this to use in a workbook I'm doing for the transportation department I'm working for. I need to have the calendar on the first sheet in my document (it has graph's from data on another sheet). I'm trying to use it to track (with the conditional formatting) accidents and injuries. I've redone the conditional formatting to do 4 different accident types (no injury, near miss, OSHA recordable injury and work loss injury), but when I enter the formula's you have in the calendar portion where it says "DateOfFirst-FirstWeekDay" I can't figure out how you did that. Are you able to help?

  16. Pipin Fantom says:

    I would like to use Excel to solve the following problem for a community work. I want to create a Driver schedule for a given month from a pool of volunteers for a community service. Each of these volunteers can drive only on specific days in a week. I would like to populate the driving schedule for each weekday with primary, secondary and tertiary drivers in a random fashion so that I do not overburden one person. I would greatly any help you can provide.

  17. Ravichandra says:

    Hi chandoo,
    Thanks for your valuable effort for create this template and let me know how to add multiple employees in the the Roaster.

  18. Savitha says:

    Hi Chandoo,

    This article on shift roaster is very helpful. Could you please let me know how i can use the same for n number of resources who work 24/7, considering their leaves and holidays?

    Thanks,
    Savitha

  19. Balu says:

    Hi Chandoo,

    This article on shift roaster is very helpful to all. Could you please let me know how i can use the same if I want to add for some more shifts, since the color is not getting change if I add more shifts like 4,5 etc.,

    Thanks,
    Murali

  20. Sarah says:

    How can I change the date to 2017 under Shift Data worksheet.

  21. Cad says:

    solution 1:
    mydata=B2:C16
    stoplist=E2:E8

    =LET(RNG,A2:A16,SMR,C2:C16, F,(RNG=E2)+(RNG=E3)+(RNG=E4)+(RNG=E5)+(RNG=E6)+(RNG=E7)+(RNG=E8),SUM(SMR)-SUM(SMR*F))

    =LET(RNG,A2:A16,SMR,C2:C16,RH,N(B2:B16=B2), F,(RNG=E2)+(RNG=E3)+(RNG=E4)+(RNG=E5)+(RNG=E6)+(RNG=E7)+(RNG=E8),TOT,SUM(SMR)-SUM(SMR*RH*F),SUM(SMR*RH)-SUM(SMR* RH*F))

    ALTERNATE SOLUTION
    =SUM(C2:C16)-SUM(FILTER(C2:C16,ISNUMBER(BYROW(A2:A16,LAMBDA(a,TOROW(SEARCH(a,E2:E8),2))))))

    =SUM((B2:B16=B2)*(C2:C16))-SUM((ISNUMBER(BYROW(A2:A16,LAMBDA(a,TOROW(SEARCH(a,E2:E8),2))))*(B2:B16=B2)*(C2:C16)))

  22. Cad says:

    let
    Source = Excel.CurrentWorkbook(){[Name="Table1"]}[Content],
    #"Replaced Value" = Table.ReplaceValue(Source,null,";",Replacer.ReplaceValue,{"Column1"}),
    #"Transposed Table" = Table.Transpose(#"Replaced Value"),
    #"Removed Other Columns" = Table.SelectColumns(#"Transposed Table",{"Column1", "Column2", "Column3", "Column4", "Column5", "Column6", "Column7", "Column8", "Column9", "Column10", "Column11", "Column12", "Column13", "Column14", "Column15", "Column16", "Column17", "Column18", "Column19", "Column20", "Column21", "Column22", "Column23", "Column24", "Column25", "Column26", "Column27", "Column28", "Column29", "Column30", "Column31", "Column32", "Column33", "Column34", "Column35", "Column36", "Column37", "Column38", "Column39", "Column40", "Column41", "Column42", "Column43", "Column44", "Column45", "Column46", "Column47", "Column48", "Column49", "Column50", "Column51", "Column52", "Column53", "Column54", "Column55", "Column56", "Column57", "Column58", "Column59", "Column60", "Column61", "Column62", "Column63", "Column64", "Column65", "Column66", "Column67", "Column68", "Column69", "Column70", "Column71", "Column72", "Column73", "Column74", "Column75", "Column76", "Column77", "Column78", "Column79", "Column80", "Column81", "Column82", "Column83", "Column84", "Column85", "Column86", "Column87"}),
    #"Merged Columns" = Table.CombineColumns(#"Removed Other Columns",{"Column1", "Column2", "Column3", "Column4", "Column5", "Column6", "Column7", "Column8", "Column9", "Column10", "Column11", "Column12", "Column13", "Column14", "Column15", "Column16", "Column17", "Column18", "Column19", "Column20", "Column21", "Column22", "Column23", "Column24", "Column25", "Column26", "Column27", "Column28", "Column29", "Column30", "Column31", "Column32", "Column33", "Column34", "Column35", "Column36", "Column37", "Column38", "Column39", "Column40", "Column41", "Column42", "Column43", "Column44", "Column45", "Column46", "Column47", "Column48", "Column49", "Column50", "Column51", "Column52", "Column53", "Column54", "Column55", "Column56", "Column57", "Column58", "Column59", "Column60", "Column61", "Column62", "Column63", "Column64", "Column65", "Column66", "Column67", "Column68", "Column69", "Column70", "Column71", "Column72", "Column73", "Column74", "Column75", "Column76", "Column77", "Column78", "Column79", "Column80", "Column81", "Column82", "Column83", "Column84", "Column85", "Column86", "Column87"},Combiner.CombineTextByDelimiter("|", QuoteStyle.None),"Merged"),
    #"Split Column by Delimiter" = Table.ExpandListColumn(Table.TransformColumns(#"Merged Columns", {{"Merged", Splitter.SplitTextByDelimiter(";", QuoteStyle.Csv), let itemType = (type nullable text) meta [Serialized.Text = true] in type {itemType}}}), "Merged"),
    #"Added Prefix" = Table.TransformColumns(#"Split Column by Delimiter", {{"Merged", each "|" & _, type text}}),
    #"Replaced Value1" = Table.ReplaceValue(#"Added Prefix","||","|",Replacer.ReplaceText,{"Merged"}),
    #"Split Column by Delimiter1" = Table.SplitColumn(#"Replaced Value1", "Merged", Splitter.SplitTextByDelimiter("|", QuoteStyle.Csv), {"Merged.1", "Merged.2", "Merged.3", "Merged.4", "Merged.5", "Merged.6", "Merged.7", "Merged.8"}),
    #"Removed Columns" = Table.RemoveColumns(#"Split Column by Delimiter1",{"Merged.1"}),
    #"Removed Duplicates" = Table.Distinct(#"Removed Columns")
    in
    #"Removed Duplicates"

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