Lets take a break from all the Excel trickery. Today I want to share a joyous news with you all.
Today I want to take you back in time, all the way to 1987. I want to share a story with you. So, sit back, sip some coffee and enjoy.
Year 1987 and aftermath
My dad is working as a sales manager back then. He is a quintessential salesman. Busy, flamboyant, confident, tall & fun. I remember him very vaguely now. But I remember having lots of good time at family dinners (we are a family of 5 – my younger brother, mom, dad, dad’s mom & myself). I remember riding his scooter on trips to my school, family clinic or just around the corner.
Then, as if someone shook us from a dream and took everything away, my dad suddenly passed away in the summer of that year. He had a fatal liver failure.
It was a big shock for all of us, especially my mom, who had been married to him for 7 years. My mother studied only up to Class 12. She did not have any job skills back then. On top, she is burdened with 2 little kids (my brother is 5 and I was 6 at that time). We did not have money, house or any other type of assets.
So we moved to my mother’s mother house. My grand parents were kind enough to support us in those dark years.
With in a few years we started getting regular pension, thanks to my dad’s life insurance. This gave a sense of financial security and freedom to us. But, we still felt one gnawing pain. We did not have a home to live.
Between 1990 and 2006, we stayed in 8 different houses. This constant shifting & lack of security bothered my brother and me very much.We decided that, we would get a house as soon as we can.
In fact, I even said to myself that I would not get married before owning a house.
Fast forward to 2000s
So I wanted to own a house, before building a family. But then, I met Jo, we dated for a few years, realized that we are perfect for each other. We could not imagine living without each other. So we got married in year 2007. There was still no house.
Meanwhile, housing prices kept on raising and made my dream almost impossible to achieve without a back breaking mortgage loan. So I kept saying myself, “let me work hard for a few years, save money and then, we will get a house.”
In year 2009, we became parents to a set of lovely, naughty and adorable twins. Nakshatra (girl) & Nishanth (boy) transformed our lives in ways we could not imagine. While the joys of parenting are overwhelming, I was worried all the time about the house. “What if something bad happens and we end up without a home.”
Still we kept saving and living frugally.
Enter 2011 – In search of a house
Since we are against loans (see note 1), we waited until we have enough funds to purchase the house we want. Finally, by March 2011, we reached that stage. So we started looking for a suitable house.
We went to property fairs, told everyone in our immediate social circles, approached agents, pored thru classifieds and online ads. Very soon, we are very tired and felt hopeless.
Good houses almost always have exorbitant prices
Bad or poor houses are over priced too.
We almost gave up and decided to live in a rented house for few more years. But then, a neighbor told us about a house that is up for sale, in the locality where we live. I went and checked it out on the same day. I liked it. It seemed like a house we could call home.
Few days later, we visited the house again. This time with Jo & kids. We liked the space and calm neighborhood. We discussed with a few relatives & friends and made an offer to the owners. After some negotiations, we purchased the house on 26th July, this year.
Then we started renovating the house. It took 2 and half months to get everything done. We have remodeled the kitchen, done wood-work (cupboards), changed flooring, added a car park, store room, upgraded some of the electrical & plumbing fixtures.
Finally, we moved in to the house last Saturday (15th October) and loving it ever since.
Details & Photos of our home
- Total land area: 350 Sq. Yards (292 sq. mts)
- House carpet area: 1000 Sft (92 sq. mts)
- Rooms: 2 bedrooms, living, kitchen, storage, 2 bath & toilets
- Purchase price: ~ $100k
- Location: Vizag
These photos were taken on October 3rd, when we had the traditional Gruha Pravesham (it is like house warming celebration). So you so almost no furniture. The photo of my office room is taken today (October 20th).
Our Living Room
This is our Kitchen
My Office Room (doubles up as guest bedroom too)
Our Living room from Kitchen
Entering our House (Gruha Pravesham) with a Ribbon Cut
Jo and I in our Kitchen
For more pics, checkout New Home Set on my Flickr page.
Thank you & Thanks to Excel
As we live, breathe, enjoy and sleep in this home, I could not thank enough for your support in making this happen. I am so glad you identify with the mission of Chandoo.org and spread a good word about it. I am so humbled that you support us by joining our training programs, purchasing our e-books & products. I am so thankful to you for spending time with us everyday, learning & sharing new things.
Thank you.
I am also thankful to MS Excel, the powerful, awesome tool that transformed my life. It gave me the courage to quit a comfortable job and embark on an exciting journey of running a small business. Thank you so much Microsoft & Excel for being awesome.
One last thing
There is a reason why I am writing this today instead of last Saturday, when we moved in to the new home. Today (Oct 20) is also my birthday. As I celebrate my 29th birthday, I feel immensely grateful, content and happy for the journey so far. The fact that I can share my life, knowledge and mistakes with you all makes me very lucky. I hope the coming years are just as wonderful for you and me.
PS: because of the house renovation work during last 8 weeks, I could not reply to as many emails as I want to. So if you are one of those who mailed me and never heard back, please resend and I will get back to you at the earliest.
More Personal Stories
If you would like to learn more about the personal side of Chandoo.org, have a read thru these,
- Story of Chandoo.org Start-up
- Thank you Excel, We have a car
- How Excel Transformed my life (story of 1 year of running Chandoo.org)
- Christmas & New Year Wishes – 2011
- Meet Nakshatra & Nishanth – our kids
- I am Dad!!!
Added later:
Note 1: As some of you pointed, I did have a mortgage loan (which has 2 more months on it). I borrowed this year 2007 for an apartment (condo) I purchased for my brother. Even though that house is not for me, I still pay the loan as I love my brother and want to support him.
Note2: Our new home is in Vizag, the same place where we have been living for last 2 years.
13 Responses to “Using pivot tables to find out non performing customers”
To avoid the helper column and the macro, I would transpose the data into the format shown above (Name, Year, Sales). Now I can show more than one year, I can summarize - I can do many more things with it. ASAP Utilities (http://www.asap-utilities.com) has a new experimental feature that can easily transpose the table into the correct format. Much easier in my opinion.
David
Of course with alternative data structure, we can easily setup a slicer based solution so that everything works like clockwork with even less work.
David, I was just about to post the same!
In Contextures site, I remember there's a post on how to do that. Clearly, the way data is layed out on the very beginning is critical to get the best results, and even you may thinkg the original layout is the best way, it is clearly not. And that kind of mistakes are the ones I love ! because it teaches and trains you to avoid them, and how to think on the data structure the next time.
Eventually, you get to that place when you "see" the structure on the moment the client tells you the request, and then, you realized you had an ephiphany, that glorious moment when data is no longer a mistery to you!!!
Rgds,
Chandoo,
If the goal is to see the list of customers who have not business from yearX, I would change the helper column formula to :
=IF(selYear="all",sum(C4:M4),sum(offset(C4:M4,,selyear-2002,1,columns(C4:M4)-selyear+2002)))This formula will sum the sales from Selected Year to 2012.
JMarc
If you are already using a helper column and the combox box runs a macro after it changes, why not just adjust the macro and filter the source data?
Regards
I gotta say, it seems like you are giving 10 answers to 10 questions when your client REALLY wants to know is: "What is the last year "this" customer row had a non-zero Sales QTY?... You're missing the forest for the trees...
Change the helper column to:
=IFERROR(INDEX(tblSales[[#Headers],[Customer name]:[Sales 2012]],0,MATCH(9.99999999999999E+307,tblSales[[#This Row],[Customer name]:[Sales 2012]],1)),"NO SALES")
And yes, since I'm matching off of them for value, I would change the headers to straight "2002" instead of "Sales 2002" but you sort the table on the helper column and then and there you can answer all of your questions.
Hi thanks for this. Just can't figure out how you get the combo box to control the pivot table. Can you please advise?
Cheers
@Kevin.. You are welcome. To insert a combo box, go to Developer ribbon > Insert > form controls > combo box.
For more on various form controls and how to use them, please read this: http://chandoo.org/wp/2011/03/30/form-controls/
Thanks Chandoo. But I know how to insert a combobox, I was more referring to how does in control the year in the pivot table? Or is this obvious? I note that if I select the Selected Year from the PivotTable Field List it says "the field has no itens" whereas this would normally allow you to change the year??
Thanks again
worked it out thanks...
when =data!Q2 changes it changes the value in column N:N and then when you do a refreshall the pivottable vlaues get updated
Still not sure why PivotTable Field List says “the field has no itens"?? I created my own pivot table and could not repeat that.
Hi, I put the sales data in range(F5:P19) and added a column D with the title 'Last sales in year'. After that, in column D for each customer, the simple formula
=2000+MATCH(1000000,E5:P5)
will provide the last year in which that particular customer had any sales, which can than easily be managed by autofilter.
Somewhat longer but perhaps a bit more solid (with the column titles in row 4):
=RIGHT(INDEX($F$4:$P$19,1,MATCH(1000000,F5:P5)),4)
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