A week ago Tarun asked a question on the Chandoo.org Forums.
“I have got multiple names in each row and would like to have what name is repeated maximum number of times and how many times?
Eg. Ram, Amita, Obama, Ram, Willi, Ram, Amita, Chandoo, Ram, Willi
Ans: Ram (4 times)”
(The list and answers are edited)
Chandoo responded with a neat Array Formula:
=INDEX(B2:K2,MATCH(MAX(COUNTIF(B2:K2,B2:K2)), COUNTIF(B2:K2,B2:K2),0)) &
” (“&MAX(COUNTIF(B2:K2,B2:K2))&” times)”
Lets take a look inside this and see how it works
THE EXAMINATION
The formula has two parts separated by a &
=INDEX(B2:K2,MATCH(MAX(COUNTIF(B2:K2,B2:K2)), COUNTIF(B2:K2,B2:K2),0))
and
&
and
” (“&MAX(COUNTIF(B2:K2,B2:K2))&” times)”
Each part is separate and can be used independently, the & character simply joins the two parts together to make a single string which answers Tarun’s question, Ram (4 times).
Now, lets look at each part.
You can follow along with this forensic examination by downloading the Sample Data File.
=INDEX(B2:K2,MATCH(MAX(COUNTIF(B2:K2,B2:K2)), COUNTIF(B2:K2,B2:K2),0))
This is a single Index Function with 2 components, being:
a Range B2:K2 and
a Count MATCH(MAX(COUNTIF(B2:K2,B2:K2)), COUNTIF(B2:K2,B2:K2),0)
Typically an Index Function uses 3 components
=Index(Array, Row Number,[Column Number])
In this example the Range is a single Row, B2:K2
And so using the Counter in the Row spot has the effect of counting down the first Column and then continuing at the top of the second Column etc
So the formula used:
=INDEX(B2:K2,MATCH(MAX(COUNTIF(B2:K2,B2:K2)), COUNTIF(B2:K2,B2:K2),0))
Is equivalent to:
=INDEX(B2:K2,1,MATCH(MAX(COUNTIF(B2:K2,B2:K2)), COUNTIF(B2:K2,B2:K2),0))
Now lets jump ahead to the COUNTIF(B2:K2,B2:K2) bit
If you copy =COUNTIF(B2:K2,B2:K2) to a cell, Press F2 and then evaluate the Formula using F9
You will see that it returns an array. The array is highlighted by the squiggly brackets { } ‘s
={4,2,1,4,2,4,2,1,4,2}
This is the heart of the solution.
What this is showing us is that for each position in the range B2:K2, the count of how many times that cells value occurs in the range B2:K2
So the formula
=INDEX(B2:K2,MATCH(MAX(COUNTIF(B2:K2,B2:K2)), COUNTIF(B2:K2,B2:K2),0))
Is equivalent to
=INDEX(B2:K2,MATCH(MAX({4,2,1,4,2,4,2,1,4,2}), {4,2,1,4,2,4,2,1,4,2},0))
Looking at the MAX({4,2,1,4,2,4,2,1,4,2}) part, this simplifies to 4, the Maximum value of the array (Remember this line, we’ll come back to it later).
So our simplified formula is now: =INDEX(B2:K2,MATCH(4, {4,2,1,4,2,4,2,1,4,2},0))
Now looking at the MATCH(4, {4,2,1,4,2,4,2,1,4,2},0) part of the equation
You can see that Match is looking for the value 4, in the array {4,2,1,4,2,4,2,1,4,2}, which is the First value , Position 1, the 0 requesting that an exact match is found.
So that MATCH(4, {4,2,1,4,2,4,2,1,4,2},0) is equivalent to 1
So our equation =INDEX(B2:K2,MATCH(4, {4,2,1,4,2,4,2,1,4,2},0))
Is now simplified even more to =INDEX(B2:K2, 1)
Index will then look in B2:K2 and will return the first cell or “Ram” in this example.
& “(” & MAX(COUNTIF(B2:K2,B2:K2)) & ” times)”
The second part of the equation is responsible for counting the number of Times Ram occurs and displaying it with some text.
& “(” & MAX(COUNTIF(B2:K2,B2:K2)) & ” times)”
The parts displayed in Red above add the text ( and times) to the Count
Remember the section MAX(COUNTIF(B2:K2,B2:K2)) which was explained above and evaluates to 4 in this case
So the & “(” & MAX(COUNTIF(B2:K2,B2:K2)) & ” times)”
Part evaluates to: ( 4 times)
With the initial & adding it to the text of the first part Ram for the final result – Ram ( 4 times)
LEARN MORE ABOUT ARRAY FORMULAS
You can learn more about Array Formulas at the following links:
http://www.cpearson.com/excel/ArrayFormulas.aspx
http://www.databison.com/index.php/excel-array-formulas-excel-array-formula-syntax-array-constants/
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/excel-help/introducing-array-formulas-in-excel-HA001087290.aspx
Chandoo.org has several articles on Array Formulas
http://chandoo.org/wp/tag/array-formulas/
FORENSIC FORMULAS
Would you like to see more “Forensic” examination of complex formulas ?
Let us know in the comments below and it may become a regular section at Chandoo.org.
7 Responses to “Project Dashboard + Tweetboard = pure awesomeness!!!”
I would like to see actual hash-tagged DM tweets go out to the specific information consumers. That would be an interesting way to communicate the key daily data to interested parties.
A Twitter-like secure application like Yammer might be a good fit with this.
For example, how about daily tweets to selected user groups (secure) that would display sales, bookings, cash receipts, cash disbursed and a second version that would show the same info for MTD, QTD or YTD figures.
@Dan, it would be great. I did not taught about implementing it on this dashboard because twitter is blocked to the whole intranet here. However, there's a discussion here about how can we send these tweets to blackberries (probably through e-mail) automatically. (I'd like to see this implemented on a jabber restricted network as well, but here it'll probably not happen)
The wrap-up versions you mentioned doesn't apply to my particular scenario, but on a sales tweetboard it would be a great tool indeed - choosing who will receive which message according to hashtags. I'll think on something, thanks for the advice. 🙂
(Ah, btw, I'm Fernando... 🙂 )
@Dan: That is a fun idea. Instead of tightly integrating twitter functionality with a dashboard, i think it would be cool if we have a "tweet this" button that users can click after selecting a range of cells. We can easily show a dialog with the concatenated output of the selected cells and ask user to edit the text and eventually "send to twitter".
For eg. you can select the annual sales figure cell and click on "tweet this" button upon which a dialog will show the value. Then you can pre-pend it something like "DM @boss look at our sales this year: "
@Aires.. thanks once again.
Wow it looks really good. Not sure though how much the tweet facility would help in real world project management, but certainly having a dashboard on a project should be a key deliverable when learning how to manage a project
The other use of this is during the software development life cycle especially when you have parallel streams of development and testing going on. Using a dashboard is a quick way for everyone on the team to see where the project is at and how it all fits together.
Regards
Susan de Sousa
Site Editor http://www.my-project-management-expert.com
Hi Chandoo,
I purchased the project management toolkit but the dashboard shown above with the imbedded scroll bars. Is it included in the project pack??
Thanks
Sue
The gantt chart section of this dashboard is similar to one I have recently created: http://xlcalibre.com/hr-dashboard-gantt-chart-traffic-light-reportIt has a similar approach with scroll bars, but has a couple of additional features. I've tried to incorporate a traffic light report element, and also allow the timescale to adjusted so that can view it by days, weeks or months.I really like the other tables that you've incorporated, I may well try to replicate them to improve my version!
I am a monitoring and evaluation consultant in international development, and one of the services I offer is to help non-profits and foundations develop performance dashboards. I often advise them to develop dashboards for ongoing programs, rather than for one-time or pilot projects, because of the time involved. I am trying to find out from a few people how long it takes you to develop a project management dashboard, and to what extent the indicators vary from one project to the next.