We love to compare. The instinct to compare leaves no one. Even my two year old twins compare their toys with each other (and fight).
It would make Excel hugely popular if Microsoft builds a handy data comparison tool right in to it. Alas, they have customizable ribbon, 3d effects & equation editor…
Since comparison is one of the main uses of Excel, we have written extensively about it here.
[Read: Compare 2 lists quickly, Compare 2 lists – detailed tutorial]
But there is always one more interesting comparison problem. Today, I want to share one such problem, based on a comment left by N-Man.
The Problem – Compare 2 lists with another 2 lists
I have to do a comparison between to sets of staff lists, where name that are highlighting in the first list who do not appear in the second list have left the firm, and people highlighting in the second list who do not appear in the first are new arrivals.
To further muddy the issue, when I say ‘list’, what I actually have is one column for 1st names and another for surnames in both instances.
Assuming N-Man managed the cast of Harry Potter movies, may be he was talking about something like this:
The Solution – SUMPRODUCT, Conditional Formatting & Coffee
Lets bring our most important ingredient for this problem first – coffee.
Once you pour yourself a strong cup of this, the solution for our problem should become apparent.
- The first step is to give names to all the four lists. While this is not mandatory, it simplifies our solution and reduces our blood pressure.
- So lets call them list1, list 2, list 3 & list4.
- Now, we need to highlight all items in list1 & list2, whenever they do not appear in list3 & list4. (and vice-versa)
- This is where SUMPRODUCT comes in to picture.
- Assuming the lists are in columns B,C, E,F and starting from row 6,
- =SUMPRODUCT(–(list3&list4=$B6&$C6))=0 will be TRUE if the fist item Minister Rufus Scrimgeour does not appear in second set of lists.
- As you can see, we are exploiting the power of SUMPRODUCT to concatenate both lists (list3, list4) dynamically and check in that for the name in B6&C6.
- So the portion (list3&list4=$B6&$C6) gives us a bunch of TRUE, FALSE values based on the comparison of B6&C6 with in list3&list4.
- The double negative sign — is used to convert a set of logical (boolean) results to numbers (1s and 0s) as SUMPRODUCT is meant to work with numbers, not boolean values.
- Then, we see if the result is 0 (SUMPRODUCT(–(list3&list4=$B6&$C6))=0), to see if there were no matches. Had there been at least one match, the SUMPRODUCT would return a positive number.
But wait, We need to highlight
Since we want to highlight the missing items in each list, we need to use Conditional Formatting and feed this SUMPRODUCT formula to it.
So, select the first 2 lists (list1, list2), go to Conditional Formatting > Add rule.
Select the rule type as use a formula to determine which cells to format
Now, type the formula =SUMPRODUCT(–(list3&list4=$B6&$C6))=0
And set the formatting to whatever you want.
Click OK and we are done!
Apply the same formatting rules for List3 & List 4, but this time the rule becomes =SUMPRODUCT(–(list1&list2=$E6&$F6))=0
That is all.
Download Example Workbook
Click here to download the example workbook to understand this technique better. Examine the CF rules to learn more.
How would you compare?
The problem posed by N-Man mimics many real world comparison problems. You want to compare 2 lists, but subject to some condition. For example you want to see which customer product combinations are new in a particular month (compared to previous month, say). While we can use helper columns & then write simple COUNTIF formula to do the same, using SUMPRODUCT allows us to extend this model in many more ways.
What about you? Do you face similar comparison problems at work? How do you solve them? Please share your techniques and ideas using comments.
Learn More ways to Compare
If your work involves fair bit of comparison & related data analysis, check out these articles to learn more.
- Compare 2 lists quickly using Conditional Formatting
- Compare 2 lists – detailed tutorial
- Compare 2 lists – a special scenario
- Learn how to use Excel Conditional Formatting for comparison and more
- Introduction to Excel SUMPRODUCT formula
- More on comparison, SUMPRODUCT & Conditional Formatting
Want to Learn More Formulas? Join Our Crash Course
If you want to learn SUMPRODUCT and 40 other day to day formulas, and how to use them in situations like this, then consider my Excel Formula Crash Course. It has 31 lessons split in to 6 modules and makes you awesome in Excel formulas.
Now, if you excuse me, I have a comparison problem to solve. My daughter is comparing her hello kitty toy with my son’s scooter and now they are fighting!
49 Responses to “Interactive Pivot Table Calendar & Chart in Excel!”
Excellent post again from awesome chandoo.org
This is one of the post to evident, without using macros we can create excellent charts using available excel options.
Slicer is one of the useful option in excel 2010 .. excited to see more options in excel 2013.
Regards,
Saran
http://www.lostinexcel.blogspot.com
Nice one chandoo............... great work done.....
Cool article. Only downside was that I didn't see at first that I needed 2010. Guess I still have to wait awhile before getting to try this out myself.
I consider myself an Excel expert, but you constantly amaze me with posts like this. Fantastic calendar!
Good post, like this little trick!!
How to not show the value in the cell
format the cell to custom with the below
;;;
Could you add lists of holidays to be transferred to the calendar days?
Two lists would be needed: 1) for the holidays that stay fixed (eg, CHristmas), and 2) for the holidays that move around (eg, Thanksgiving).
Such lists would be prepared externally, and the program would transfer their information to the appropriate days.
Wow! This is something amazing. I am going to do some practicals with this and show a sales trend on this. As we have our sales plans weekly basis, this should impress by boss when put in dashboard. Cool.
And thanks1
Chandoo you have a knack of getting on to these great looking very creative ideas!
One thing with calendars I have seen before is not catering for able to enter notes or appointments or project milestones. But with this one it's easy enough to add the extra lines as you have done for the chart concept and link to this other type of info.
For 2003 we could replace slicers with a validation style dropdown couldn't we?
Chandoo, you are awesome;) i was using calender to show my reports, but i had made all months and then underneith date shows the value, man its really awesome . i am going to use this format for my reports.. only draw back for me is i am using 2007. hence no slicer.. may be have to modify with out slicer.
Why not use =weeknum() for the weeknum column?
Great tricks! I love trying to reproduce the charts myself to get the hang of 'em. This one was great.
My only issue is getting the VBA in the year object to refresh the data. I used the VBA provided at the link, and, I can see it in the Macros tab, but, when I click the spinner the data does not update. Any tips?
Thx!
3G
^^Ignore this! NOT ENOUGH COFFEE YET.
I forgot about the "Assign Macro" option
:-s
Just started at chandoo - this is great!
I opted to use the formula =IF(F6>F5,G5,G5+1) for my weeknum - worked for me (I didn't get all the way through the example, since I'm running Excel 2007 - so don't know if that'll affect anything later in the example). I'm open to comments on this alternative approach.
Thanks for creating this website!
VC (Excel student).
Very cool - but now I'm even more excited for the new time controls for Excel 2013!
Great calendar...
I wonder whether we can make a school calendar (Class, subjects, teachers) using this calendar, assuming the weekly plan is duplicated across the year.
I would love to be a part of creating a class schedule...I'm attempting to help a friend (gratis) to do just that - can you point me in the right direction or provide a sample of sorts?
[...] Wow – what do you think of the interactive calendar chart demo above? To achieve this impressive effect you must have Excel 2010 because it utilises slicers, which is a feature introduced in Excel 2010. Find out how this treasure was created on Chandoo’s page. [...]
Hello Chandoo,
Great works! I learn a lot from this website. Here is the problem I met when I follow your tutorial: once I run and save this cool pivot calendar chart , the size of excel file will increase every time. Could you let me know how to figure it out? Thank you for your time in advance.
An excel chart-fan from China.
I already figured it out.
wow, love the calendar, i'm a newbie, found this site and it's amazing.
Got it mostly figured out, but could do with help with your named range 'tblchosen'
I can build the pivots, link the calendars together but can't see how to use index(tblchosen...) to pull through the productivity figures
appreciate any help
thanks
Great. Miss the Today button. Will try and figure a way to add this to the file.
I want to start the week on Monday, not Sunday (MTWTFSS). Re-arranging the calendar tab works however, any month where the 1st is a Sunday starts on the second and totally omits Sun 1. I have been tinkerign for a while, but can't seem to figure this out.
Changing F2 on the 'Calcs' tab to 2 so that the week starts on Monday works.
Cutting & pasting Sunday on the 'Pivot Calendar' tab and moving all cells up 1 row works.
However, using April 2013 for example, you lose the 1st off of the pivot calendar so that the month starts on 2 April. What should happen is the first row should only show Sun 1 April and then the next row starts Mon 2 April. Still can't fugure out where the problem lies.
"Further Enhancements:
Adjust week start to Monday: Likewise, you can modify your formulas to adjust weekstart to Monday or any other day you fancy."
I have tinkered with this previously with no success, does anyone know which formulas require tinkering, I have only succeeded in breaking this in an effort start a week on a Monday.
[...] Interactivo Artículo original var dd_offset_from_content = 50; var dd_top_offset_from_content = 0; Tags: 2013, calendario, [...]
Completely off topic, but how do you create those animated pictures in your tutorials? It is not a movie (like the Youtube movie), so what software do you use to create such high quality "animated" pictires? Thanks
Jeroen
the animated pics are called Animated Gifs
they are made using Camtasia
Refer: http://chandoo.org/wp/about/what-we-use/
This is fairly easy to do just using calendar formulas, which would be quicker, and doesn't need VBA? Am I missing something?
[...] on how to generate an interactive calendar using pivot tables. Please check out Chandoo’s Interactive Pivot Table Calendar & Chart in Excel before reading this, as I want to go through how I used his method to adapt a calendar which was [...]
Great tip shared by you... howevr would appreciate if you could mention in your tricks about excel version. The example above would work only in excel 2010 and above I believe. Please help me if there is any way we can use the tip in excel 2007 as well..
Many Thanks,
Regards,
FK
Hi, I'm going to give this a shot, but one small question before I do. Can a linked cell be updated based on the date that is selected from the calendar? The calendar is really cool and this would make is especially good to use (and easy and fast).
Regards,
swissfish.
This post is awesome, and using your instructions, I was able to get this to work with a pivot table that pulls directly from a Project Server database. It was a bit complicated to get the day to sum correctly, but I managed to finagle it. I hope you don't mind if I link back to you when I post my instructions.
Thanks for giving me a starting point for this!
[...] http://chandoo.org/wp/2012/09/12/interactive-pivot-calendar/ [...]
This is great, and pretty much everything I was looking for.
However, I already have a large spreadsheet, and I want to include your worksheets in it. I copied all the worksheets and the Module 1, but I can't get it to work. What else do I need to transfer / update please?
Hello there, is it possible to use this pivot to produce a calendar style chart, with returns multiple data per date, which on the calendar then, when clicked links to the data to provide more background information? What do you think? I'd love if I could pivot when i need. thanks, m
Hi, did you ever figure out how to do this? I would love to find a way...
This is amazing and will work well for my calendar project! My question is, how can I expand the calendar to fit a standard sheet of paper?
Wow - this is so creative. I'm taking the basic idea and building a reservation calendar.
Question: How do you get the month and year slicers on a different page than the pivot tables? I'd like to have my final calendar on a separate page from the pivot.
[…] http://chandoo.org/wp/2012/09/12/interactive-pivot-calendar/ […]
This is perfect...is there a way to add notes/tasks to the individual days?
Excel will not let me insert blank rows between lines in the pivot table. I am use Excel 2013 - is there a pivot table tools command that must be used?
I can create the pivot table calender with a year spinner & month slicer but I do not see how to display the the attendance information that I have in the original data table.
Thank you for the wonderful post and I am sorry for my lack of understanding...
Excellent!
Please show me how to add an alternative calendar to this calendar, Chinese or lunar calendar (and by lunar I don't mean phases of the moon), like what they still use in Asia
Thanks
Christopher
[…] Wow – what do you think of the interactive calendar chart demo above? To achieve this impressive effect you must have Excel 2010 because it utilises slicers, which is a feature introduced in Excel 2010. Find out how this treasure was created on Chandoo’s page. […]
Hello my name is Maurice, excuse me for my further request, but believe me, without your help priprio not know how to solve this problem.
So: always using a chart positioned on an excel sheet I wanted to match each square (series) to a single cell, to create a perpetual calendar.
Now everything works fine; except that for a fact, and it is this: In the calendar as you well know some numbers may not be apparent until certain conditions, which I solved by writing this "= O code (AA5 = DATE ( $ H $ 1; MONTH ($ AD $ 12) +1; 1)) and the game and done.
Now I would like to achieve the same thing using the Chart; How can I do to make this happen! let me also just a practical example so that I can understand all the rest then I'll do; Thanks Greetings from A.Maurizio
Link Program : Link: https://app.box.com/s/lhqva3eji0xcf2nmk8lxyki88tt1mi5t
Great info, thanks for sharing
Hi,
I love your calendar however I am modifying it for use in displaying employee performance metrics on a day by day basis.
I see where tblChosen and tblDates are named ranges however I cannot find them anywhere.
Are they assigned to specific cells because I cannot tell.
I see both of them in the Name Manager, which tells me what they refer to but does not give a value or cell location.
@Mike
With the Names in the Name Manager
Simply select the name
Then click in the Refers To: box at the Bottom
Excel will take you to where the Named Range is referring to
[…] Wow – what do you think of the interactive calendar chart demo above? To achieve this impressive effect you must have Excel 2010 because it utilises slicers, which is a feature introduced in Excel 2010. Find out how this treasure was created on Chandoo’s page. […]
Hi, Chandoo
This Pivot Calendar is an excellent idea. I’ve done one for myself using your guidelines. I just need something I’m not being able to do. I need that when I open the file the default date is set to today’s date. I know how to do it with conditional formatting. But I think I’ll need some vba coding for this. Can you please help me with this. Thanks in advance