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!
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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