Welcome back. In final part of Making a Customer Service Dashboard using Excel let us learn how to add macros & VBA code that makes our dashboard interactive.
Designing Customer Service Dashboard
Data and Calculations for the Dashboard
Creating the dashboard in Excel
Adding Macros & Final touches
As you can see, there are 2 important macros in this dashboard.
#1: Capturing selected item details
Whenever user clicks on an item in the detail area to compare, there is a small macro running behind that tells us what item is selected so that we can trigger our calculations and conditional formats. How does it work?
Simpler than we think!
We use a macro called as Worksheet_SelectionChange.
Related: Introduction Excel VBA
Understanding Event Macros
There is a special type of macros in Excel called as Event macros (or simple events). For example, if you want to do something whenever user selects cell D14, you can use an event macro. Excel offers various events so that we can initiate certain actions when user selects a cell, clicks on a hyperlink, activates a worksheet, updates a pivot table or finishes some calculation etc.
In our case, we wanted to change the comparison options based on what is selected by user. So we use an event called as Worksheet_SelectionChange
When you add a selection change macro to any worksheet, excel runs whenever you select a cell in that worksheet. Lets look a simple worksheet selection change macro to understand this:
The code for above event:
Private Sub Worksheet_SelectionChange(ByVal Target As Range)
[valSelection] = "You have selected " & Target.Address
End Sub
The range valSelection is linked to text box that you saw in demo.
Event macro in our Customer Service Dashboard
In our dashboard, we have one additional challenge. We need to run our event macro only if one of the two lists (rndSel1 & rngSel2).
This is where we use an additional feature of VBA, Application.intersect() formula. This checks whether given two ranges overlap and if so, returns the region in overlap.
Lets look at our event macro:
Private Sub Worksheet_SelectionChange(ByVal Target As Range)
'This macro is triggered whenever any cell is selected in the Dashboard worksheet
'Step #1: If user clicks on a blank cell then do nothing
If ActiveCell.Value = "" Then Exit Sub
'Step#2: See if the selected cell is in left column
If Not (Application.Intersect(ActiveCell, Range("rngSel1").Cells) Is Nothing) Then
'If so, then call setOption1 macro
Call setOption1
'Step #3: See if the selectd cell is in right column
ElseIf Not (Application.Intersect(ActiveCell, Range("rngSel2").Cells) Is Nothing) Then
'If so, then call setOption2 macro
Call setOption2
End If
End Sub
If you examine the comments, most of what it does should be obvious.
#2: Showing & Hiding help messages
Adding help feature to complex dashboards makes life simpler for end users. So I always recommend it to my students. But how easy is it to add help?
Well, easier than you think. Just follow below steps:
- Add help messages to your dashboard using drawing shape > bubbles
- Once all the messages are added, just select all of them and group (right click > group)
- Select the group and using name box in Excel, give it a name, in our case the name is boxHelp
- In a new module, Write a macro (lets call it showHideHelp) to display and hide the boxHelp group.
- Now add a small text box with label “Help” on it.
- Assign the macro to this help text. (right click on the group, assign macro)
But what do we put in showHideHelp macro?
Simple, When user clicks on Help text, we will just toggle the visibility of boxHelp group using code like this:
ActiveSheet.Shapes.Range(Array("boxHelp")).Visible = Not ActiveSheet.Shapes.Range(Array("boxHelp")).Visible
The Not portion toggles the visibility, thus when you click on help button the help gets turned on if it is off (and vice-a-versa)
Download Customer Service Dashboard
Download final version of our customer service dashboard using below links:
Excel 2010 version: Click here to download the dashboard workbook
Excel 2007 version: Click here to download the dashboard workbook
Examine the VBA Code to learn better.
Future directions for this dashboard…
I am happy how this turned out so far. That said, we can make a few advancements to it like:
- Using Excel 2010 slicers to make the selection of items in comparison area.
- Adding ability to export dashboard as PDF or PPT
- Adding qualitative comments to dashboard (automated a la tweetboard or manual) so that managers can understand what caused the change.
- Adding customizable time windows. Currently the dashboard shows any 4 week window, but it can become even more powerful by adding custom start and end dates.
Note: Make sure you have gone thru previous 3 parts of this tutorial as well.
Designing Customer Service Dashboard
Data and Calculations for the Dashboard
Creating the dashboard in Excel
How would you approach this dashboard?
If you were to analyze and design a dashboard for customer service department, how would you approach it? What metrics, information would be very important for you? Please share your ideas and thoughts using comments.
Learn more about Dashboards
If you are looking for examples, information & tutorials on Excel dashboards, you are at the best. At Chandoo.org we have elaborate examples, tutorials, training programs & templates on Excel dashboards, to make you awesome. Please go thru below to learn more:
- KPI Dashboards in Excel – 6 part tutorial
- Excel Dashboards – Information, Examples, Templates & Tutorials
- Excel Dynamic Charts – Examples, tutorials & inspiration
- Excel School Dashboards Program – Learn how to create this and other dashboards in Excel
20 Responses to “Simulating Dice throws – the correct way to do it in excel”
You have an interesting point, but the bell curve theory is nonsense. Certainly it is not what you would want, even if it were true.
Alpha Bravo - Although not a distribution curve in the strict sense, is does reflect the actual results of throwing two physical dice.
And reflects the following . .
There is 1 way of throwing a total of 2
There are 2 ways of throwing a total of 3
There are 3 ways of throwing a total of 4
There are 4 ways of throwing a total of 5
There are 5 ways of throwing a total of 6
There are 6 ways of throwing a total of 7
There are 5 ways of throwing a total of 8
There are 4 ways of throwing a total of 9
There are 3 ways of throwing a total of 10
There are 2 ways of throwing a total of 11
There is 1 way of throwing a total of 12
@alpha bravo ... welcome... 🙂
either your comment or your dice is loaded 😉
I am afraid the distribution shown in the right graph is what you get when you throw a pair of dice in real world. As Karl already explained, it is not random behavior you see when you try to combine 2 random events (individual dice throws), but more of order due to how things work.
@Karl, thanks 🙂
When simulating a coin toss, the ROUND function you used is appropriate. However, your die simulation formula should use INT instead of ROUND:
=INT(RAND()*6)+1
Otherwise, the rounding causes half of each number's predictions to be applied to the next higher number. Also, you'd get a count for 7, which isn't possible in a die.
To illustrate, I set up 1200 trials of each formula in a worksheet and counted the results. The image here shows the table and a histogram of results:
http://peltiertech.com/WordPress/wp-content/img200808/RandonDieTrials.png
@Jon: thanks for pointing this out. You are absolutely right. INT() is what I should I have used instead of ROUND() as it reduces the possibility of having either 1 or 6 by almost half that of having other numbers.
this is such a good thing to learn, helps me a lot in my future simulations.
Btw, the actual graphs I have shown were plotted based on randbetween() and not from rand()*6, so they still hold good.
Updating the post to include your comments as it helps everyone to know this.
By the way, the distribution is not a Gaussian distribution, as Karl points out. However, when you add the simulations of many dice together (i.e., ten throws), the overall results will approximate a Gaussian distribution. If my feeble memory serves me, this is the Central Limit Theorem.
@Jon, that is right, you have to nearly throw infinite number of dice and add their face counts to get a perfect bell curve or Gaussian distribution, but as the central limit theorem suggests, our curve should roughly look like a bell curve... 🙂
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I'm afraid to say that this is a badly stated and ambiguous post, which is likely to cause errors and misunderstanding.
Aside from the initial use of round() instead of int(),.. (you've since corrected), you made several crucial mistakes by not accurately and unambiguously stating the details.
Firstly, you said:
"this little function generates a random fraction between 0 and 1"
Correctly stated this should be:
"this little function generates a random fraction F where 0 <= F < 1".
Secondly, I guess because you were a little fuzzy about the exact range of values returned by rand(), you have then been just as ambiguous in stating:
"I usually write int(rand()*12)+1 if I need a random number between 0 to 12".
(that implies 13 integers, not 12)
Your formula, does not return 13 integers between 0 to 12.
It returns 12 integers between 1 and 12 (inclusive).
-- As rand() returns a random fraction F where 0 <= F < 1, you can obviously can only get integers between 1 and 12 (inclusive) from your formula as stated above, but clearly not zero.
If you had said either:
"I usually write int(rand()*12) if I need a random number between 0 to 11 (inclusive)",
or:
"I usually write int(rand()*12)+1 if I need a random number between 1 to 12 (inclusive)"
then you would have been correct.
Unfortunately, you FAIL! -- repeat 5th grade please!
Your Fifth Grade Maths Teacher
Idk if I'm on the right forum for this or how soon one can reply, but I'm working on a test using Excel and I have a table set up to get all my answers from BUT I need to generate 10,000 answers from this one table. Every time, I try to do this I get 10,000 duplicate answers. I know there has to be some simple command I have left out or not used at all, any help would be extremely helpful! (And I already have the dice figured out lol)
Roll 4Dice with 20Sides (4D20) if the total < 20 add the sum of a rerolled 2D20. What is the average total over 10,000 turns? (Short and sweet)
Like I said when I try to simulate 10,000turns I just get "67" 10,000times -_- help please! 😀
@Justin
This is a good example to use for basic simulation
have a look at the file I have posted at:
https://rapidshare.com/files/1257689536/4_Dice.xlsx
It uses a variable size dice which you set
Has 4 Dice
Throws them 10,000 times
If Total per roll < 20 uses the sum of 2 extra dice Adds up the scores Averages the results You can read more about how it was constructed by reading this post: http://chandoo.org/wp/2010/05/06/data-tables-monte-carlo-simulations-in-excel-a-comprehensive-guide/
Oh derp, i fell for this trap too, thinking i was makeing a good dice roll simulation.. instead of just got an average of everything 😛
Noteably This dice trow simulate page is kinda important, as most roleplay dice games were hard.. i mean, a crit failure or crit hit (rolling double 1's or double 6's) in a a game for example dungeons and dragons, if you dont do the roll each induvidual dice, then theres a higher chance of scoreing a crit hit or a crit failure on attacking..
I've been working on this for awhile. So here's a few issues I've come across and solved.
#1. round() does work, but you add 0.5 as the constant, not 1.
trunc() and int() give you the same distributions as round() when you use the constant 1, so among the three functions they are all equally fair as long as you remember what you're doing when you use one rather than the other. I've proven it with a rough mathematical proof -- I say rough only because I'm not a proper mathematician.
In short, depending on the function (s is the number of sides, and R stands in for RAND() ):
round(f), where f = sR + 0.5
trunc(f), where f = sR + 1
int(f), where f = sR + 1
will all give you the same distribution, meaning that between the three functions they are fair and none favors something more than the others. However...
#2. None of the above gets you around the uneven distribution of possible outcomes of primes not found in the factorization of the base being used (base-10, since we're using decimal; and the prime factorization of 10 is 2 and 5).
With a 10-sided die, where your equation would be
=ROUND(6*RAND()+0.5)
Your distribution of possible values is even across all ten possibilities.
However, if you use the most basic die, a 6-sided die, the distributions favor some rolls over others. Let's assume your random number can only generate down to the thousandths (0.000 ? R ? 0.999). The distribution of possible outcomes of your function are:
1: 167
2: 167
3: 166
4: 167
5: 167
6: 166
So 4 and 6 are always under-represented in the distribution by 1 less than their compatriots. This is true no matter how many decimals you allow, though the distribution gets closer and closer to equal the further towards infinite decimal places you go.
This carries over to all die whose numbers of sides do not factor down to a prime factorization of some exponential values of 2 and 5.
So, then, how can we fix this one, tiny issue in a practical manner that doesn't make our heads hurt or put unnecessary strain on the computer?
Real quick addendum to the above:
Obviously when I put the equation after the example of the 10-sided die, I meant to put a 10*RAND() instead of a 6*RAND(). Oops!
Also, where I have 0.000 ? R ? 0.999, the ?'s are supposed to be less-than-or-equal-to signs but the comments didn't like that. Oh well.
How do you keep adding up the total? I would like to have a cell which keeps adding up the total sum of the two dices, even after a new number is generated in the cells when you refresh or generate new numbers.
So, how do you simulate rolling 12 dice? Do you write int(rand()*6) 12 times?
Is there a simpler way of simulating n dice in Excel?
I've run this code in VBA
Sub generate()
Application.ScreenUpdating = False
Application.Calculation = False
Dim app, i As Long
Set app = Application.WorksheetFunction
For i = 3 To 10002
Cells(i, 3).Value = i - 2
Cells(i, 4).Value = app.RandBetween(2, 12)
Cells(i, 5).Value = app.RandBetween(1, 6) + app.RandBetween(1, 6)
Next
Application.ScreenUpdating = True
Application.Calculation = True
End Sub
But I get the same distribution for both columns 4 and 5
Why ?
@Mohammed
I would expect to get the same distribution as you have effectively used the same function