Today lets tackle a very familiar problem. You have a bunch of very long, complicated file names & paths. Your boss wants a list of files extracted from these paths, like below:
Of course nothing is impossible. You just need correct ingredients.
I cannot help you with a strong cup of coffee, so go and get it. I will wait…
Back already? well, lets start the formula magic then.
Extracting file name from a path
If you observe the file paths carefully, to extract the file name, we need to know,
- Position of last \ in the full path text
Of course there are many methods find where the last \ is. You can find a very excellent summary of these techniques in our formula forensics #21 – finding the 4th slash.
Today, let us see a new technique (well, sort of).
Finding the position of last \ using formulas
Before writing any formula, first let me clarify the only assumption:
- File path is in cell B4
Now, last \ is nothing but first \ when read from right.
Read that line again.
Got it? Good, lets move on.
How do we find the first \ from right?
If we can list down all individual characters from path right to left, then we just have to find the first \ in that.
Listing down individual characters from a given text
To get 5th character from text in B4, we can use MID formula like this:
=MID(B4,5,1)
Suppose you want both 5th and 6th characters from B4, you can use:
=MID(B4,{5,6},1)
This formula returns an array of 5th and 6th characters from the text in B4.
Cool, extending the logic, =MID(B4, {6,5},1) would give 6th & 5th characters in B4.
Idea!
If we can replace {6,5} with decreasing numbers starting from length of text B4 all the way to 1, then we can list all characters in B4, right to left.
But this leads us to next problem – listing numbers from a specific value (length of B4) to 1 in descending order.
Listing numbers from n to 1 in that order
We can use ROW() formula to generate sequence of numbers like this:
=ROW(1:10) will give {1,2,3…,10}
note: this returns an array, so you need to use it with Ctrl+Shift+Enter
So if we can use =ROW(1:LEN(B4)) we could get numbers from 1 to length of text in B4 {1,2….LEN(B4)}
Unfortunately this will not work as 1:LEN(B4) is not a valid reference.
But we can fix that with INDIRECT, like this:
=ROW(INDIRECT(“1:” & LEN(B4)))
Tip: INDIRECT formula lets you construct a reference by using values in other cells as shown above.
Alternative: You can also use OFFSET to get the same result like this: =ROW(OFFSET($A$1,,,LEN(B4))). More on OFFSET here.
But wait…
So far, we have only generated numbers from 1 to n. But we need numbers from n to 1.
No sweat, we just subtract the numbers {1,2…n} from n+1 to get the list {n,n-1,n-2….2,1}
Like this:
=LEN(B4)+1 – ROW(INDIRECT(“1:” & LEN(B4)))
Using these numbers to list characters in file path in reverse order
Take a sip of that coffee, its getting cold!
Now, lets integrate our numbers in to MID like this:
=MID(B4, LEN(B4)+1 – ROW(INDIRECT(“1:” & LEN(B4))), 1)
The blue portion gives you numbers {n…2,1}
The orange portion gives you letters from right to left.
But we wanted the last \
Oh right. We do not need these letters from right to left. We instead want to find the last \ in our file path. So now we just ask Excel where the first \ is in this reversed text.
=MATCH(“\”, MID(B4, LEN(B4)+1 – ROW(INDIRECT(“1:” & LEN(B4))), 1), 0)
Blue portion gives you letters in reverse order
Orange portion finds the first \ in that.
Tip: Learn more about MATCH formula.
Extract the file name
Once you know where the last \ is, finding the file name is easy.
use =MID(B4, position_of_last_slash + 1, LEN(B4))
We need to +1 because we do not want the slash in our file name.
Demo of the entire formula in action
Okay, lets see all these steps in action in one go.
How to find the extension?
Extension is few letters added at the end of file to indicate its type. For example, excel files usually have xls, xlsx, xlsm as extension.
So how to find this extension?
Extension & file name are separated by a dot .
But often file name itself can have a dot.
In other words, Extension is text in the file name followed by last dot.
Sounds like same problem as finding the last \ and extracting file name. So I will skip the details.
But assuming the file name is in D4, extension can be found with =RIGHT(D4,MATCH(“.”,MID(D4,LEN(D4)-ROW(INDIRECT(“1:”&LEN(D4))),1),0))
NOTE on both formulas
Both file name & extension formulas are array formulas. This means after typing them, you need to press Ctrl+Shift+Enter to see correct result.
Bonus tip: Getting the file names & path from a folder
If you ever want to list down all files in a folder use this.
- Open command prompt (Start > Run > Cmd or Start > Cmd)
- Go to the folder using CD
- Type DIR /s/b >files.csv
- Close command prompt
Now you can see all the files in that folder in files.csv. Double click on it to open in Excel and run your magic 🙂
Download Example workbook
Click here to download the example workbook. The file uses slightly different formulas. But works just the same. Examine it and learn more.
How do you extract file names & as such?
Do you use formulas or do you rely on some other technique to extract portions of text like file names, mail addresses etc. Please share your tips & ideas using comments.
Extract often? You will dig this.
Analysts life is filled with 3 Es – extraction, exploration & explanation. And like a good assistant, Excel helps you in all 3.
If you find yourself with a shovel, bucket and boat load of data often, you are going to enjoy these articles:
46 Responses to “6 Best charts to show % progress against goal”
Chandoo, thanks for another interesting post.
One thing I'm missing is the question: What is progress, what does one want to know exactly?
I'm asking the question because I think of progress as not the same as "state of completion." Percentages/bars, etc., as shown above, are great to communicate state of completion, but less so for progress.
That's because project progress is how state of completion *relates to* the resources spent so far. Resources can be things like dollars spent, hours spent or project time passed. For example, 5% would be "good progress" in the first week of a one-year project, but terrible progress in the last week of the project.
The way I prefer to report progress is as a simple line chart with time on the x axis, and maybe a marking for the end point (and maybe an "ideal"/"as planned" line).
If it really must be a single number, you could go a EVA-ish route and divide the current % of completion by the current % of project time passed, which gives you a schedule performance index (1 or bigger than 1 = good; smaller than 1 = bad). For this, your suggested charts should work great!
I avoid 'progress' except where I can objectively assess progress, such as counting bricks laid or concrete poured. For intellectual work, I don't think that its possible to measure progress to completion with any reliability or credibility. I prefer to update forcasts of completion date, because that's where the effect of completion on dependent activities, deliverables and outturn value of the project is felt. This is also referred to as the 0-100 method. An activity is set at 0 complete until its actually finished, when it is set at 100% complete.
Hi Chandoo,
Great post! I have a preference towards thermometer charts too mainly because of the target/actual comparison.
Just an FYI...seems like the the screen shot for the pies #4 are under the #5 heading. Also the pies conditional formatting is something that doesn't accurately portray completion since the pies are segmented into quarters.
AND also a little trivia...those "pies" are called Harvey Balls, named after Harvey Poppel...
Chandoo,
I wonder. Is there a trick to unzipping your files?
I always seem to end up with a series of XML files rather than an XLSX.
Thanks a lot. 🙂
Eric~
Hi Chandoo,
Thank you again for this amazing help you are so resourcefull to make us little bit more amazing everyday.
When I click on the link on the page "http://img.chandoo.org/c/best-charts-for-goal-progress-comparison.xlsx" it is always bringing me to a zip file with all XML files without the XLSX file. I tried with mozilla and IE.
Thank you
[…] http://chandoo.org/wp/2014/03/10/best-charts-to-show-progress/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=… […]
@All having trouble with download file.
1. Download the file.
2. Rename the extension as .xlsx
3. Double click or open it in Excel
Doesn't make any difference Chandoo, still end up with a zip file full of xml related files/folders
@Ian H
Download the zipped file and rename it to *.xlsx
where * is the filename
ps: Great name!
Many thanks for your help Hui but not sure why you are repeating what Chadoo said and which I first posted to because it didn't work for me. I did as he said and it didn't work, hence my post.
Chandoo says:
March 11, 2014 at 1:52 am
@All having trouble with download file.
1. Download the file.
2. Rename the extension as .xlsx
3. Double click or open it in Excel
Also, please note that we are investigating an issue with our webserver settings that may be causing this behavior. Sorry for the inconvenience. I am hoping to get this fixed in next 48 hours.
I used thermometer chart & conditional formatting using traffic lights. I just recently completed a dashboard I hope you can take a look but don't know where to send it. Thanks.
The in-cell bar charts is very interesting. This is not to be used as one can easly do manipulations by changing fonts/ font size etc
Hi..this is really helpful..
but I hve one quick ques..is it possible to hve conditional formating for chart graph based on text value and not the numbers..if I take your example project one bar should be red...if data is project 2 then it should be blue..basically we mke chart based on countries n each countries are assigned specific color...so I want a way where I can use conditionsl formating and not do it manaually each month.
You can set up conditional formatting rules to do this.
See this... it may help
http://chandoo.org/wp/2010/04/01/incell-panel-chart/
Hi Chandoo,
Great article and will be very useful.
One question - is it possible to have in-cell bar chart and the percentage complete (similar to icons)?
Try something like :
=CONCATENER(REPT("|";A1*100);REPT(" ";25-A1*25);"|")
it's quite nice
Hi Chandoo,
I am a great fan of you since i stumbled upon your blog. Your blog is very informative and insightful. I liked the way you presented the 5 steps using thermometer chart. I was very much inspired by that and tried to make my own version with 20 tasks to complete. On and after 17th step it was going downward. So I wanted to ask you that is there any limitation to thermometer chart
[…] shows us the 6 best charts to use, when you want to show your progress against a goal. There’s a sample file to download, so you can experiment on your […]
Is there any xhart is available which can show achivement percentage it may 80% or 120% means more an set target.?
Hi Chandoo,
Love your site. I have a small question regarding plotting data that contains ranking. I have 2 fields - Country, Rank. Note that i don't have the absolute values from which the rank has been calculated. So what is the best way of showing this on a graph given only the above 2 fields. Appreciate it
Regds,
Ross
@Ross
I would assign a set of simple numeric values to your ranks
Even a simple 1 to 10 makes plotting relativities easy
Dear Chandoo Sir,
Really awesome post.
Thanks.
Vignesh.V
We can always rely on Chandoo to explain to us clearly things that perhaps we already knew but weren't putting into practice the best way.
A limit I never liked about data bars was that they are monochrome - one colour for positive values, one colour for negative. So a couple of weeks ago I sat down to figure out a workaround. If anyone's interested...
http://digimac.wordpress.com/2014/06/29/multicoloured-data-bars-in-excel/
Epic fail on my part! After three months I just found out that what worked on my machine, didn't work on others.
Problem solved, more functions added.
The link above at
To hide them use ;;; custom cell formatting code (how to).
appears to be incorrect. However, using the downloaded file and selecting a cell(s) from that example provides the easy answer.
I wondered if the pies could have a color other than black and white (which, of course, would raise the color-blindness issue that you referred to with the traffic lights example).
Hi Chandoo!
Thanks for the informative post!
I have managed to understand and replicate all of the progress graphs except one, the thermo bar. I read up on the tutorial of how to create them, and I understand almost everything about the look and use of the bar, but one problem I am having is that I cannot seem to "center" the bar into the cell like you did. The reason being that even though the highest input (progress) percent is 100%, the program automatically puts in another 20%, so instead of 100% stopping at the end of the graph, it stops 20% short and I have a huge space at the end because of it.
How did you counter that problem? I have been trying for hours to fix it
@Aden
Set the Axis limits to Minimum 0 and maximum 1
Thanks. I started running a project recently, and I found your charts to be really helpful in tracking it's progress. I'm glad I found your page.
Hi Chandoo!
Great stuff for my customized project moving forward. However, when I use the blue block bars, the %ages spark up to smt like 5000% and cannot lower them nor scale them. If I input manually such as 50% without formatting a column, the bar for 50% e.g., will fill the cell completely, so that's kind of odd... what to do?
Thanks!
I guess I have the same problem. When I put 50 and click on the percentage, it is giving me 500%. Can someone help us on this. Thanks in advance
[…] http://chandoo.org/wp/2014/03/10/best-charts-to-show-progress/ […]
Hey,
Thank you for making this page. I do have one problem with the thermo graphs. Whenever I try to drag the graphs from one cell to the cell beneath it, the data remains selected on the former.
For example, if I had a thermo with a target number in A1 and an actual number in B1 with my thermo in C1, when I drag my thermo into C2, C3, etc., all of the graphs show the results from A1 and B1.
Is there a way to have these graphs update automatically as I will be regularly working in an excel file with hundred of entries?
P.S. I removed the $ symbols from 'Select Data', but that did not fix the problem.
Thanks again!
@Lisa
Not sure but it sounds like the new cells have Conditional formats applied
Select just the new cells
Select Conditional formatting, Clear Rules, Clear Rules from selected Cells
Hi Chandoo.
I am charting on some defaulter data where greater than zero is not desirable. Problem is that I have to highlight zero as target and anything above as undesirable. Seek your help
Hi Chandoo
Great post!
But I am wondering why bullet chart is not on this list. Is there a reason for its absence?
Thank you for these instructions. The bonus 5 Step Progress Meter you included would be perfect for my project. Where can I find the instructions?
Hi,
Do you know of any simple way to reduce the Data Bars padding so that they fit within the cells?
Thanks and great posy!
Regards
Appreciating the dedication you put into your website and in depth information you
provide. It's good to come across a blog every once in a while that isn't the same out of date rehashed information. Wonderful
read! I've bookmarked your site and I'm including your
RSS feeds to my Google account.
With #1 and #2, how would you also apply a red amber green to the bars (is it possible within chart formatting or would you need to utilise CF)?
I'm thinking of an in cell bar of some kind which will show against a known goal end date how far along with the goal you are (this is to be used for 'how many of the X number of people that I need to train in X timeframe, have been trained and therefore which of each training group is on track to complete on time or falling behind'.
So there would be knowns of number of people, target end date but I'd want it to reflect accurately as some groups of trainees might only have 50 in so their 50% done would be different to a group of trainees where their group had 200 people in it - but 50% would still be the same. Somewhere there'd probably need to be something which noted that there was a different volume of trainees so it could but the remaining effort to train people into context?
Hope that makes some kind of sense, I could be waffling!
[…] charts. Its got things like “Best Charts to Compare Actuals vs Targets” and “Best charts to show progress“. I love me some charts […]
Thanks a lot my dear.
very Useful it for me.
Another great post, thanks for sharing.
Chandoo, I am just starting an Excel class, and everything in the class is new to me. I am learning how to use all of these great charts but don't know what they are all used for. Thank you for your post and I think I will be able to use this down the road throughout my business career
in the above charts , Chart #2: Conditional Formatting Data Bars
->Assume if we have completed 35% of work it is showing in Blue color ,in the same cell remaining 65% of work should shows in some color , how to show?
Hi Sir,
This is Rachit and I am a big fan of you and your work. This is to request you please make a video for Beverages Sales performance data analysis in Excel.
Regards,