A while ago, we published a new year resolution template. This was a hit with our readers with thousands of you downloading it. During last week, Peppe, one of our readers from Italy, took this template and made it even more awesome.
The original template had tasks and completion check marks. As you finish each task, you can see overall progress too.
Peppe added priorities to this. With his new version, progress is measured based on how much priority we assigned that particular task. Pretty neat eh?!?
Personal Todo list with Priorities – Demo
First take a look at Peppe’s todo list.
How is this made?
Using lots of Excel goodness of course. The basic components of this todo list are,
- Check boxes – to mark each activity as done (or not done)
- Data validation – to assign priority (1 to 5) to each activity
- Conditional Formatting – to highlight a row when the activity is marked as done
- Thermo-meter chart – to show the progress as you mark each activity done
- Formulas – to calculate % done based on how many activities are done & their priorities.
Since first 4 items are already explained on Chandoo.org, let me focus on the formula part.
Calculating % completion based on priorities:
To understand this problem, lets imagine, we have 5 tasks & priorities like below:
Step 1: Calculating weights
First step is to calculate how much weight each task should get. This is a simple job of inverting priority values (1/priority value). We will get this.
Step 2: Calculate weights to 100%
Next, we adjust the weights so that their total is 100%. To do this, we just divide a task’s weight by total of all task weights.
Step 3: Calculate % done only if a task is marked as done
Now, we just use TRUE / FALSE values generated by the check boxes to calculate % done. For this, we just need to multiply 100% weights with TRUE or FALSE values.
The total of this column gives us how much % of all tasks are done.
Note on weights for priorities
In this approach, we are assuming that doing one priority 1 task gives same output (%done) as doing two priority 2 tasks, three priority 3 tasks etc.
That means the weight enjoyed by priority 1 task is twice that of priority 2 task.
Some other possibilities are,
- Priority 1 is 1, 2 is 0.8, 3 is 0.6…
- A mapping table telling us how much each priority weighs
Read weighted averages in Excel to understand more.
Download this todo list template
Click here to download this template and chase that todo list in style. Examine the formulas in hidden column to understand this better.
Thank you Peppe
I find this template quite simple, yet powerful. It shows how much we can do with Excel by using a little creativity, simple features (conditional formatting, form controls etc.) and a some motivation.
Peppe, Thank you so much for sharing this with us.
If you enjoyed this todo list template, go ahead and say thanks to Peppe.
Also, use comments to share how you handle to dos & pending tasks using Excel. Share your tips & ideas with all of us.
Update
Over in the Chandoo.org Forums, Asshu has updated this witha VB Interface
Have a look and use if from: http://chandoo.org/forum/threads/to-do-list-vb-interface.28973/
More todo lists: Simple todo list in Excel, To do lists & Project Management
21 Responses to “Distinct count in Excel pivot tables”
The distinct count option works well but I have found that if I have a date field and want to group by year, month, etc. that option seems to be disabled. I need to do both, distinct count and group by year/month.
Example data; sales orders with item quantities with dates.
Challenge; sum the item quantities, count the distinct orders and group by month. How do I do this?
Perhaps that's not possible due to the grouping?
@Al... When you use data model based pivots, you cannot group values manually anymore. Why not use Excel 2016's default date grouping option? In this case we have just a few dates, so Excel is not grouping them, but if you have an year's worth of data, when you make the pivot with date in the row label area, Excel automatically groups them. If you have fewer dates or want to use your own grouping, just create a table with all dates, add columns with month, week, year etc. Then connect this table (these types of tables are usually called as calendar tables) to your data on date field as a relationship. Now you can create reports by month, quarter etc easily.
Is this the only way to do it in 2013? I find it rather cumbersome to have to create another data table listing dates with the another column for MONTH() and YEAR() to be able to summarise data for senior level...
I know people find adding calendar tables cumbersome, but it is a best practice and let's you add more layers of analysis quite easily. For example, adding analysis by weekday vs. weekend or by financial quarter or YTD calculations (you would need either Power Pivot DAX or some very carefully setup pivot table value field settings)
I had absolutely no idea this was possible. Very useful, nice work!
Doesn't work for 2010 version though (or at least not my works version)
Hi ,
The post has the following in it :
These instructions work only in Excel 2016, Office 365 and Excel 2013.
when i have 2 different Pivot tables, one without the enabled “Add this data to data model” option, and the other one with it enabled.. is there anyway i can link slicers between them?
if the answer is NO,, what to do ?
Quick note, the “Add this data to data model” option is not available for the Mac version.
perhaps outside scope of this article but I have found when I attempt to create a pivot table from an external data source (connection to a sql view) the "Add this data to data model" becomes greyed out. Anybody experienced and found a solution so I can start getting distinct count in my pivot tables?
Is there a way to still add a calculated field when using distinct count?
I found I can't change the date source after tick the " add this data to the data model", can you help to adv how to change the date source in such case?
Is there a way to update the source once you have added to the data model? I receive a new spreadsheet weekly and would like to update the connection so my tables pull from the new source.
Hi Crhis, I like how you have hulk (superhero) as your avatar. Do you know that there is a superhero in Excel too? It's Power Query. You can use it to solve your problem in a simple click. Here an intro if you need some guidance.
Powerful Introduction to Power Query
A big Thank you. It worked.
Hi, have survey data that I need to analyze but the challenge is that my key fields are showing horizontally. I tried to transpose the fields using Power Query, but unfortunately the new fields are returning same values on a pivot table despite using distinct values
How I can a do a pivot table with discount conts in some columns and then generate shor report filter pages. pls it drives crazy
Hi. Why grand total pivot of distinct count is 13? shouldn't it be 67?
Great Answer! Saved me lots of time!
Thank you!!!
Worked awesome! Thanks!!
Hi Chandoo,
I am using pivot tables for distinct count and now I need to update them with new set of data. But when I update the source data, all the columns and formatting of Pivot table disappears and I need to build it from Scratch.
Is there a possibility that I can update the source data with new rows added and also retain my pivot tables?