Use Advances vs. Declines chart to understand change in values

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Lets say you are responsible for sales of 100s of products (which belong to handful of categories). You are looking at sales of each product in last month & this month. And you want to understand whether sales are improving or declining by category. How would you do it?

Turns out, this is not a difficult problem. In fact, this question is asked every day & answered using Advances vs. Declines chart.

You may have seen this chart in financial newspapers or websites. Shown below, Advances vs. Declines chart tells us how many items have advanced & how many have declined.

Advances vs. Declines chart - Creating it using Excel

When should you use Advances vs. Declines chart?

As you can see, advances vs. declines chart does not give low level details about actual movement of values. Instead, it gives you a sense of what is going on. Use it in below situations:

  • To get a feel of how values have changed over time.
  • When you are dealing with data that constantly changes (sales, number of customers, defects etc.)

Create Advances vs. Declines chart in Excel

You can easily create this chart in Excel from raw data. Just follow below tutorial.

Step 1: Get the data & arrange it

You need at least 4 columns of data – item, category, previous value, current value

Once we have these, calculate % change in 5th column. Arrange data like below:

Data for advances vs. declines chart

Step 2: Calculate Category-wise summaries

First list all unique categories in a column. Then using COUNTIFS formula, calculate the number of products declining & advancing.

The formula to count number of products going down by more than 10% is,

=COUNTIFS(Sales[category], Category name, Sales[% change], “<10%”)

[Related: Introduction to Excel SUMIFS / COUNTIFS Formulas]

Using COUNTIFS formula to calculate number of declines & advances

Step 3: Calculate % break-ups for the chart

Once all the numbers are calculated, you can easily calculate the % split.

Calculating Declines & Advances in percentage

NOTE: Make sure you negate the % values for declines. This will ensure that our chart shows stacked bars on both sides of axis.

Step 4: Create a stacked bar chart from this data

Once all the numbers are in place, just select them and create a stacked bar chart. Your output should look like below:

Stacked bar chart from advances and declines percentage data

Step 5: Adjust chart series order if needed

You may notice that, our stacked chart bars are not in correct order. Excel would have plotted <10% and >10% series before <0% and >0% series. To fix this:

  1. Right click on the chart
  2. Go to Select Data
  3. Now, select the series area
  4. Using up / down buttons adjust the order of series
  5. Done!

See this demo to understand:

Adjusting chart series order - advances vs. declines chart using Excel

Step 6: Adjust the colors & format the chart

Unleash your creativity and format the chart as you see fit. Make sure you add legend (otherwise the chart becomes very difficult to read).

Advances vs. Declines chart - Completed

And you are done!

Download Advances vs. Declines chart template

Click here to download the chart template. Examine the formulas & chart settings to understand this better.

Do you use Advances vs. Declines chart?

I use variations of this chart often in my dashboards & reports. These charts are very concise and present a lot of information about distribution of changes.

What about you? Do you use advances vs. declines charts? How do you create them? Share your experiences & techniques using comments.

Looking to advance your charting knowledge?

If you want to one up your Excel awesomeness quotient & create kick-ass charts, then you are at the right place. Check out below tutorials & see how deep the rabbit hole goes:

Recommended: If all these sound exciting, you will incredibly benefit from our Excel School program, where we teach advanced charting & data analysis skills. Click here to know more & join us.

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26 Responses to “Get busy this weekend, with OR XOR AND [Excel Homework]”

  1. Stef@n says:

    first solution for AND
    The two numbers are in A1 and B1
    = SUBSTITUTE (SUBSTITUTE (A1+B1*9*9, 9, 1), 8, 0)
    regards
    Stef@n

  2. Stef@n says:

    next solution for OR
    =1*SUBSTITUTE (A1+A2;2;1)

    regards
    Stef@n

  3. Stef@n says:

    last solution for XOR
    =1*SUBSTITUTE (A1+A2;2;0)

    regards
    Stef@n

  4. Irvine says:

    Or you could make use of the VBA logical operators!

    Define the following as custom functions
    Public Function BITXOR(x As Long, y As Long)
    BITXOR = x Xor y
    End Function

    Public Function BITAND(x As Long, y As Long)
    BITAND = x And y
    End Function

    Public Function BITOR(x As Long, y As Long)
    BITOR = x Or y
    End Function

    and then use them such:
    A B =BITOR(A,B) =BITAND(A,B) =BITXOR(A,B)
    0101 0100 0101 0100 0001

  5. Stef@n says:

    an another solution for AND
    =1*SUBSTITUTE (SUBSTITUTE (A1+A2;1;0);2;1)

    note:
    the binary numbers are in A1 and A2 !
    regards
    Stef@n

  6. Shair says:

    I was obviously playing hooky at the beach during the bit-wise math lesson – you lost me at “Understanding bit-wise operations” 🙂

  7. Anup Agarwal says:

    After looking at the above solutions, I find my solution silly, but still:

    For the following formulae,
    Row 1: headers,
    Row 2: OR
    Row 3: AND
    Row 4: XOR

    Column 1: Input 1
    Column 2: Input 2
    Column 3: Result

    OR
    {=SUM(IF(MID(A2,ROW(OFFSET($A$1,0,0,LEN(A2),1)),1)+MID(B2,ROW(OFFSET($A$1,0,0,LEN(B2),1)),1)>0,1,0)*10^(LEN(A2)-ROW(OFFSET($A$1,0,0,LEN(B2),1))))}

    AND
    {=SUM(IF(MID(A3,ROW(OFFSET($A$1,0,0,LEN(A3),1)),1)+MID(B3,ROW(OFFSET($A$1,0,0,LEN(B3),1)),1)=2,1,0)*10^(LEN(A3)-ROW(OFFSET($A$1,0,0,LEN(B3),1))))}

    XOR
    {=SUM(IF(MID(A4,ROW(OFFSET($A$1,0,0,LEN(A4),1)),1)+MID(B4,ROW(OFFSET($A$1,0,0,LEN(B4),1)),1)=1,1,0)*10^(LEN(A4)-ROW(OFFSET($A$1,0,0,LEN(B4),1))))}

  8. Hui... says:

    @Anup
    Please don't consider your solution silly
    Firstly, You are the 3rd person to submit an answer
    Secondly, The best formula/function is the one that you know and understand.

  9. Michael Azer says:

    I think I have a very tedious solution, which people won't have the patience to do except in small numbers.

    I used the same problem setup as "Anup Agarwal"

    AND =IF(AND(MID(B2,1,1)="1",MID(C2,1,1)="1"),1,0)&IF(AND(MID(B2,2,1)="1",MID(C2,2,1)="1"),1,0)&IF(AND(MID(B2,3,1)="1",MID(C2,3,1)="1"),1,0)&IF(AND(MID(B2,4,1)="1",MID(C2,4,1)="1"),1,0)

    OR =IF(OR(MID(B3,1,1)="1",MID(C3,1,1)="1"),1,0)&IF(OR(MID(B3,2,1)="1",MID(C3,2,1)="1"),1,0)&IF(OR(MID(B3,3,1)="1",MID(C3,3,1)="1"),1,0)&IF(OR(MID(B3,4,1)="1",MID(C3,4,1)="1"),1,0)

    =IF(OR(AND(MID(B4,1,1)="1",MID(C4,1,1)="0"),AND(MID(B4,1,1)="0",MID(C4,1,1)="1")),1,0)&IF(OR(AND(MID(B4,2,1)="1",MID(C4,2,1)="0"),AND(MID(B4,2,1)="0",MID(C4,2,1)="1")),1,0)&IF(OR(AND(MID(B4,3,1)="1",MID(C4,3,1)="0"),AND(MID(B4,3,1)="0",MID(C4,3,1)="1")),1,0)&IF(OR(AND(MID(B4,4,1)="1",MID(C4,4,1)="0"),AND(MID(B4,4,1)="0",MID(C4,4,1)="1")),1,0)

  10. Michael Azer says:

    Sorry my last post was totally messed up

    AND
    =IF(AND(MID(B2,1,1)="1",MID(C2,1,1)="1"),1,0)&IF(AND(MID(B2,2,1)="1",MID(C2,2,1)="1"),1,0)&IF(AND(MID(B2,3,1)="1",MID(C2,3,1)="1"),1,0)&IF(AND(MID(B2,4,1)="1",MID(C2,4,1)="1"),1,0)
    OR
    =IF(OR(MID(B3,1,1)="1",MID(C3,1,1)="1"),1,0)&IF(OR(MID(B3,2,1)="1",MID(C3,2,1)="1"),1,0)&IF(OR(MID(B3,3,1)="1",MID(C3,3,1)="1"),1,0)&IF(OR(MID(B3,4,1)="1",MID(C3,4,1)="1"),1,0)
    XOR
    =IF(OR(AND(MID(B4,1,1)="1",MID(C4,1,1)="0"),AND(MID(B4,1,1)="0",MID(C4,1,1)="1")),1,0)&IF(OR(AND(MID(B4,2,1)="1",MID(C4,2,1)="0"),AND(MID(B4,2,1)="0",MID(C4,2,1)="1")),1,0)&IF(OR(AND(MID(B4,3,1)="1",MID(C4,3,1)="0"),AND(MID(B4,3,1)="0",MID(C4,3,1)="1")),1,0)&IF(OR(AND(MID(B4,4,1)="1",MID(C4,4,1)="0"),AND(MID(B4,4,1)="0",MID(C4,4,1)="1")),1,0)

  11. Stephen says:

    @stefan,
    I just couldn't get your solutions to work.
    01010101010 + 01010101110 = 02020210120
    what am i doing wrong?

  12. Stephen says:

    @anup
    ...I got yours to work!

  13. Rich says:

    @Stephen - I get the same, but Stef@an's second solution for AND does work (at least for the test cases I used)

  14. Stef@n says:

    @ Stephen / Rich
    yes , you are right ! - only this works:

    OR
    =1*SUBSTITUTE (A1+A2;2;1)
    XOR
    =1*SUBSTITUTE (A1+A2;2;0)
    AND
    =1*SUBSTITUTE (SUBSTITUTE (A1+A2;1;0);2;1)

  15. Michael Azer says:

    @Stef@n - You're answer is really smart, I never knew about the substitute function before. Great Work!

  16. Stef@n says:

    Thx Michael 🙂
    yes - it is simply easy 😉
    if you add 1 and 1 - excel calculate 2
    and then you have to substitute the 2 - new = 0 respectively 1

  17. Rob says:

    Here is a good resource for people wanting to learn binary and hexadecimal.
    http://justwebware.com/bitwise/bitwise.html

  18. Kyle McGhee says:

    Three that weren't asked for:
    NOT
    =SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(A1+A2,0,3),1,0),3,1)

    EQV
    =SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(A1+A2,0,3),2,3),1,0),3,1)

    IMP
    =SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(A1+SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(A2,0,3),1,0),3,1),0,1),2,0)

    (was using Daniel Ferry's bitwise file to verify against)

  19. Q says:

    @ Kyle

    Not only takes one parameter and inverts 0 -1 and 1-0

    Took out the +A2
    =SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(A1,0,3),1,0),3,1)

  20. Great solutions!

    I'll add two:

    NAND =1*SUBSTITUTE (A1+A2,2,0)

    NOR=1*SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE (SUBSTITUTE(A1+A2,0,2),1,0),2,1)

  21. John Fuller says:

    This will work for binary numbers of any size (although the text format mask will have to have as many zeroes as there are digits in the longest addend)

    Assume binary #s are in C35 & C36, then add and format as text in C37:
    =TEXT(C36+C35,"000000000000")
    -sum- = 101112211112

    AND - SUBSTITUTE 0s for 1s in -sum-, then sub 1s for 2s
    =SUBSTITUTE(SUBSTITUTE(C37,"1","0"),"2","1")

    OR - sub 1s for 2s in -sum-
    =SUBSTITUTE(C37,"2","1")

    XOR - sub 0s for 2s in -sum-
    =SUBSTITUTE(C37,"2","0")

  22. Shane says:

    Just wandered by:

    AND:

    =SUBSTITUTE(A1+A2,1,0)/2

  23. Ronald Vonk says:

    Hi Chandoo,

    I am not (yet) really into bitwise calculation, but I am looking for a way to speed up my vba calculation with very big numbers. Would is ben convenient to use bitwise notation for this?

    Best regards,

    Ronald (the Netherlands)
    p.s. love your country!

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