As you may new, the newest version of Excel is out for a while. I have been using it since last 6 months and enjoying it. Today, lets understand 10 things in 2013 that wowed me (and probably you too).
Flash Fill
Imagine Flash (the super hero, not browser add-in) is using Excel to extract the middle names of all his villains. Now, flash being flash, do you think he will slowly type out the middle names one at a time? Of course, he can learn Excel formulas and do it in one stroke. But he is too busy running around & saving earth. So, obviously he would use Flash Fill.
Flash Fill works almost like magic. It looks at what you are typing and sees if there is any pattern in it (based on adjacent columns etc.) and then suggests a fill down option. See this demo.
Bonus Tip: Press CTRL+E to activate flash fill.
Built-in Data Model
The top 3 reasons why analysts & managers spend so much time with Excel:
- Searching for that mysterious flight simulator Easter egg (#)
- Formatting worksheets
- Trying to link up multiple tables of data using VLOOKUP, Copy Paste and black magic.
Fortunately Excel 2013 makes #3 a breeze, thanks to built-in data model. Using Excel 2013 data model, you can link multiple tables with each other (one to one or one to many relationships) and generate powerful Pivot reports & charts with few clicks. Now you have more time to search for flight simulator.
Timelines
These days everybody boasts of a massive spreadsheet. But almost no one needs all the data at same time. We are always filtering data for latest quarter, 6 months starting Mother’s day or 8 weeks from November 1st etc. Of course, you can use auto-filter and select all the dates. But it is a pain.
Thanks to Timelines, filtering for dates is a breeze. You can add timelines for any date column in a pivot table / pivot chart. I am sure your clients & bosses will love it.
Quick Analysis
Depending on your work, you may love or hate it. Quick analysis is a new button that appears when you select a bunch of data. Using this, you can do a lot of quick analysis tasks like adding conditional formatting, charts, sparklines or turning your data in to tables (or pivots). To be frank, I find this a bit of annoyance as my analysis work is never quick!
But I am sure there are tons of people who would find this very useful.
Excellent color scheme
The default color scheme of Excel 2013 is bold, creative and well contrasted. It is a far cry from Excel 2003’s color scheme (which is boring, glaring & poorly contrasted). Now, if you insert a default chart (or table, pivot etc.) from your data, you need to do very little clean up work. It is ready to go!!!
Distinct Counts & more in your Pivot
If you are really quiet, you can hear an analyst in your company screaming with joy once they realize that in Excel 2013, you can get distinct count of values in pivot reports!!!
That is right, using Excel 2013 pivot reports, you can find out distinct counts. No extra formulas or no arrays or no VBA. More power to you 🙂
[Related: Using Distinct Count feature in Excel 2013 – case study]
New Formulas
In Excel 2013, there are many new formulas and improvements. My favorite new formulas are,
- Web formulas – WEBSERVICE(), FILTERXML() and ENCODEURL() (an example on these formulas)
- Information formulas – ISFORMULA(), FORMULATEXT(), SHEET() and SHEETS()
- Logical – XOR(), IFNA(), BITXOR(), BITOR(), BITAND() etc.
Easier Charting
In Excel 2013, there are massive changes in charting. Now you can create combination charts, add secondary axis, set up smart data labels, format the chart or switch styles with ease. Microsoft revamped the default formats too so that when you make a chart from data, it is ready for presentation (with out too many tweaks).
Some of favorite charting features are,
- Recommended charts feature that tells you which charts go well with your data.
- A screen where you can change the chart type for each series easily.
- Common chart customizations are a click away (screenshots 1, 2 & 3)
- Ability to create scatter plots based on a variety of input data layouts (Jon Peltier’s article on this).
That said not everything is rosy with 2013 charting. For example, I do not like that we have to go thru sidebar pane to customize charts (formatting etc.) instead of dialog box.
Animated Charts
One of the slickest things you will notice in Excel 2013 is the animation that you see when you move selection, do calculations or create charts. While this may be annoying to some, I find one good use for it. When you use charts coupled to interactive elements (like form controls, slicers etc.) they look sexier, thanks to Animation. See this demo to understand what I mean.
Power to you
Excel 2013 Professional Plus versions comes bundled with Power Pivot & Power View, 2 excellent features for powerful data analysis & visualization. You can think of these as full fledged BI solutions sitting right in your computer. The only glitch, Microsoft decided to give these features only Professional Plus users. I know it is annoying that home, office, professional level licenses cannot use Power Pivot even if they want to pay extra. What a pity!!!
More on Excel Power Pivot licensing issues & possible solutions.
Related: What is PowerPivot & How to use it?
3 things that are not so impressive
The whole cloud thing:
While it is understandable that Microsoft wants us all to purchase shiny new Surface tablets and use spreadsheets on the go, it seems like a bad idea. It annoys me that when I want to save a file, the first option I see is Chandoo’s sky drive. The process of saving files to sky drive and later viewing them in browsers is very slow and often results in errors or warnings. Instead, for desktop versions, why not make My computer as first preference?!?
Sharing & Social features:
Share to Facebook?!? seriously! Why would anyone want to share their spreadsheets on twitter or facebook? Do we really want facebook to know our annual budget & appraisal ratings (so that they can show us ads that say – Buy our scissors and cut your budget in half )?
Power Pivot is not for masses:
Microsoft positioned Power Pivot as BI for masses, offered it for free in Excel 2010. Then in Excel 2013, they went ahead and implemented a licensing policy that looks just as complicated as my lawyer’s invoice. Why would a for-profit company like MS want to not offer powerful tools like Power Pivot to masses for a fee? Why sell it only to corporate customers thru volume licensing program? beats me.
Bottom line
Despite these minor annoyances, I think Excel 2013 is a well designed, solid & powerful software ready to make more people awesome in their work. With features like tablet compatibility, data model, slicers & timelines, improved UI & color schemes it has quickly become my first choice when I want to use a spreadsheet (I run Excel 2010 & 2013 on same computer).
Are you using Excel 2013, what do you like about it?
Are you using Excel 2013? How do you like it? Which features are best according to you? Please share your thoughts and views using comments.
27 Responses to “9 Box grid for talent mapping – HR for Excel – Template & Explanation”
Great stuff! I can understand how to add a slicer to the pivot table, but how do you implement the departmental selector on the 'Filter' formula scheme?
Just saw this on your Youtube channel, and it’s areat idea...!
An easy way to overcome the "ugliness" of pivot tables and get it to look nice (in the format of the Output sheet), would be to simply build a sheet with the nice map at the top, a pivot underneath it and a slicer next to formatted map and then reference each of the 9 cells in the formatted map to the “related” cell in the Pivot.
Keep up the good work!
/Claus
Thanks Claus. That is a great idea 🙂
Hi Chandoo,
This is great! Curious how to make additional columns operate the same as the Department column (ex. have a "manager column") that would allow you to sort a 9 box by manager, area, or team in addition to department?
Feel free to email me if needed! mfry01@minnetronixmedical.com
Happy New Year
Madison Fry
I am curious about the smae thing. I would like to populate the 9 box with other views as well by adding additional columns. IE., I would like to add location, region, etc. Thank you.
This is great, thank you!
How can i see the whole data set of all the teams in the output table. Need a formula that will pick up all the employees
Hello,
Love the template. Thank you. Question - the drop down to pick a department on the Output tab does not seem to work on the downloadable template. Am I doing something incorrectly?
Thank you!
Hi Heather... Thank you. I am using Excel 365 to make the calculations. If you are using an older version of Excel, then the drop-down filter won't work.
Hi
I was able to follow your 9 box grid and modified based my needs. However, you tutorial did not show how to you create the filter for the "Pick a department. Can you kindly share how to create that filter that updated the grid. Thank you.
I am working on this project but I am struggling with the data validation for the department. I copy the worksheets data entry and output as the managers want to see different tabs for each managers.
I updated the source reference for each tab but It does not update the grid based on the new source. The list was updated but it does not populate the grid based on the performance and potential listed.
In addition the hyperlink Update Data and View Talent Map no longer works. Can you please help me.
I keep getting this error message in the pivot table:
This formula is invalid or incomplete: 'The expression is not valid or appears to be incomplete. Please review and correct the expression.
The following syntax error occurred during parsing: Invalid token, Line 1, Offset 14, ‘.
Hi, I used your 9-box excel template with excel 365. First off, thank you so very much. It is incredibly helpful!! My only question is that the boxes aren't big enough for all of the employees (specifically the middle which we call 'Core Employee'). Is there a way to make the boxes larger? Even though it is in excel, I am not able to increase row height (like I normally do in a speadsheet). Any ideas? Thanks again, Jody
Hi Chandoo,
Thanks for the great content. Re. 9 box grid, pls advise how do I increase the size of the box to accommodate more names?
Hi Chandoo,
I figured it out. Excel 365 has the format row height on the ribbon. Thank you
Merci Chandoo pour le modèle proposé,
j'ai une question et un souhait est il possible de développer davantage ce modèle en insérant la photo de chaque employé.
Hi Chandoo!
Great tutorial and tool, thank you! Your tutorial didn't include how to create additional filters on the "Output" tab. Could you please share how you did it?
Can this be done exactly in google sheets?
Hi Chandoo,
Thanks for the video it was really helpful. Is there any way to multi select the dropdown to display multiple or all departments rather than just one at once?
Hello Prish
I have Microsoft 365 and I am struggling to make the boxes larger/unable to increase row height; any idea how you made this work? Specifically in the Output tab where the map is?
Many thanks
Hello Jody, I have Microsoft 365 and I am struggling to make the boxes larger/unable to increase row height; any idea how you made this work? Specifically in the Output tab where the map is? Many thanks
Is there a way to change the 9 box wording descriptions, i.e. Work Horses, to our own internal langauge?
You can edit the file. The descriptions are textboxes.
Hi Chandoo, this is awesome and has worked perfectly. Due to a big organisation the 9 box grid on the output file is too small. I tried adjusting using the row/width ribbon under the format ribbon however it doesn't seem to work. Is there an easier way to adjust this?
Thanks!
When I drag the formula, it doesn't work, and the order I use with the data changes. In the beginning, the order is it is " candidates," " potential," and " performance," but when it goes to another column, it is " Potential," Performance," and "Candidates."Can you help me? Thank you very much, sending love from vietnam
Hi- I am working on the 9 grid project and I am trying to expand the box since I have over 100 names on a few of the columns. How do I do that?
Hi, Thank you this is great stuff and really useful.
As well as department as demonstrated on your clip, how can I display all candidates on the grid at once?
Many thanks in advance