Lets say you are the head of purchasing department at Big Corp Co.
You are obviously very busy. Every day starting with a large cup of coffee and ends with a big smile, as you save your company thousands of $s by negotiating best deals, finding best providers and being awesome.
Today, let me share a small Excel tip with you that will make you even more awesome.
Finding a provider with lowest value:
Lets say you are looking at a table like below and want to find-out lowest priced providers for each service.
To find providers with lowest value:
- Find the least amount for each service. Assuming the services are in the range C5:G5, use =MIN(C5:G5) to get this.
- Give a name to list of providers. I call mine as providers
- Using INDEX, MATCH formulas find the provider name with lowest amount. Like this:
=INDEX(providers, MATCH(minimum_value, C5:G5, 0)) - Bingo. You have the answer.
Bonus tip #1: Highlighting lowest values.
If you just want to highlight the lowest values, use conditional formatting.
- Select first row of numbers.
- Go to Home > Conditional Formatting > Top / Bottom rules > Bottom 10 items
- Set to Bottom 1 and specify formatting as you want.
- Using format painter, copy the conditional formatting, one row at a time.
- Done!
Bonus tip #2: Handling Ties
Often 2 or more providers will tie for the bottom spot. What then?
One way to handle the ties is to show the word ties when 2 or more names have lowest value. To do this, use this formula instead.
=IF(COUNTIF(C5:G5, minimum_value)>1,"Ties", INDEX(providers,MATCH(minimum_value,C5:G5,0)))
A formula challenge for you…
Now that you know how to find the lowest value, here is a challenge for you.
- How do you write a formula to find which provider has maximum lowest values. In this example, the name we are looking for is TATA as they have 3 lowest values.
Want to find more… look here:
If you want to find more Excel formula tips and techniques, look no further. Start your journey with this and see how deep your formulas can nest.
12 Responses to “Analyzing Search Keywords using Excel : Array Formulas in Real Life”
Very interesting Chandoo, as always. Personally I find endless uses for formulae such as {=sum(if(B$2:B$5=$A2,$C$2$C$5))}, just the flexibility in absolute and relative relative referencing and multiple conditions gives it the edge over dsum and others methods.
I've added to my blog a piece on SQL in VBA that I think might be of interest to you http://aviatormonkey.wordpress.com/2009/02/10/lesson-one-sql-in-vba/ . It's a bit techie, but I think you might like it.
Keep up the good work, aviatormonkey
Hi Chandoo,
You might find this coded solution I posted on a forum interesting.
http://www.excelforum.com/excel-programming/680810-create-tag-cloud-in-vba-possible.html
[...] under certain circumstances. One of the tips involved arranging search keywords in excel using Array Forumlas. Basically, if you need to know how frequent a word or group of keywords appear, you can use this [...]
@Aviatormonkey: Thanks for sharing the url. I found it a bit technical.. but very interesting.
@Andy: Looks like Jarad, the person who emailed me this problem has posted the same in excelforum too. Very good solution btw...
Realy great article
"You can take this basic model and extend it to include parameters like number of searches each key phrase has, how long the users stay on the site etc. to enhance the way tag cloud is generated and colored."
How would you go about doing this? I think it would need some VB
Hi,
I found the usage very interesting, but is giving me hard time because the LENs formula that use ranges are not considering the full range, in other words, the LEN formula is only bringing results from the respective "line" cell.
Using the example, when I place the formula to calculate the frequency for "windows" brings me only 1 result, not 11 as displayed in the example. It seems that the LEN formula using ranges is considering the respective line within the range, not the full range.
Any hint?
@Thiago
You have to enter the formula as an Array Formula
Enter the Formula and press Ctrl+Shift+Enter
Not just Enter
Thank you, Hui! I couldn't work out how this didn't work
is there a limit to the number of lines it can analyse.
Ie i am trying to get this to work on a list of sentances 1500 long.
@Gary
In Excel 2010/2013 Excel is only limited by available memory,
So just give it a go
As always try on a copy of the file first if you have any doubts
Apologies if I am missing something, but coudn't getting frequency be easier with Countif formula. Something like this - COUNTIF(Range with text,"*"&_cell with keyword_&"*")
Apologies if I missed, but what is the Array Formula to:
1. Analyze a list of URL's or a list of word phrases to understand frequency;
2. List in a nearby column from most used words to least used words;
3. Next to the list of words the count of occurrences.