Today, let’s travel in time. Pack your photon ray guns, extra underwear, buckle your seat belts and open Excel!
Of course, we are not going to travel in time. (Come to think of it, we are going to travel in time. By the time you finish reading this, you would have traveled a few minutes)
We are going to learn how to travel in time when using Excel. In simple terms, you are going to learn how to move forward or backward in time using Excel formulas.
So are you ready to hit the warp speed? Let’s beam up our Excel time machine.
Tip 0 – Date & Time are an illusion
Most important tip for Excel time travelers is to understand that Excel dates & times are just numbers. So when you see a date like 17-October-2013 in a cell, you can safely assume that it is a number disguised to look like 17th of October, 2013. To see the number behind this, just select the cell and format it as number (from Home ribbon).
Now that you understood this concept, let’s jump in to the 42 tips. All these tips assume a date or time value is in the cell A1.
Staying at present:
- To have latest star date in a cell, just press CTRL+; (of course, in Excel world, star date is nothing but whatever date your computer shows)
- To have current time in a cell, just press CTRL+:
- Of course, we time travelers are lazy. So pressing CTRL+; every day or CTRL+: every second is not cool. That is why you can use =TODAY() in a cell to get today’s date. It will automatically change when you re-open the file tomorrow.
- Likewise, use =NOW() to get current date & time in a cell. Remember, although time changes every second, you will not see the cell updated unless the formula is somehow re-calculated. This is done by,
- Pressing F9
- Saving / re-opening the file
- Making any changes to any cell (like typing a value, changing a value)
- Editing the formula cell and pressing Enter
- To check if today is after or before the date in cell A1, you can use =TODAY() > A1. This will be TRUE if A1 has a past date and FALSE if A1 has a future date.
- To know how many days are there between TODAY and the date in A1, use =TODAY() – A1. This will be a negative number if A1 is a future date. To see just the number of days (without negative sign), you can use =ABS(TODAY()-A1)
- To know how many hours are left between the time in A1 and current time, use =(NOW()-A1)*24.
- While the above formula works, it shows hours and fraction. To just see hours and minutes left, you can use =TEXT((NOW()-A1), “[hh]:mm”). Note: This formula works only when A1 < NOW().
- To know how many weeks are left between TODAY() date and a future date in A1, use =(TODAY() –
A1)/7 - To know how many months are left between TODAY() and date in A1, use = DATEDIF(TODAY(), A1, “m”).
Related: How to use DATEDIF function. - To know which month is running, use =MONTH(TODAY())
- To see the month name instead of number, use =TEXT(TODAY(), “MMMM”). This shows the month’s name in your Excel language.
- To know which year is running, use =YEAR(TODAY())
- To see the last 2 digits of the year, you can use =RIGHT(YEAR(TODAY()), 2)
- To find the day of week for TODAY, use =WEEKDAY(TODAY()). This will give a number (1 to 7, 1 for Sunday, 7 for Saturday).
- To see the weekday name instead of number, use =TEXT(TODAY(), “DDDD”).
- To see today’s date alone, use =DAY(TODAY())
- To know if the present year is a leap year or not, see this.
Going back in time
- To go back by 6 days from the date in A1, use =A1-6
- To go back to last Friday use =A1-WEEKDAY(A1, 16). This works in Excel 2010, 2013. If your time machine is old (ie you have Excel 2003 or earlier versions), you can use =A1-CHOOSE(WEEKDAY(A1), 2,3,4,5,6,7,1)
- To go back by 5 weeks, use =A1-5*7
- To go back to start of the month, use =DATE(YEAR(A1), MONTH(A1),1)
- To go back to end of previous month, use = DATE(YEAR(A1), MONTH(A1),1) – 1
- Or use =EOMONTH(A1,-1)
- To go back by 2 months, use =EDATE(A1, -2)
- To go back by 27 working days, use =WORKDAY(A1, -27). This assumes, Monday to Friday as working days.
- To go back by 27 working days, assuming you follow Monday to Friday work week and a set of extra holidays, use =WORKDAY(A1, -27, LIST_OF_HOLIDAYS)
- To go back by 7 quarters, use =EDATE(A1, -7 * 3)
- To go back to the start of the year, =DATE(YEAR(A1), 1,1)
- To go back to same date last year, = DATE(YEAR(A1)-1, MONTH(A1), DAY(A1))
- To go back a decade, =DATE(YEAR(A1)-10, MONTH(A1), DAY(A1))
Going forward in time
We, time travelers are smart people. Once you know that turning the knob backwards takes you to past, you know how to go to future. So I am giving very few examples for going forward in time.
- To go to the 17th working day from date A1, assuming you use Sunday to Thursday workweek, use =WORKDAY.INTL(A1,17,7). This formula works in Excel 2010 or above.
- To go to next hour, use=A1+1/24
- To go to next day morning 9AM, use =INT(A1+1) + 9/24
- To go to 18th of next month, use =DATE(YEAR(A1), MONTH(A1)+1, 18)
- To go to end of the current quarter for date in A1, use =DATE(YEAR(A1), CHOOSE(MONTH(A1), 4,4,4,7,7,7,10,10,10,13,13,13),1)-1
- To go to a future date that is 4 years, 6 months, 7 days away from A1, use =DATE(YEAR(A1)+4, MONTH(A1)+6, DAY(A1)+7)
Finding the amount of time traveled
- To know how many days are between 2 dates (in A1 & A2), use =A1-A2
- To know how many working days are between 2 dates, use =NETWORKDAYS(A1, A2) (remember: A1 should be less than A2).
Fixes for common time travel hiccups
- If you see ###### instead of a date in a cell, try making the column wider. If you still see ######, that means the date value is not understandable by Excel (negative numbers, dates prior to 1st of January 1900 etc.)
- Often when pasting date values in to Excel, you notice that they are not treated as dates. Use these techniques to fix.
- If you pass in-correct values or use wrong parameters, your date formulas show an error like #NUM or #VALUE. Read this to understand how to fix such errors.
Quiz time for time travelers
I see that you safely made it here. I hope you had a good journey. Let me see how good your time traveling is. Answer these questions:
- Write a formula to take date in A1 to next month’s first Monday.
- Given a date in A1, find out the closest Christmas date to it.
Building your own time machine? Check out these tips too
If you work with date & time values often, then learning about them certainly pays off. Read below articles to one up your time travel awesomeness.
- Using Date & Time in Excel
- How to calculate common holiday dates in Excel?
- How to calculate payroll dates?
- How to sort a bunch of birth dates by birthday?
- Check if two dates are in same month
Good luck time traveling. I will see you again in future 🙂
PS: Make sure you attempt the challenges and post your answers in comments.
28 Responses to “Team To Do Lists – Project Tracking Tools using Excel [Part 2 of 6]”
[...] & tracking a project plan using Gantt Charts Team To Do Lists - Project Tracking Tools Part 3: Preparing a project time line [upcoming] Part 4: Time sheets and Resource management [...]
the templates are great (I bought the combo).
What I'm missing is a way to have the project gantt chart and reporting with the data per resource, in such a way that I can also show the occupation per resource on an extended gantt chart.
So with hours entered per person per project or sub-activity, to show a gantt chart of how many hours/days a person spent on which project (or plans to spend).
[...] from: Team To Do Lists - Project Tracking Tools using Excel [Part 2 of 6] 25 Jun 09 | [...]
Hi Chandoo,
Funny I have a post on the value of MS project lined up which I will post when the current monster project I'm working on finishes and I get some free time!
I'm not sure this would help with any of the projects I've worked on, closing down a to do list seems like more effort than it's worth, but it might be useful for some things. I guessing it doesn't, but does the time stamp not update when you recalculate the work book?
keep up the good work!
Ross
@Ross.. Thanks for sharing your ideas... I think to do lists are a great way to keep up with project activities and ensure accountability from individual team members, when they are implemented right.
"I guessing it doesn’t, but does the time stamp not update when you recalculate the work book?"
Your guess is right. When you change the calculation mode to "iterative", excel takes care of the nittygritties and retains older values in circular references in formulas.
[...] Project Management in Excel [New Series] - Gantt Charts | To Do Lists [...]
[...] & tracking a project plan using Gantt Charts Team To Do Lists - Project Tracking Tools Project Status Reporting - Create a Timeline to display milestones Part 4: Time sheets and Resource [...]
Hi Chandoo,
The template give me lot of convenience to monitor the thing to do. It simple. Thank You
[...] & tracking a project plan using Gantt Charts Team To Do Lists - Project Tracking Tools Project Status Reporting - Create a Timeline to display milestones Part 4: Time sheets and Resource [...]
[...] make sure you have read the first 4 parts of the series - Making gantt charts [project planning], team todo lists [project tracking], project time lines chart [reporting] and Timesheets and Resource Management using Excel. Also [...]
Chandoo,
I really do not see any befit to this function in Excel unless it was somehow tied into some other chart. That is say a scheduled activities % complete is based on the to-do list.
The only way this chart would be useful is if no one was assigned none dependent task that could be done by anyone. The cases were both of these conditions are true are so few and far between it really makes this chart worthless.
@Brian... Once you have a todo list up and running, it is easy to get metrics out of it. I didnt propose it as it might look a bit too micro-management-ish.
I am able to understand what you meant by "The only way this chart would be useful is if no one was assigned none dependent task that could be done by anyone. The cases were both of these conditions are true are so few and far between it really makes this chart worthless."
Can you explain?
"Chandoo"
What I mean is this. Lets say you have 10 task which are part of one activity/WBS that is in your schedule. One there are very few cases were many people would be assigned to complete this one scheduled activity with no direction being given who should what of the 10 task. It is poor management, and the task 90% of the time would not get done in a timely manner if say 4 people were responsible. Secondly, you are assuming all 10 task are independent of each other. You might need to do task 1 thru 3 before you can do task 4, and to do task 7 you might need to do 4 and 6. Thirdly, the time it would take to compile and then fill out the to-do-list even in limited applications is really not worth it.
I just see almost no applications why a team would need to inform others separate from the schedule that they have completed a task on a to-do list unless anyone of the 4 people could of completed that task.
My point is, there might be a few very limited applications for this type of list but this list would be worthless as a Project Management tool in every other case.
However, change this from a to-do-list to a document change log and it is perfect. Instead of to-do it is the documents name or summary of what changed in the document. The person is who edited the document, and the time stamp is when they checked it in. But I do not know why you would use excel when there is free software you can use commercially that is 10 times better that does document management.
I think using excel to do Project Management over a real Project Management application is a bad idea. Unless you are running a very small, simple project, the time and effort is a lot more to use excel compared to the cost of the Project Management software.
This comes back to my point, I love your site, however, just because you can do something in excel does not mean you should do it. To often the time it takes to use excel is wasted 10 times over from the cost of doing it in an application designed to for the specific application.
@Brian: The todo list mentioned here is meant to keep track of all the tasks for which detailed planning is not necessary but some sort of tracking is needed. These are not be confused with project activities (a la gantt chart).
I like your suggestion about using this as a document tracker. Pretty cool use.
Coming to your point about excel as a real project management tool, well, I have my views, but in a serious project environment, it would surely payoff to have a dedicated project management application.
[...] & tracking a project plan using Gantt Charts Team To Do Lists – Project Tracking Tools Project Status Reporting – Create a Timeline to display milestones Time sheets and Resource [...]
Chandoo,
Wonder how the timestamp column will maintain its previous data. Both Today() and Now() functions will update as and when the next timestamp happens.
[...] Preparing & tracking a project plan using Gantt Charts Part2: Team To Do Lists – Project Tracking Tools Part3: Project Status Reporting – Create a Timeline to display milestones Part4: Time sheets and [...]
I've combined this with the issue tracker since I like the automatic date stamp, but one thing I'm noticing is that I can't replicate the chart that goes along with the issue tracker because the cells that are referenced have the formula that inserts the time stamp instead of a the actual date value. All the dates of the last 30 days display 0 when they should have a value.
Is there a way around this?
I have edited the chart so that my team members can update the percentage completion of the assigned tasks. When the cell is updated, i would like the time stamp to update. How would I manipulate the formula to update whenever the drop-down list is changed?
[...] … ??? To Do List [...]
Excel is great however sometimes you need to get a better idea of what tasks each person on your team is working on at any given time. We've developed a web app that can do just that! Each person has a list of tasks, listed in the order they have to complete them.
HII,
I want to expand the database through excel where i am working on 11 cities as of now and i want to expand it upto 50 cities and hence forth the data related to it will also expand so i want to make it precise where i can get updates also that this work is required to be done at that particular day or date
Thanks for making all of this information available for free. I am currently using excel to track everything for the first time. I later plan to output our information here with a more visual presentation. Wish me luck!
Can some one point me out to some additional direction on the "Who Finished it?" column? Something more 'basic' for a newbie excel guy? lol I got everything else working on this tutorial but that column. I can't seem to recreate it and I know a lot of it is due to lack of knowledge with VB code. I'd like to recreate this column very much 🙁
Dear Chandoo,
Thanks for the team to do list, kindly let me know how to set the column who " finished it " from another work sheet
Hi Chandoo,
Unable to download it - can you please check the link and confirm.
Great inhisgt! That's the answer we've been looking for.
Hi Team,
I know u all are the best programmers in the world!!! that's I am here to rectify my issues. here is my question please ans me as soon as possible before 8-3-2017 its really urgent.
I have a project named the production tracker.
1) I require the user form which shows the names of the Associates which are linked to the different tracks. when the user is selected the particular track related details and dropdowns should appear.
2) I need to track the associate needs how much of the time to complete the particular task. with start stop and pause and resume timer.
3) It should display the daily count of the production and save the data to the another Excel file.
this production tracker should save all the data no matter how many people logs in into it.
Please help me for this it will be very appreciated.
you can directly email me on my mail ID: tusharkch694@gmail.com