Few days ago, we learned how to create a pie+donut combination chart to visualize polls around the world in 2014. It generated quite a bit of interesting discussion (47 comments so far). One of the comments was from Roberto, who along with Kris & Gábor runs The FrankensTeam an online library of advanced Excel tricks, charts and other mind-boggling spreadsheet wizardry.
I really liked Roberto’s comments on the original post and a charting solution he presented. So I asked him if he can do a guest post explaining the technique to our audience. He obliged and here we go.
Over to FrankensTeam.
Combine pie and xy scatter charts – guest post by The FrankensTeam
Fraü Blucher: I am Fraü Blucher. [horses whinny]
Igor: Steady.
Freddy: Uh, how do you do? I am Dr. Fronkensteen. This is my assistant. Inga, may I present Fraü Blucher. [horses whinny] I wonder what’s got into them.
First of all, we would like to say thank you to Chandoo for asking us to explain how to make this kind of chart.
Recently we have seen an interesting pie-based plot chart by Chandoo. Our proposed version combines 3 different chart types based on some background calculations. The final model is dynamic, you can add more data, and you have the choice to use 1D or 2D data table. All the calculations are prepared on the sheets up to 10 categories. In this guest post we would like to share our template file and show you some of our charting technique.
As an extra, at the end of the post you can find a link to our VBA code which could be used to rotate the chart labels.
Building blocks of the vote-chart
We combined 3 chart types:
- donut chart (two series)
- Outer grey slices
- Inner grey slices with month names
- pie chart (one series)
- Invisible data for placing country labels
- xy scatter chart (three series)
- Brown dots – Legislative
- Blue dots – President
- Orange dots – Referendum
Doughnut series
The two series: month_label and month serve to create the gray ring for the months.
The labels in a doughnut chart are always positioned at the center. By using two series (so two rings) and eliminating the border lines, the two rings seem to be one, but the labels can be positioned at the bottom by adding it to the innermost ring. The reason why we use two rings instead of moving the labels manually is very simple: this way the labels will always stay at the same position, even if you resize the chart. Also it is easier than manually adjust the label boxes.
The month names are linked to the labels from cells (you can see it on the formula bar if you click on one label) because only one axis label could be assigned to the chart, and we use it for the country names (those are more… :-))
XY scatter series
Scatter series are used to arrange the colored dots on the outer ring. This is a main difference from Chandoo’s version. We use 3 series to separate the three different vote categories: presidential, legislative and referendum, and to position the dots of the same country in radial direction as you can see on the original chart. The 3 series form 3 big circles with different radius: legislative is the outermost, referendum is the innermost, but we move the points from the inner circles to the outer, if there is no “higher” vote-type.
Naturally it is possible to adjust the size and shape of the indicators.
We will show you later how to calculate the scatter point positions. (Maybe at first sight it seems to be difficult but you will see it is easy to arrange them properly.)
Our file is prepared to handle more vote-types (or other categories). You will only need to add the new series to the chart!
Pie series
Pie chart is used to position and show labels with the names of the states. The chart itself is hidden (we set to no color and no line) so only the labels are visible.
The number of slices of the pie is determined by the maximum number of countries per month – it needs to be multiplied by 12. All the slices are sized equally and all has a label, but only the ones that we need will have the name of the state, for the rest, the label is an empty string “”.
Formulas behind the chart
For better understanding we separated the data and the support formulas to two sheets. We prepared the file to be able to work with two different types of data table.
You may have the type of vote in one column (1D):
Using some formulas, this table could easily be re-ordered to a pivot-table-like 2D format. This is what you can see in our file on sheet Transpose_data:
This table is the starting point to build up the help data for the charts.
You can find all the calculations on Support sheet. A key element of calculations is the total number of slices for the pie chart. We need to determine the maximum number of countries per month – this will be the number of slices for each month. We use a named formula: max_size_month for this data (here we adapted Chandoo’s MODE-based formula).
The total number of slices will be 12*max_size_month.
The second step is to determine the slice number for each country, and based on that, calculate the the slice angle in radians. If you think about trigonometry, you will remember that sine and cosine together with radius determines the x and y coordinates of the circle points.
We created a calculation table with the necessary formulas. This table is dynamic and prepared to process more data rows and more vote (or other) categories.
The dots are positioned on 3 circles. We use a fixed parameter in a name: circle_distance to set the radiuses of the circles.
We use a support range for both text labels: country names and month. For month names we avoid to use TEXT function with string parameter “mmm” because in non-english systems it will not work! Instead we use Custom cell formatting with code “mmm” – this kind of formatting is translated automatically to locals.
For country names we set the country to the same pie-slice where the dots are, all the rest will have an empty string as label. The column with country name formula will be assigned to the category axis of the chart, but the month names will be linked to the doughnut-series labels one by one, because it is not possible to set two different axis labels. 🙁
How to put it together?
- Select the Legislative x and Legislative y columns, and create a scatter chart.
- Add two more series using the President x and y and Referendum x and y columns.
- Set the axis minimum to -1 maximum to +1 for both of the axes.
- Delete the axes and the grid lines. You can see something like this:
The dots do not form a circle yet, but after you add the pie chart, the shape of the plot area will be a perfect square, so the circle will appear. - Add a new series named for_label using arr_pie both for x and y values:
- Set the chart type of this series to pie and set no fill, no border. Now the dots form perfect circle.
- Link the category axis for this data series to the support column with Label States. (In the Select Data dialogue box click on the “for_label” series, then the Edit button. Select the range from the sheet.)
- Add labels to the pie slices. Set it to show Category name and position Outside end.
- Add two more series (month and month_label) using arr_12 for the values.
- Set the chart type of these two series to doughnut, and set no borders. Color every second slice to darker gray.
- Add data labels for the inner circle, and link the labels one by one to the sheet cells with month names. (Select one label, click on the formula bar, type = and click on the appropriate cell you want to link the label to.)
- Finally you have to hide the 0 data points which appear in the middle of the chart. Add a new xy data series (named “white series”) with fixed values ={0} for x and y. Set a marker of series to the same color as the background of your chart, and use a marker large enough to cover the unnecessary point. 🙂
+1. You can add new xy series if you need – the calculations are already done on the sheets. It is not problem to use over-sized ranges, the error values will become 0 and will appear in the center of the circle – covered by the white series. BUT important for the proper covering, the white series must be the very-last series, so after adding new series, check the order, and move the white series to the bottom of the list.
Bonus: rotate the chart labels using VBA
As you can see on the above picture all the labels are horizontal. To rotate it to radial direction a piece of VBA code is needed. We created this code and published on our site – please feel free to use it for this chart or your other charts (see the link below).
Download the example files
Click here to download the files. Examine the formulas, chart settings and formatting to learn more. This is a highly advanced chart, so take some time to go thru it. You will learn a lot.
Learning points and links:
- Be careful using TEXT formula with string parameter in international environment! You can read about it here.
- Combining xy scatter with pie chart makes the plot area shape perfect square, so it is easy to create a perfect square area for drawing by the xy coordinates. You can read about it here.
- Rotate chart labels to radial or tangential direction is possible with this VBA code.
Added by Chandoo:
Thank you Frankens Team
Thank you so much Robert, Kris and Gábor for taking time to write this. It is a pleasure hosting your article here. I have been following your website for several months and every time I visit it, I end up learning something interesting, creative and just plain awesome. Thanks for sharing your knowledge, ideas and technique with all of us.
Like this chart? Say thanks to Frankens Team
If you enjoyed this chart, please say thanks to Frankens Team. Also visit their site to see how far you can with Excel.
41 Responses to “Calculate Elapsed Time in Excel [Quick Tips]”
Hi Chandoo,
To calculate time lapses in excel I usually use the DATEDIF function. Even though is undocumented by MS there is a great explanation of its use in Chip Pearson's site :
http://www.cpearson.com/excel/datedif.aspx
Is pretty easy to use and has great flexibility.
See you and keep Excelling!!!
Another great article, I will be linking to it on my blog.
Oliver:
Yes, I think that DATEDIFF do it better.
Great post! This a fantastic tutorial on calculating elapsed time in Excel that could be helpful even to a novice user. Keep up the useful tips!
Also, the Office community on Facebook could really benefit from you knowledge! Check it out at http://www.facebook.com/office
Cheers,
Andy
MSFT Office Outreach Team
hi, Chandoo !!!
for elapsed time , we can use this unique formula either for hours, minutes or seconds : NOW()-A1)
but using respective special number formats
for hours : [h] ==> 46553
for minutes : [m] ==>2793212
for seconds : [s] ==> 167592763
We can also use mean duration for years (orbital period of the Earth around the Sun : i-e tropical year) which is : 365.25 days
and mean duration for month : 365.25/12 days
be Excelent !!!!
@Oliver... Thanks for the pointer to datediff(). I will update the post with information about this as well.
@Glen... thanks for the linklove 🙂
@Andy... Welcome. Thanks for telling us about the office community on FB.
@Modeste ... that is very cool. I will remember these formatting codes for an upcoming article on number formatting codes 🙂
Great tip Chandoo! I use the formula to calculate years elapsed all the time. It can seriously help save a ton of time with calculations. Also, NETWORKDAYS is one that helps and can seriously impress a boss. Keep up the great work here!
No problem! I will definitely be directing people with tough Excel questions to your blog. Keep up the great posts!
Andy
MSFT Office Outreach Team
Hi,
always great posts and a good way to start my day
but regarding the elapsed time calculations: have you never noticed that there is a result difference between using =TODAY()-A1 and using =NETWORKDAYS(A1,TODAY())?
try it for A1= a Monday such as 21sep09 and "today" is e.g. a Thursday; you get 3 or 4 respectively as a result, depending on the formula used; this is because formula =networkdays() always includes both the startdate and the end date and not only the time between these 2.
This is easily corrected/compensated bij always adding a -1 to the =networkdays() formula because the majority of us will count startday as day 0 and then the result will be consistent across the different formulas.
However, you then get into trouble if you calculate the networkdays for a date further in the past and where either the start or end date falls in a weekend.
just thought to point this out as to me these formula's are not interchangeable just like that!
have a great day!
Paul
=DATEDIF([DOJ],TODAY(),"Y") & " Y, " & DATEDIF([DOJ],TODAY(),"YM") & " M, " & DATEDIF([DOJ],TODAY(),"MD") & " D"
This will fix your 30 Days problem
I calculated the time diff between two date+ times by subtracting 2 cells & custom formatted it to "d hh:mm" format.
E.g.
Cell A1 04-Jan-12 6:00 PM
Cell A2 05-Jan-12 4:45 PM
Cell A3 0 22:45 (formula: =A1-A2)
Wat shud i do 2 not display the "zero" values i.e. no. of days in this case is zero hence the cell shud display " 22: 45" and not "0: 22: 45".
@Amol
Try the Custom Format code:
[
<1] hh:mm ; [>=1] d “d” hh:mmHi Chandoo,
If possible to compute the interval of time and date in one column.
In column C I would like to compute the total days and hours . What formula ? Please help
Example.
Column A Column B
2/13/12 3:30 AM 2/14/12 12:00 AM
In referenc to Elapsed time in months
To calculate the elapsed time in months, we can use the formula =(NOW()-A1)/30. This returns the value in 30 day months.
I use to apply formula =ROUND((TODAY()-A1)/30,0). Today, I faced a peculiar situation, A1 has date 01-Mar-2009, and today being 01-Mar-2012, it should be 36 months, but it is showing 37 months!!
Any suggestions to avoid such errors?
Regards,
Prasad DN
All I want to do is add up a series of times and receive a reply that gives me a total. What I used to do was subtrace the end time from the start time and format the result as [hh]:mm but this doesn't seem to work anymore. How has Bill Gates confounded me?
@Pete
I use Excel 2010 and it still works
The times must be entered as times in the format hh:mm:ss or hh:mm without seconds
Adding up times is as simple as =Sum(Range) or =Sum(A2:A10)
then using a Custom Number format as you have mentioned [h]:mm
If this isn't working, 2 ideas
1. Check your times are times and not text
2. Can you share your data or file with us?
My hospital tracks times from patient arrival to various procedures or treatments. When those times cross over midnight, the regular formulas (2nd time minus first time) don’t work because the result is negative and Excel (2007) won’t show a negative number in time format.
I couldn’t find a solution here (chandoo.org) but found one elsewhere that worked and it’s very simple. I would like to share it.
Assuming 1st time in A1 (column for patient arrival time) (11:00 PM), and 2nd time in B1 (column for x-ray given) (12:30 AM)). Should be 1:30 elapsed time.
=B1-A1+(B1<A1) [This comparison is the key to the solution.]
=12:30 AM – 11:00 PM + (12:30 AM < 11:00 PM)
=0.0208 – 0.9583 + (True)
=-0.9375 + (1) [This is the key! If it is false, Excel adds 0. If it’s true, Excel adds 1 and that is what corrects the negative number. Now Excel can interpret the number as a time.]
=0.0625
Converted to hh:mm = 1:30
I wrapped this formula inside an IFERROR one to alert my data entry person if she messed up and applied it to lots of different columns and it has worked wonderfully. No more complaints from the data entry person who just plugs in times from medical charts.
Very interesting solution. Thank you so much for sharing it with all of us.
HI,
I am working on a Xl application..
I want to capture time between two clicks.
Ex, in my application during run somewhere I press OK button and then I click Cancel.. I want to measure time between these two clicks... Is it possible??
Pls help on this...
@shashidhar
The answer is Yes
You will have to add an appropriate VBA event to start and stop a timer.
There are techniques which can time to the millisecond so maybe look those up on the net
WOW!!!!!! I truly love your excel time format program! WHOOOO! I am very interested in how the time formats "update" (manually on a physical keyboard) that "updates" the time into its respective decimal time formats, such as:
YYYY.yyyy, HH.hhh, etc...
How do those formulas or equations work if not in Excel mode? Example: TI calculators, Word, or any other computer language programming? Just wanted to see how it works. E-mail me at Ultra64848689Ti@gmail.com.
Thanks again for an EXCELLENT Excel program into decimal time formats!
Here's an idea: how about creating an APP for iOS and Android? Just wanted to point that out. =-D
Regarding the elapsed time in months:
I made this function to determine the time elapsed since a date using the number of days in each respective month. It's a simple subtraction and I think it works very well:((Year Today-Year A1)*12++(Month Today - Month A1)+(Day Today/Days in Month Today)-Days A1/Days in month A1)
Here's the function:
=((YEAR(TODAY())-YEAR(A1))*12)+(MONTH(TODAY())-MONTH(A1))+(DAY(TODAY())/DAY(DATE(YEAR(TODAY()),MONTH(TODAY())+1,0))-DAY(A1)/DAY(DATE(YEAR(A1),MONTH(A1)+1,0)))
Have a Merry Christmas everyone!!
I need the ability to calculate how much progress we have made between two dates and I want to represent that as a percentage.
I am thinking this would be a combination of today, networkdays & dividing the days elapsed vs the total days. Then it should be as easy as formatting my cell. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
@Christian
Your correct
dates are just numbers and so you can use simple math to derive the percentage
=(Date Now-Start Date)/(End date-Start date)
that will give you a number between 0 and 1
which you can format as a %'age
is there a way out to calculate the productivity for an employee
The day start is at 08:00 and day end is 20:00
The start date / time is recorded and end date / time is recorded
I want to calculate the timelapse taking into consideration the day begin and dayend time.
If the work begins and ends the same day, a simple formula b1-a1 would compute the productivity.
But if the process remains incomplete and is carried over to the next day, then timelines to be computed accordingly
to clarify,
if start time of an activity is 03/15/2015 18:00 hrs and end time is 03/16/2015 11:00 hrs, then the resultant formula should be 5 hrs (ie 18:00 to 20:00 hrs on day1 + 08:00 to 11:00 hrs on day2) ie 2+3
please guide.
Venkatesh, try (b1-a1)-0.5
This will subtract the fixed amount of time between shifts, 12 hours. If the time between shifts varies, then you could reference other cells that contain the variables.
Please help. when I use the networking days formula I get a date (2-may-00) I want actual number of days. I managing projects and I need to know how many days have passed since we received a project to the current date. Please help Thanks
@Aria: Just format the cell as general or number. that will fix the problem.
You rock! I looked at 17 other sites and they all did not work. Yours did. Thanks!
Hi folks ...
calculating age in years , months and days
=text(now()-a1,"yy")&" y " &text(now()-a1,"mm")-1 &" m "&text(now()-a1,"dd") & " d"
Hi, the Elapsed time in days [ =TODAY()-A1 ] works great however, if I do not have a date in A1, it shows 42157. Anyway to get it to display 0 or a Null value?
@Dan
=If(A1="",0,TODAY()-A1)
I get #NAME? and the formula does not work.
Hi Chandoo,
This might be a challenge - I am looking to calculate elapsed time between two columns
Start date Complete date
9/9/2015 7:21 10/2/2015 11:01
I need to take into account the following:
1) The employee works 7:00-3:15 pm each day
2) Std Work hours are 7hrs 45 min each day
3) Need to take into account all holidays in between start and end date
4) Work week is Mon through Friday.
Can you help?
Thanks!
Hi, i have a certain name (wilium) in column A and against this name i have 2 option, 1 Done and 2 Inprogress. i want that i count done again wilium and count inprogress against wilium separately. which formula will work for it??
Hi, i have a certain name (wilium) in column A and against this name i have 2 option, 1 Done and 2 Inprogress in column C. i want that i count done again wilium and count inprogress against wilium separately. which formula will work for it??
Year, month, day results for DoB.
The formulas I have found on the net and the datedif function do not work. This is what I came up with using a Microsoft support paper dated April 1997 with some modifications:
IF(OR(A2>$A$1,ISBLANK(A2)),"",IF(YEAR($A$1)=YEAR(A2),0,IF(MONTH($A$1)>=MONTH(A2),YEAR($A$1)-YEAR(A2),YEAR($A$1)-YEAR(A2)-1))&" years "&MONTH($A$1)-MONTH(A2)+IF(AND(MONTH($A$1)<=MONTH(A2),DAY($A$1)<DAY(A2)),11,IF(AND(MONTH($A$1)=DAY(A2)),12,IF(AND(MONTH($A$1)>MONTH(A2),DAY($A$1)=DAY(A2),ABS(DAY($A$1)-DAY(A2)),DAY(EOMONTH(A2,0))-DAY(A2)+DAY($A$1))&" days")
Check it out...
Hi, Augustin
what about :
calculating age in years , months and days
=YEAR(NOW()-DoB)-1900 & " y " & MONTH(NOW()-DoB)-1 & " m " & DAY(NOW()-DoB) & " d"
Hi Chandoo,
I am looking for help with the elapse time formula. I have a recruitment tracking sheet where we track the number of days the positions are opened, and when they are finally closed.
The opened positions will have a running turnaround time (TAT) formula and I am using this formula:
=NETWORKDAYS (start_date, TODAY (), Holidays2018)
Now, without disrupting the running TAT formula, how do I then get the TAT to stop when we have a final end date? All the information below is row:
- start_date --> Cell A
- TODAY () --> cell B
- end_date --> Cell C
Hope you are able to help. Thanks!
Interesting question. Try this:
Thank you for this helpful article. I was trying for days now to figure it out. Now the only issue I have is that if I do not have a value inputed for =TODAY()-[@[Date Precured]] Date Precured then it shows 44055. How can I get it to leave it blank if there is no data? Thanks again!!!