Greetings and salutations, my fellow VBA-fearin’ congregation. Evangelizin’ Jeff here, spreading the good word about everlastin’ VBA serenity. You may remember me from mah preeeevious sermons such as Tables, PivotTables, and Macros: music to your ears and Big trouble in little spreadsheet. Well today, I’m going to praise the work of a high-yah pow-wah.
Our most pious Brother Jon Peltier (who’s fine presence is to mah left) broke his vow of silence over at the PeltierTech monastery to make a most inspirin’ observation during his recent confession Highlight a Specific Data Label in an Excel Chart:
Because I’ve been doing a lot of coding lately, my first thought was an approach using VBA. Then of course I came to my senses, and worked out a non-programmatic approach.
If possible, it’s usually advantageous not to rely on VBA for such tasks.
Hallelujah, brother!
My visionary brother is right: if there’s one rule of VBA that you should religiously observe, it’s to let the application be the application, where ee-fishin’ tah do so. A whiles back, I jokingly spoke it alike this:
The serenity prayer for Excel:
Lord grant me the VBA skills to automate the things I cannot easily change; the knowledge to leverage fully off the inbuilt features that I can; and the wisdom to know the difference.
(And I particularly chuckled at Excel Ninja BobHC’s response: You been on them tablets again.)
This sentiment is echoed in the commandments given us in Professional Excel Development (written by those latter-day-saints Bovey, Wallentin, Bullen, and Green):
This Good Book evangelizes that Excel developers “…shalt be divided into five different categories”:
- Basic Excel users, whom generally use Excel for fairly simple tasks, but as their exposure to Excel grows, so does the complexity of their worksheets and use of complex worksheet functions, PivotTables, and Charts.
- Power Users, whom have a broad understanding of Excel’s functionality, and occasionally use snippets of VBA from the Net or via the Macro Recorder, but their code tends to be messy, slow, and hard to maintain.
- VBA Developers, whom make extensive use of VBA – perhaps too much…to the point that they tend to use VBA to tackle practically every problem.
- Excel Developers, whom realize that the most efficient and maintainable applications are those that make the most of Excel’s built-in functionality, augmented by VBA where appropriate.
- Professional Excel Developers, whom know more languages than your typical Babel Fish.
That leap from VBA developer to Excel developer is worth striving for. (Don’t bother striving to be a Professional Excel Developer…they are so nerdy that they get about as many dates as your typical cloistered monk or nun). Unfortunately gaining the wisdom to jump from that third class to the forth one ain’t easy, and dedicated sermons on this matter are few and veryfar between.
Far too often the likes of yours truly are often so focused on leading you not into temptation and instead down a righteous path, that we simply never take the flock anywhere near enough to temptation so that we might cautiously peer at it from a safe distance and say in our most solemn and hushed tone “That way surely leads to hellfire, damnation, and eternal recalculation”. No siree, I’m afraid we usually opt instead to simply get the flock away from there.
However, help is at hand, sinners. Forums such as our very own Chandoo.org/forum are a great place to get guidance on such spirited matters…particularly if you ask the right question, such as “What is the best way to achieve X using Excel version Y”. But you’ll need to ask an open question based around what you are trying to accomplish, rather than being overly focused on how you are trying to accomplish it.
For instance, if you ask “How can I efficiently achieve X with VBA“ then that is all you will get…answers about the most efficient way to do it within the confines of the particular tool you have specified. Which will often not be the most efficient way. In fact, I’ve lost count of the number of times where someone has asked for a formula or VBA solution to some devilishly complicated problem – and got something devilishly complicated formula or code as a result – when a mere PivotTable would have sufficed. Or when some very simple Structured Query Language (SQL) via the in-built (but antiquated) Microsoft Query interface would have nailed it.
[Aside: SQL is basically a database language use to perform the database equivalent of lookups and to crunch numbers, or to conditionally join large datasets based on multiple complex conditions. SQL can be directly leveraged by Excel with minimal programming. Heck, you can use SQL to do stuff with NO programming whatsoever via Microsoft Query – a handy (if ancient) little interface bundled into Excel that will look familiar to any Access users. For an excellent Excel-centric introduction to SQL, read Craig Hatmaker’s amazing Beyond Excel: VBA and Database Manipulation blog. Chandoo also has a great guest post by Vijay – Using Excel As Your Database – on this subject. Ignore all the naysayers and unbelievers in the comments who say “Excel shalt not be used a database” for they know not what the point is. Which is that yea Excel doeth speak in SQL tongues at a pinch, and SQL is pure salvation when it comes to manipulating data, be it Big Data, Small Data, or Somewhere-In-Between data.]
Not to mention the miracles even a layperson can perform if they have the almighty Excel 2010 and PowerPivot installed. Or Excel 2013’s Data Model, which lets you mash up data from Excel Tables and serve them up directly as PivotTables with not a VLOOKUP or Macro in sight.
The end of Excel ain’t nigh…
Every release, Excel gets stronger and stronger. Excel 2010 offered us sinners significant improvements over previous versions…giving us things like Slicers and the free PowerPivot add-in. Excel 2013 takes a giant leap forward in allowing us to leverage off of inbuilt functionality to do things that we would otherwise require tons of complex code and complex formulas to achieve. Had Excel 2013 been launched 10 years ago, I simply wouldn’t need to have been a-preaching VBA and SQL to as many unbelievers as I have. If we keep abreast of these changes, then as the functionality of Excel ramps ever up, our code can ramp down accordingly.
The bottom line here is this: if thou strive to be a really good Excel developer then thou best get to know what’s behind just about every nook and cranny of the Excel application itself. Particularly the newly prophesied ones (yea the power of PowerPivot compels you,according to that dark preacher Mike Alexander). So go and explore all those mysterious things on the ribbon. You don’t have to master all of them…but it sure does help if you have an inkling of what they all do. Not just the obvious things like Tables and PivotTables, but the more mysterious ones like Slicers, Data Validation, and What-If-Analyis. And also the completely hidden ones like Goto Special. Not only do all those things do things natively that would require many Shekels of VBA code to replicate, but most are completely addressable from VBA to boot. Meaning an Excel Developer can simply say “Excel – do that thing with this data“.
Before you try to bend Excel to your complete command, study it well. No matter how much you want to jump right in tinker with Excel’s very soul, don’t discount what’s effectively printed on the outside of the box. If you do, you’re just another lazy devil writing hellish code.
Feel free to leave your own theological questions and musings in the confessional box below. Unless it’s to say that you don’t like Pokey LaFarge. Keep that to yourself. Because I love ’em. Saw them live in Wellington a couple of weeks back. Definitely worth checking out if they come to a town near you.
25 Responses to “Shift Calendar Template – FREE Download”
Hi Chandoo,
your recent postings include only Excel 2007 templates. Unfortunately the company I work at still runs Excel 2003. Is it possible to get your awesome files in other excel version as well?
Thanks so much for your great excel stuff!
Is it possible to do this for shifts with hours instead of days? To organise a three shift day?
Thanks in advance,
Stelios
In my organization there are 45 employees i need split then into three shifts ex:A shift:14,B shift:14,C shift:14 and week off:3 kindly help me on this.
@Masthan
You need to understand what rules your company has for the various shifts / roster combinations
Chandoo, I once did a shift control spreadsheet for my team. I put one person in each line, the columns were the days. I put a shift code in each cell indicating in which shift that person should work, or if the person were out that day. I have two codes for being out. One is for vacations and one is to compensate days worked in weekends. This way I was able to count how many persons I have in each shift, how many were on vacations and how many were out compensating (that's the term we use here) weekend worked hours.
Later I included the possibility of a person be in two lines one for normal hours other for overtime. This is mainly used for planning purposes. If you would like I can send you an example. The only problem of this spreadsheet is that we don't have a person view, only this consolidated view.
Hi George, I would like to have a copy of your spreadsheet if you can share it.
Thanks in advance, Chuck
Hi Chandoo,
Where is the code located ? is it VBA ? If so , how do you hide it ? Or it is .NET ?
Thx
@Idan
.
No VBA or code, it is all done with Mirrors.
Only Joking,
.
But there is no VBA or code,
It is all done with Named Formulas and Lookups.
Have alook at the cells in the calander area and Named Formulas in the Formulas, Name Manager Tab.
How can i calculate between two or more different workbooks? Please, reply me as early as possible.
@Anand
Open the workbooks you want to link to
Start a formula = and click and change between workbooks as required.
You can use the View, Switch window menu to change workbooks mid formula
The format for using workbooks is
=[Workbook.xlsm]Sheet1!$A$1
or
=SUM('[Book2.xls]Sheet1'!$A$1:$D$10)
etc
Hi Chandoo,
I am working with a call centre wherein i ned to update at the month end 20 to 30 employees login hours which are defict to track it at the month end is very difficult is there any template which can be made to track that why on a particular day a guy who needs to be on calls was why not on calls.
Thank you so much Chandoo. This is really helping me. As usual, you rock.
What's FortyTwoDays and Calendar in Name manager?
Both are unused and FortyTwoDays doesn't make any sense.
I have a SQL db that contains records of events scheduled/completed on a particular date. Can this method ous building a calendar be used to display those events on the respective day?
Positively awesome!
I'm attempting to help a friend create a schedule for adult classes - and of course its not"paid help". Here is the scenario:
20 classes, instructor, room#, student class size, start date, number of class days (need to subtract weekends)
class
instructor
room
students
start
#days
PATH
karen
201
21
01/01/13
11
BILLING
jane
401
15
01/12/13
13
MEDISOFT
mike
301
11
01/25/13
9
he'd like to see these classes show up in different colors within the same month's calendar chart. He can draw it, but I'd like to see it done automatically through data, and I just can't visualize it, but I KNOW this will work - can you help?
Jan 🙂
Dear chandoo,
Try many way to download still can't access. Any way we want to try out 3 shifts with 3 guys in a group .eg Group A Morn, Group B Night and Group C Rest. And every each group must work on sunday to take turns. In fact we are security teams so that's why sunday is required to work. Pls guide and show how to put in the working calendar. Thank you in advance.
I've been trying to copy and/or recreate this to use in a workbook I'm doing for the transportation department I'm working for. I need to have the calendar on the first sheet in my document (it has graph's from data on another sheet). I'm trying to use it to track (with the conditional formatting) accidents and injuries. I've redone the conditional formatting to do 4 different accident types (no injury, near miss, OSHA recordable injury and work loss injury), but when I enter the formula's you have in the calendar portion where it says "DateOfFirst-FirstWeekDay" I can't figure out how you did that. Are you able to help?
I would like to use Excel to solve the following problem for a community work. I want to create a Driver schedule for a given month from a pool of volunteers for a community service. Each of these volunteers can drive only on specific days in a week. I would like to populate the driving schedule for each weekday with primary, secondary and tertiary drivers in a random fashion so that I do not overburden one person. I would greatly any help you can provide.
Hi chandoo,
Thanks for your valuable effort for create this template and let me know how to add multiple employees in the the Roaster.
Hi Chandoo,
This article on shift roaster is very helpful. Could you please let me know how i can use the same for n number of resources who work 24/7, considering their leaves and holidays?
Thanks,
Savitha
Hi Chandoo,
This article on shift roaster is very helpful to all. Could you please let me know how i can use the same if I want to add for some more shifts, since the color is not getting change if I add more shifts like 4,5 etc.,
Thanks,
Murali
nice post
How can I change the date to 2017 under Shift Data worksheet.
solution 1:
mydata=B2:C16
stoplist=E2:E8
=LET(RNG,A2:A16,SMR,C2:C16, F,(RNG=E2)+(RNG=E3)+(RNG=E4)+(RNG=E5)+(RNG=E6)+(RNG=E7)+(RNG=E8),SUM(SMR)-SUM(SMR*F))
=LET(RNG,A2:A16,SMR,C2:C16,RH,N(B2:B16=B2), F,(RNG=E2)+(RNG=E3)+(RNG=E4)+(RNG=E5)+(RNG=E6)+(RNG=E7)+(RNG=E8),TOT,SUM(SMR)-SUM(SMR*RH*F),SUM(SMR*RH)-SUM(SMR* RH*F))
ALTERNATE SOLUTION
=SUM(C2:C16)-SUM(FILTER(C2:C16,ISNUMBER(BYROW(A2:A16,LAMBDA(a,TOROW(SEARCH(a,E2:E8),2))))))
=SUM((B2:B16=B2)*(C2:C16))-SUM((ISNUMBER(BYROW(A2:A16,LAMBDA(a,TOROW(SEARCH(a,E2:E8),2))))*(B2:B16=B2)*(C2:C16)))
let
Source = Excel.CurrentWorkbook(){[Name="Table1"]}[Content],
#"Replaced Value" = Table.ReplaceValue(Source,null,";",Replacer.ReplaceValue,{"Column1"}),
#"Transposed Table" = Table.Transpose(#"Replaced Value"),
#"Removed Other Columns" = Table.SelectColumns(#"Transposed Table",{"Column1", "Column2", "Column3", "Column4", "Column5", "Column6", "Column7", "Column8", "Column9", "Column10", "Column11", "Column12", "Column13", "Column14", "Column15", "Column16", "Column17", "Column18", "Column19", "Column20", "Column21", "Column22", "Column23", "Column24", "Column25", "Column26", "Column27", "Column28", "Column29", "Column30", "Column31", "Column32", "Column33", "Column34", "Column35", "Column36", "Column37", "Column38", "Column39", "Column40", "Column41", "Column42", "Column43", "Column44", "Column45", "Column46", "Column47", "Column48", "Column49", "Column50", "Column51", "Column52", "Column53", "Column54", "Column55", "Column56", "Column57", "Column58", "Column59", "Column60", "Column61", "Column62", "Column63", "Column64", "Column65", "Column66", "Column67", "Column68", "Column69", "Column70", "Column71", "Column72", "Column73", "Column74", "Column75", "Column76", "Column77", "Column78", "Column79", "Column80", "Column81", "Column82", "Column83", "Column84", "Column85", "Column86", "Column87"}),
#"Merged Columns" = Table.CombineColumns(#"Removed Other Columns",{"Column1", "Column2", "Column3", "Column4", "Column5", "Column6", "Column7", "Column8", "Column9", "Column10", "Column11", "Column12", "Column13", "Column14", "Column15", "Column16", "Column17", "Column18", "Column19", "Column20", "Column21", "Column22", "Column23", "Column24", "Column25", "Column26", "Column27", "Column28", "Column29", "Column30", "Column31", "Column32", "Column33", "Column34", "Column35", "Column36", "Column37", "Column38", "Column39", "Column40", "Column41", "Column42", "Column43", "Column44", "Column45", "Column46", "Column47", "Column48", "Column49", "Column50", "Column51", "Column52", "Column53", "Column54", "Column55", "Column56", "Column57", "Column58", "Column59", "Column60", "Column61", "Column62", "Column63", "Column64", "Column65", "Column66", "Column67", "Column68", "Column69", "Column70", "Column71", "Column72", "Column73", "Column74", "Column75", "Column76", "Column77", "Column78", "Column79", "Column80", "Column81", "Column82", "Column83", "Column84", "Column85", "Column86", "Column87"},Combiner.CombineTextByDelimiter("|", QuoteStyle.None),"Merged"),
#"Split Column by Delimiter" = Table.ExpandListColumn(Table.TransformColumns(#"Merged Columns", {{"Merged", Splitter.SplitTextByDelimiter(";", QuoteStyle.Csv), let itemType = (type nullable text) meta [Serialized.Text = true] in type {itemType}}}), "Merged"),
#"Added Prefix" = Table.TransformColumns(#"Split Column by Delimiter", {{"Merged", each "|" & _, type text}}),
#"Replaced Value1" = Table.ReplaceValue(#"Added Prefix","||","|",Replacer.ReplaceText,{"Merged"}),
#"Split Column by Delimiter1" = Table.SplitColumn(#"Replaced Value1", "Merged", Splitter.SplitTextByDelimiter("|", QuoteStyle.Csv), {"Merged.1", "Merged.2", "Merged.3", "Merged.4", "Merged.5", "Merged.6", "Merged.7", "Merged.8"}),
#"Removed Columns" = Table.RemoveColumns(#"Split Column by Delimiter1",{"Merged.1"}),
#"Removed Duplicates" = Table.Distinct(#"Removed Columns")
in
#"Removed Duplicates"