Here is a quick formula trick you can use to generate sequence numbers that only increment when there is a change.
Assuming the sequence of values are in column C from C3,

you can write the following formula in B4 onwards (B3 will be 1, wake up…)
=IF(C4=C3,B3,B3+1)
Now just copy paste the formula over the entire range [...]

In today’s installment of project management using excel, we will learn about project tracking tool - to-do lists. Projects are nothing but a group of people getting together and achieving an objective – like building system or constructing a bridge. While it is important to have a overall project plan and vision, it is equally important to understand how various day to day project activities are going on. This is where to do lists can help you a lot. Read on…

In this edition of Excel Links, we feature a new excel blog on the blog, named bacon bits. We also share links about interesting articles like generating tinyurls using vba, making maps using xy charts, designing filters for your dashboards and more.

This is a 6 part tutorial on project management using microsoft excel. These posts represent few of the things related to project management using excel that I have learned over the years. The first installment deals with Preparing & tracking a project plan using Gantt Charts in MS Excel.

The other parts I am planning are, Day to day operations – using to do lists, Preparing a project time line, Time sheets and Resource management, Tracking issues and risks, Project Status Reporting – Dashboard.

Read the first part of the article to learn how to make excel gantt charts / project plans.

Most of us think of mastering formulas, learning macros and being supergood with charts when we think of being productive with spreadsheets. But often learning simple stuff like keyboard shortcuts, using mouse and working with menus and ribbons can be a huge productivity booster for us. So as part of this installment of spreadcheats we [...]

Dot plots are a very popular and effective charts. According to wikipedia “Dot plots are one of the simplest plots available, and are suitable for small to moderate sized data sets. They are useful for highlighting clusters and gaps, as well as outliers.”

Today we will learn about creating in-cell dot plots using excel. We will see how we can create a dot plot using 3 data series of some fictitious data.

We all know that networkdays() an extremely powerful and simple excel formula can help you calculate no. of working days between 2 given dates.

But there is one problem with it. It assumes 5 day workweek starting with Monday to Friday. Not all countries have workweek from Monday to Friday.

This got me thinking and I ended up writing a user defined formula (UDF) to calculate working days between 2 given dates with any criteria. This will be good for calculating payrolls for temporary workers, offshore partners and of course people working countries where Saturday or Sunday or not usually holidays.