Over the years, we have discussed a whole heap of techniques to visualize budget vs. actual charts. Today let’s take a ride on this slope again and learn another fun, silly & awesome way to depict target vs. actual progress.
Introducing biker on a hill chart
Tada!!!
Biker on a hill!?! Don’t worry, I didn’t fall down on a descent and lose my brain. I am talking about an Excel chart to visualize target vs. actual progress on a time line with biker on a hill analogy. See the chart, you will know:
Looks interesting? Read on to learn how to create this in Excel.
Get your data
The biker on a hill chart is suitable when you have a huge target that should be achieved in several days, each with individual target. So input data looks like this:
Let’s say this data is in a table named progress. As you can guess, first three columns are inputs. Last column is calculated with a simple SUM formula to get cumulative target values. The formula used here is
=SUM(E3,[@Target])
Where E3 refers to the cell above first row.
Calculate hill and biker co-ords
The hill is a simple X-Y chart with progress[Date] as X and progress[Target-Cumulative] as Y.
The tricky part is finding biker co-ordinates. We need 2 sets of values.
- Actual biker position based on the amount of work completed.
- Target biker position based on the amount of work that should have been completed.
Let’s understand the math behind this.
Actual biker position:
Y value (actual completed): This is simply SUM(progress[Completed])
X value (corresponding date): Now this is tricky. We need to find what date corresponds to the actual progress made based on the set targets. for this we need to find several things:
- Corresponding row #: Using MATCH(), we find out what value in the cumulative target column matches the progress completed so far.
- We will then find two dates between which the progress completed falls between, using MATCH formulas.
- Finally, we will interpolate the corresponding date between these two dates using simple arithmetic.
Target biker position:
Y value (target): Target as of latest date, using either VLOOKUP or INDEX+MATCH
X value (date): this is simply date in corresponding row # that is calculated above.
Create the biker on hill chart
Step 1: Create an XY chart for the hill
Setup an XY chart where X=progress[Date] and Y=progress[Target-Cumulative]. We get this.
Step 2: Add target & actual bikers
Add two more series to the chart. Target biker and actual biker using the X&Y values calculated above. We get this.
Step 3: Replace the dots with biker images
This is easy. Download a clip art image of cyclist from internet. Paste it on your Excel workbook. Remove any background. Rotate the biker image by 30° or so. As this is not a real life biker on hill, we can afford 30° gradients.
Once you have new rotated biker, reduce the image size if necessary and clone it.
Change colors using format image > Color options (see here for detail).
Essentially, go from the image on left to right.
Now that you have biker images, replace the dots with bikers using following instructions.
- Select biker image and copy (Ctrl+C)
- Click on the dot in your chart
- Press Ctrl+V to paste image
- Viola, your chart now shows bikers instead of dots for actual and target values.
At this stage our chart looks like this.
Step 4: Move the bikers up
Because Excel places the dot right on the line, the biker image too will be centered on it. So instead of looking a biker on hill, our chart looks like the biker is buried half in the hill. Not good, whether you are a fictional or real biker. So let’s pull the bikers.
We can do this by simply adding an offset value to the Y values. A value of 7 should work. But you can tweak this depending on your chart / image sizes.
Once we fix the calculations, our chart looks like this.
Extra bells and lights
Bikers are known to pimp their rides with all sorts of doodads. We can show similar enthusiasm for our biker on a hill chart and add few more details. Here is one version after adding information about current progress status and forecast date of completion.
The math for this is quite boring and simple. So I leave it to your imagination.
Download Biker on a hill – Target vs. Actual Chart Template
Click here to download biker on hill chart. Play with input data to move the biker towards target. Examine calculation section or chart to learn more.
Thanks GraH for the inspiration
Time for a confession. The biker on a hill chart idea isn’t mine. I got this from GraH, one of our readers. He left a comment on a recent blog post and I liked the idea. So I wrote this blog post explaining how we can all create a biker on hill chart in Excel.
Hui rules! But nevertheless, the creativity on this blog and the contribution of the bloggers are inspiring. And really enabling people to be aweSUM in XL, like you say.
I followed a training on Excel Dashboards in 2015 and your site was highly recommended by our cool trainer.
I became aware that XL can-do much more. Ingredients are a little imagination, dare to experiment and knowledge on how to combine techniques/functions.
In short within 2 weeks I will give a 1 hour XL awareness training in my company during open training week. I just sent a teaser with stuff I found here and on other XL-guru’s sites to my HR department. Within the next 5 minutes my proposition was approved. The reply was “Excellent idea!”
And the funny thing is that I found an XL soul-mate only a few seats away. Now we make each other crazy with challenges and/or things we learn about XL. The very first thing we made for a manager was a biker (representing his team) climbing a mounting (of work) towards the finish (the volume to reach at end of day). Depending on current status, different motivational talk appears in the title. The manager could not believe we just made a simple chart.
So thanks GraH for the cool idea.
How do you visualize target vs. actual progress?
I prefer conditional formatting icons and thermometer charts for budget / target vs. actual progress charts. Sometimes I use a bullet chart or variations of thermometer charts too. I have also used burndown charts (same concept as biker on hill charts). I like the biker on hill chart and may use it for some of my upcoming work.
What about you? What charts do you use to depict target vs. actual progress? How do you like biker on hill chart? Please share your thoughts and suggestions in the comments section.
55 Responses to “Quickly Fill Blank Cells in a Table [Reader Tip]”
this can be done in 3 steps:
1. select the blank cells (as described above)
2. select the cell with the value you want to copy (CTRL-CLICK to add to the selection)
3. place cursor into formula bar and hit CTRL-ENTER
please ignore or delete my comment - it solves a different problem: copying a single value to all blank cells. apologies.
That is a great method and it saves me a lot of time! I first heard about it from Mr Excel in this video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHmh_viESuw. He has a neat way of doing the paste special values at the end of his video.
Hi!
I fill blank cells with an almost identical method; go to any the first blank cell in any column and place the equation and enter (=D2, for the same example above); then copy that cell, select the columns/range you want to fill (even if in different columns), Special, go to Blanks, Paste (default), copy all range and paste as values.
although the two methods are almost identical, what i use might be less hectic regarding entering formulas without clicking any of the cells (step 7)
ie:
1. fill an empty cell with using =D2(cell above)
2. copy D3 (the cell with the formula)
2. Select blank cells after selecting the range with empty cells (steps 1,2,3,4 and 5)
3. paste (normal)
4. copy then paste as values
BR
AQ
Great tip. I'll use it later today!
Martin -Thank You! This wonderful tip will save me a great deal of time each week.
Thanks Martin! Up to this point, I've always used a clumsy combination of filters and fill-down's. This is much cleaner.
Fantastic. Thanks for sharing.
None of these steps are necessary, Excel has this feature built into the ribbon.
Click on any row label in the table where there are blanks under it.
Click on the PivotTable Tools>Design tab on the ribbon
Click the Report Layout button in the Layout group at the far left
Select the option in the list
Done
To remove the duplication, use the feature right below that option.
There is a slightly simpler way and more flexible. Hihglight the required cells - which could be the column only in your table. Do the Ctrl-G, Alt-S, K, Enter (or Goto, Special, Blank Cells) so that they are highlighted and Type ={up arrow}, Ctl-Enter. This will make the cells equal the cell above - you do not have to enter any address at all. The technique can obviously be adapted to many situations. An example of the practical use for this is when you have saved an Inventory report from an accounting program that prints a heading (or something) on one line and prints details of that group (the heading) on subsequent lines (without the heading).
Hi Martin,
great trick! If only I had known it earlier, it would have saved me quite some time...
Not again, thanks!
I came across this in a class recently myself and posted a tutorial on my blog. The Special area of the Go To dialogue box is wicked. Some great options in there, hidden away waiting to be found.
Good work Martin.
Hi Martin,
Many thanks for sharing this powerful trick. Saves alot of time.
Gabriel
Please give credit where credit is due. Posted on June 30, 1998: http://www.mvps.org/dmcritchie/excel/fillempt.htm
Ahhh... Very neat trick. Thank you, Martin.
Ken, I tried to follow your post but could not get it to work. Could not find options
I have been using this trick for ages and would be lost without it.
Thank you very much!!! I had other tricks to deal with it, but this one is way faster and easier!!!
@BigG: Good resource there. Thanks for sharing the link with us. Please note that, this technique is not new. I am sure many Excel users would have discovered this already. We have not copied or inspired from David's article. It was just a happy coincidence.
@Ken: Your technique works only with Pivot Tables made in Excel 2010 or above.
Thanks Martin!! Nice post 🙂
@Chandoo: I also use the ASAP utilities add- in available in the link below:
http://www.asap-utilities.com/download-asap-utilities.php
This summarizes lot of hidden features in excel (like using Find function on entire workbook, password protecting all sheets at once, copying print setting of sheets etc.,) and is quite useful for beginners like me 😉
Thanks Martin and Ahmad Qadah. This is useful. I previously used to ask the senders to retrieve the data again so that I did not have the blanks.
Nice trick. I always use the specialcells method of the range object in code to access this powerful goto special dialog box in vba - a trick that Chandoo taught me in vba school - which is another reason you should join (a free bit of promotion for you Chandoo..!)
🙂
Yes I have seen this one before so credit may belong elsewhere. Never the less still especially useful where a legacy system report is sent to a text file which is subsequently re-imported to Excel but the original report is indented by groups. You can then recreate a complete data record for each report line
NB Different Ken to above
Thanks Martin - great post. I often work with data in this form and I usually fill in the blanks manually, by copying and dragging a cell value down - this way is much less prone to human error!
One challenge.. the last step where I change formula to constants. This replaces any formulas that I have as well. What If I want to change the formula to constants only where I replaced them with blank ?
Hi martin, thanks a million 🙂
Nicely explained Martin, thanks for sharing this tip. As Tanja says, this method is far less error-prone. When I first learned this method it saved me lots of time, so I decided to create a video on Youtube to share it with others. In my 3 minute video I compare side-by-side two methods of filling in blanks on 500 rows of data (1) using the fill handle, (2) using Go To > Special > Select Blanks
Just like in Mr Excel's video shared by Andrew in comment (3), I used the right mouse button to drag the selection border to do paste special values at the last step.
If you want to check out my video, visit this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TDcVOKbm34&hd=1
I've came across this a month ago, and it really is a gem of a tip!
Thanks. Great tip and useful for a range of excel projects 🙂
Vishy,
When you Ctrl Enter the formula into all blank cells, Excel keeps the formerly blank cells highlighted, revealing the new values.
At this point you can choose to Copy and Paste Special them as constants. All other formulas remain untouched.
BigG,
I was not familiar with that link and I certainly didn't copy the article from it. As Chandoo commented this is not a new technique, and I am hardly the first to have written about it.
@Martin,
using office 2007; you can not copy multiple selection, what version are you using?
Thanks
Thanks, Really nice, really helpful.
wow, how cool is that! Thank you for this tipp!! GREAT!
I thought this was a great tip. I had never done such things with tables in Excel (having only converted to 2007 a couple of months ago, I soon discovered what a versatile tool they can be). So I decided to create my own copy and duplicate the process. Taking it a step further, I recorded the steps in VBA and used those as a guideline to create this simple macro which accomplishes the same function.
Caveat: this will only work when a cell in the table is selected and it will replace ALL formulas in the table with their values.
Sub FillTableBlanks()
' Macro created 20 October 2011 by Jason B White
'Declare Variable
Dim strTable As String
'Get Current Table Name
strTable = ActiveCell.ListObject.Name
'Select Current Table
Range(strTable).Select
'Fill Blank Cells With Formulas
Selection.SpecialCells(xlCellTypeBlanks).FormulaR1C1 = "=R[-1]C"
'Paste Values Of Formulas
Selection = Selection.Value
End Sub
I hope that submitting macros is sanctioned in this forum. My previous post was my first ever attempt at contributing to an Excel blog. And I'm unaware if there is a way to differentiate macro snippets by using tags as I've seen in other Excel VBA forums.
I just wanted to mention that I figured out a way to modify my macro so that it doesn't overwrite ALL formulas in the table, but only those which were filled in by the macro.
Modifying the fourth section (Fill Blank Cells With Formulas) as shown below accomplishes that:
'Fill Blank Cells With Formulas
Selection.SpecialCells(xlCellTypeBlanks).Select
Selection.FormulaR1C1 = "=R[-1]C"
Hi,
I face a similar situation in office and use the below macro after selecting the range of data across which I want to duplicate the data below.
Sub FillBlankCellsSelectionDown()
Dim rAcells As Range, rLoopCells As Range
Set rAcells = Selection
For Each rLoopCells In rAcells
If rLoopCells.Value = "" Then
rLoopCells.FillDown
End If
Next rLoopCells
End Sub
re: paste special -> values
Drag the Paste Values toolbutton on to the standard toolbar next to the Paste button and save a couple of clicks.
Hi everyone many thanks for sharing this solutions but do not work Excel 2003? right? Thanks
@Alejandra:
I know that the macro I created was in Excel 2007. I assume that it's probably specific to 2007 (or 2010), but can't be sure, as I no longer have access to a PC running Excel 2003.
I have to admit that I didn't even realize that tables existed when I was using 2003.
Filling blank cells (cleaning-up the pivot-table aftermath) is one of our "daily-ritual", to dealing with those, we've create a short-cut (one of the many) to very quickly fill-up those blanks.
Basically what we need to do is to select the whole area to be filled-up (with the value above), and click a button, VBA automatically deals with the rest.
We use VBA to handle this problem just as mentioned above by several other people, however, I think we'll also need to consider the extreme (well, actually not that extreme if you're dealing with lots of data on a day-to-day basis) case: that the "blank" cells are highly fragmented, e.g. the maximum "areas" that Excel 2003 can handle is around 6500 (sorry I couldn't find the exact spec).
Thus, in our function, there's another step to cut-off the number of cells going into the "specialcells" function, just to make sure that the function will run in every condition.
I just wanna give a solution to similar problem which i face regularly while copying the data from a pivot as it is. I apply the following solution which i think is the easiest one on earth. Select a cell F2 (considering that column E is the last column filled with data) and type the following formula =IF(ISBLANK(A2),F1,A2). Now just drag the formula equivalent to the length and breadth of the entire range of data which want to fill in this case drag it from F2:I21 , remember do not apply on the cost column.
Now just copy whole new range i.e: F2:I21 and paste special it over the former range A2:D21. That's it 🙂
If u find any problem related to this formula u r welcome to contact me.
thanks martin
This doesn't work in excel 2007. So request to Martin , if he can confirm which version he has used. Guess 2010.
@BK
my method (comment #4) which is almost the same as Martins works on excel 2007... i've been using it since 2007 came out actually.
Excelent trick, thanks Martin.
[...] Quickly Fill Blank Cells in a Table [...]
eXCEEELLTOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO......!
Many thanks to Martin.
im getting an error no cells were found why is this
Very cool trick!
I'm facing a similar problem, but I'd like to use a formula to pick the first non-empty above the referenced cell, and keep the empty cells empty. Any solution?
Example case:
I've got 3 columns, 1) consecutive dates, 2) my current weight, 3) my BMI. The first data row would be like: A2) jan-1, B2) 70 (kg), C2) =70/1,75^2 (because my height, 175cm, is pretty constant)
Now of course I forget to write down my weight on jan-2nd, so the formula would return 0. If my weight is blank, I'd like to refer to the last 'non-blank' weight (up the list of course, so jan-1st).
The solution on this page would solve my problem partially, but every time I leave cells blank, I have to repeat these steps. A formula would prevent this, AND I can still see which days were actually not filled in.
[…] http://chandoo.org/wp/2011/10/17/fill-blank-cells-in-a-table/ […]
Thxs! Yes, "knew" you could do this with "one" col of data...never thought to try it with >>multiple<< cols...Cool!
Thanks a lot i was searching this thing for many days ,
Thanks a lot to martin
Thanks a lot to martin
Thanks a lot i was searching this thing for many days ,
Thanks a lot to martin
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