Howdy folks. Almost the end of August here. Let’s wrap it up with a nice little partial text match in Excel challenge, inspired from my recent consulting gig. Say you are looking at few job titles that look similar and want to match them to correct title. Like below:
The assumptions are,
- Extra words or characters will be always at end
- The job list may not be in alphabetical order
How would you match? Obviously VLOOKUP won’t cut it. I know over the week Microsoft released XLOOKUP to the beta testers out in wild, but that probably won’t cut it either. So what next? How would you solve this problem?
Well, that is your homework.
To participate, simply download job title matching problem worksheet and use either formulas, Power Query or VBA to match the jobs. Post your solution formulas, M scripts, macros or haiku in the comments.
Can’t solve or won’t bother? Here is the solution…
Oh well, I guess your job titles are far cleaner than what I am used to. If you are just impatient, the download problem file has hidden worksheet with formula solution and Power Query connection.
I made a video explaining the partial text match Excel problem, my solutions (both formula and PQ). Check it out below or on my YouTube Channel.
Bored at work or home, need a challenge? Solve these Excel problems…
Solving hard problems is a good way to learn new things. So if you are up for a challenge, check out below Homework problems.
- How many calls we got out outside office hours?
- How many people used up their sick leave allotment?
- When is next Monday?
- Find-out if a number has repetitive digits?
- More Excel Homework problems, challenges & Easter Egg hunts
Good luck and don’t forget to post your answers in comments.
13 Responses to “Convert fractional Excel time to hours & minutes [Quick tip]”
Hi Purna..
Again a great tip.. Its a great way to convert Fractional Time..
By the way.. Excel has two great and rarely used formula..
=DOLLARFR(7.8,60) and =DOLLARDE(7.48,60)
basically US Account person uses those to convert some currency denomination.. and we can use it to convert Year(i.e 3.11 Year = 3 year 11 month) and Week(6.5 week = 6 week 5 days), in the same manner...
This doesn't work for me. When applying the custom format of [h]:mm to 7.8 I get 187:12
Any ideas why?
@Jason
7.8 in Excel talk means 7.8 days
=7.8*24
=187.2 Hrs
=187 Hrs 12 Mins
If you follow Chandoo's instructions you will see that he divides the 7.8 by 24 to get it to a fraction of a day
Simple, assuming the fractional time is in cell A1,
Use below steps to convert it to hours & minutes:
1. In the target cell, write =A1/24
2. Select the target cell and press CTRL+1 to format it (you can also right click and select format cells)
3. Select Custom from “Number” tab and enter the code [h]:mm
4. Done!
Hi, sorry to point this out but Column C Header is misspelt 'Hours Palyed'
good one
So how do I go the other way and get hours and minutes to fractional time?
If you have 7.5 in cell A1,
- Use int(A1) to get the hours.
- Use mod(A1,1)*60 to get minutes.
If you have 7:30 (formatted as time) in A1
- Use hours(a1) to get hours
- Use minutes(a1) to get minutes.
I had the same issue. You can solve it by changing the format as described above:
Right click cell > Format Cells > (In Number tab) > Custom > Then enter the code [h]:mm
([hh]:mm and [hhh]:mm are nice too if you want to show leading zeros)
Thanks guys, these are the tips I'm looking for.
...dividing the number of minutes elapsed by the percent change is my task - "int" is the key this time
It doesnt work for greater than 24 hours
It returns 1:30 for 25.5 hours. It should have returned 25:30
Ideally I would right function as
=QUOTIENT(A1,1)&":"&MOD(A1,1)*60
Sorry, replied to wrong comment....
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I had the same issue. You can solve it by changing the format as described above:
Right click cell > Format Cells > (In Number tab) > Custom > Then enter the code [h]:mm
([hh]:mm and [hhh]:mm are nice too if you want to show leading zeros)
Clever use of MOD here to extract the decimal part of a number. Divide a number containing a decimal by 1 and return the remainder. Humm. Very clever.
Thanks very much, extremely useful !