Author Archive

Line charts in Excel are essential for trend analysis, spotting distribution and outliers. Use these 6 variations to get more out your line chart.

• Indexed Line Chart
• Sparklines
• Spaghetti Line Chart
• Smoothed Line Chart
• Forecast Line Chart
• Line Chart Combinations

Ever wanted to create a two-level data validation list? You can use this simple trick to make two-level or cascading drop-down validation lists in Excel. You need some data, a pivot table and simple IF formulas to get this. Read on to understand the process and create your own two-level drop down lists in Excel.

Got some data in a calendar format and just wished you can get it in tabular format?

You can use Excel formulas or Power Query to do this. In this article, let’s review formula based approach with two excellent choices.

Power Query (Get & Transform data in Excel) is a true game changer ?. It can simplify and automate various data activities. In this in-depth blog tutorial, learn all about this powerful time-saving technology. You will learn:

* What is Power Query and how to launch it from Excel or Power BI?
* How to connect and load data from any type of sources – excel files, CSVs, text files, web pages, PDF, folders etc.
* How to perform common data cleansing activities with Power Query
* Adding columns using rules
* Automating data collection, clean-up and publishing processes with Power Query
* Web scraping with Power Query
* SQL style Joins, merges, appends and unions with Power Query
* Consolidating data in a folder
* Data load, save & publish process
* Tips & tricks on using Power Query efficiently

Create a gantt chart with ability to filter by levels. This drill-down gantt chart in Excel is useful for seeing activities by module or team. Read on for full instructions + downloadable template.

Hello friends,

It’s here. Power BI Play Date – our online training program is now ready for your consideration. Please take a few minutes to read this to know all about the program. If you are ready to join, click here.

Check out below slideshow to see some of the reports you can create in our course. It is #AWESOME.

A stream graph or stream plot is an area chart that looks like a stream. In this post, let me show you how to create an interactive stream graph using Excel area charts. The original design for this graph is inspired from Cedric Scherer.

Pivot tables are powerful. Use these 6 tricks to save time when working with them. New to Pivot Tables? Check out this intro Are you new to Pivot Tables or just used them a few times? Then check out this excellent getting started with Pivot Tables guide. 1 – Double click to see details Ever […]

Hello folks. 50% of 2020 is behind us. Let me share a few updates with you all. First check out this awesome double rainbow outside our house on 30th June. MVP I am thrilled and humbled to tell you that I have been re-awarded Microsoft MVP for 2020 year. This is my 12th year in […]

Are you in IT & use Excel often? This article explains top 10 formulas for IT professionals. Useful for project managers, IT analysts, Testing people and BAs.

We cover a 10 practical situations and explore various Excel formulas to solve them. Example workbook provides more details too.

I have a fun Excel lookup challenge for you. You have data as shown below and want to find the last non blank value for a given account number. For example, for acct number 2015, the answer would be Freedom. How would you solve this? Refer to this workbook for 3 possible answers. Just move […]

Use TEXTJOIN function to combine text values with optional delimiter. It is better than CONCATENATE because you can pass a range instead of individual cells and you can ignore empty cells too. Here is a sample use of TEXTJOIN Excel function.

Power BI is great for visualizing and interacting with your data. In this article, let me share a technique for creating variance chart in Power BI. Variance charts are perfect for visualizing performance by comparing Plan vs. Actual or Budget vs. Actual data.

Ok, I will be honest. I have no idea what to call it. May be Chart Cover Flow? But Interactive Chart Slider Thingy sounds so better. So let’s go with it.

Learn how to create this magical contraption in Excel.

This week, I am running a contest on YouTube. One of the criteria for picking winners is that they must comment on my video. So far, I got more than 200 comments. To make my job easier, I want to export the video comments to an Excel file. Turns out this is easily done once you have a Google developer API key. In this article, let me explain the process for extracting Youtube video comments to Excel table.