Ever wanted to get a set of dates, but don’t want to manually type? Here are three ways to insert dates in Excel automatically.
Option1: Enter a start date and Drag down
This is the easiest option if you just want a handful of dates. Just type in your starting date in a cell. Click in the bottom right corner of cell and drag down to get the next consecutive dates automatically.
Here is a quick demo of how to do this:
Insert just weekdays only
While dragging the dates, you can ask Excel to just insert weekdays only. This is helpful for creating dates for a project tracker or planner or other kinds of spreadsheets. To do this, after dragging your dates, click on the “options” button that appears at the bottom and select “Fill Weekdays Only” option.
See this demo:
Fill Dates in Months
You can also fill dates by Months. For this, just type the first date, drag down and use the “options” button to select “Fill Months” option. See this demo:
Automatic PayDays (or any other dates really!)
We can use the “dragging” mechanism to fill any kind of arbitrary dates too. Say, you want to see all the Pay Days in 2025. Type in the very first Pay Day (first Wednesday of the calendar year for example) and then, in the cell underneath, write the formula =cellabove+14 (replace cellabove with the actual address of the cell). Then drag this new cell down as far as you want.
See this quick demo:
Option 2: Using the “Fill Series” Secret Menu
Excel also offers a fairly powerful and easy way to fill dates if you want to get a large series of dates for a work project or spreadsheet. This is called “Fill Series” menu. This menu is hidden (buried really) but super helpful. Here is the step by step process:
- Type the very first date of your series of dates in a cell.
- Select a range big enough for all your dates. Tip: If you have a large series of dates to fill, just select all the cells in the column until end.
- Press the keyboard shortcut sequence
ALT H FI Sor Go to File Ribbon > Fill > Fill Series button - Select “Date” and specify the “date unit” from the choices – Day, Weekday, Month or Year.
- Enter the “step value” and “stop value” (tip: Use Step Value of 7 to get days filled by week, 14 for fortnight)
- Click “OK” to see the magic. The dates are filled by Excel automatically.
See this quick GIF to understand the whole process.
Related: Learn about fill-series option in Excel
Option 3: Using SEQUENCE Formula
This one is for hardcore Excel fans and people who love to automate things. We can use the “new” SEQUENCE function of Excel to auto generate dates from any starting point until any end point. The formula is really easy to use and offers a ton of flexibility when it comes to building date trackers, project sheets or even financial models.
Let me share two simple yet powerful examples:
SEQUENCE Dates Example 1: All Dates in Year 2025
To generate all the dates in Year 2025, go to an empty cell and type the below formula.
= SEQUENCE(365,, DATE(2025,1,1))
Syntax of SEQUENCE to get dates automatically=SEQUENCE(number of days,,starting date, optional step value)
Tip: Use the step value of 14 to generate dates by fortnight.
Working Days only – SEQUENCE Example 2
Let’s say for an upcoming project you want to list all the working days only. But you don’t know when the project starts. So you want to keep the “starting date” flexible and generate next “n” working days.
Imagine the start date of the project in cell C4 and number of working days in C5.
We can use below SEQUENCE function to get all the working days in the project.
=WORKDAY.INTL(C4,SEQUENCE(C5))
Bonus Tip: How to Set “Custom” Weekend Types
We can use WORKDAY.INTL function to tell Excel when your weekend is. For example if your weekend is “Friday & Saturday”, you can use below syntax:=WORKDAY.INTL(C4,SEQUENCE(C5),7)
Here 7 stands for Friday & Saturday weekend.
Why I love SEQUENCE() approach
Of the 3 techniques outlined here, SEQUENCE() based approach is my favorite.
- Flexible: Many real-world scenarios where I need dates are dynamic. The starting date, end date, step value and what I need (days / weekdays / weeks / months) all change. Using SEQUENCE() I can create a robust yet flexible auto listing of dates for my workbooks.
- Can be linked to other formulas: As SEQUENCE generates a dynamic spill range, I can use # to access the range and build other scalable and flexible formulas. For example, if I want to calculate depreciation schedules for next “n” months, I can do so easily. When “n” changes, I don’t need to adjust anything as both my dates (from SEQUENCE) and depreciation calculations auto adjust.
- Fewer errors: Spillable formulas like SEQUENCE mean, there is only one formula that produce all the results. This avoids crazy errors like inconsistent formulas or hard-coded values.
- Faster: Dynamic formulas like SEQUENCE() are really fast and scale well even when I need to list dates for next century!
Related: Learn how to use SEQUENCE and other Dynamic Functions in Excel
Take Caution when using SEQUENCE()
- SEQUENCE function doesn’t format the dates. So you must format the cells after (or beforehand) to see the correct date format. Else Excel will list the dates as 45658, 45659 for 1-Jan-2025, 2-Jan-2025 etc.
- SPILL Errors: As SEQUENCE will dynamically fill the cells if your spreadsheet doesn’t have enough space for the SEQUENCE() to fill all dates, it will throw SPILL error.
- Can’t be used in Excel Tables: SEQUENCE and other dynamic functions don’t work inside Excel tables. Read this page for more information and possible fixes.
- Need Excel 365 or Excel on Web: To use SEQUENCE function, you need Excel 365 or Excel on the Web as this is a new functionality and not supported in older versions of Excel.
Working with Dates in Excel – More Tips & Tricks
Dates are integral part of any spreadsheet and data analysis scenario. Please refer to below pages and resources to learn more about important Date functions and tricks.
- Working With Date & Time values in Excel – A quick primer
- Date Calculation Tips (future / past dates and times made easy)
- Using Power Query to auto-generate Dates
- Free 2025 Calendar & Planner Template (uses SEQUENCE)
- Calculate difference between two dates
- Highlight Due Dates in Excel automatically
- 3 Powerful & Essential Date functions in Excel
28 Responses to “FIFA Worldcup 2018 Excel Tracker – FREE Download”
Good work as always - I liked the way you did the "menu" on the left hand side (although the buttons aren't lined up between tabs if I'm being ultra picky)
Have you previously written about the method of extracting the Wikipedia page into Power Query? It's not something I recall seeing before.
ps other geeky observsations:
- the bracket columns are too narrow for the date & match number - and will need to be wider still when the team names get populated
- match 51 should be Moscow (Luzhniki) for consistency
- it's not possible to be 23 hours ahead of GMT - the International Dateline gets in the way! I think the maximum is 14. There are also a couple of countries who work to a quarter hour to make it really complicated!
- There's a typo in the how-to - "compated" instead of compared
Thanks for the lovely feedback. I have fixed almost all of them.
1) button alignment: this is tricky as row heights can change between sheets.
2) Column width is fixed now so bracket view looks better
3) Updated the stadium name
4) Did not bother with the 23 hours ahead thingie. This is more of a novelty feature 😛
5) Fixed the type
6) Fixed an issue with live score table. This should work as long as the points table is maintained in wikipedia page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_FIFA_World_Cup
7) I have not discussed the technique of reading all tables on webpage to one big table. Watch out for a blog post on this soon.
Button alignment is one for the ultra-OCD sufferers 😉 There are ways, but only for those with too much time on their hands.
Aah, Excel. The perfect tool for people like us. Everything (cells) is in same shape and size by default and aligned perfectly. 😀
Is there actually a way to copy row heights (in the same way you copy column widths?)
By the way Chandoo, great post. I'm forwarding to my department. I actually use another query from the same page to automatically fill in the team names for the knock-out stages (I made one for round of 16 which I then duplicated and edited for quarter-finals etc.) This is incredible, I was always wondering how to do these type of queries from the web, and now I know 🙂
Hello!
This is quite amazing and incredibly cool to use 🙂
Testing the constraints of this sheets a few errors popped I noticed:
- Vlookup Group E-H refers to column J instead of E (eg. Brazil gets the same points as Russia because the formula looks up Russia twice)
- Power query only has 29 lines, the overview of has 32 but the 3 countries from group A are lost as the overview is refreshed - causing N/A in the group stage colums
@Jake.. thank you. I am sorry for the errors. I could not test the live points table until the games began. I see my folly now. I have fixed both issues and uploaded a new file. As the points table relies on a wikipedia page, if someone decides to change the layout or rename a column it can seriously harm this template. I took some precautions in the Power Query layer to adjust column names dynamically etc, but it is not foolproof.
Try downloading the newer version and let me know if you see something funny.
No worries!
Was able to fix the vlookup myself but the power query had me bit stumped 🙂 And wanted to give you a heads-up to everyone can enjoy it!
Thanks for the awesome sheet!
Hi,
Thanks for sharing this world cup tracker. Certainly makes it more interesting when the data is current. As a newbie, it also helps to have a couple of mistakes to find whether unintentional or not.
Thanks again
Hi,
Your v-lookups in the "Group Stage" tab for groups E, F, G, and H (all the ones under column O) are pointing to the wrong country. They all point to column J, so whatever happens to the countries in column J will also be reflected for the countries in the groups in column O for that same row.
Just thought I'd call that out. Thanks for the great work on this!
@Christian... Thanks for trying this and letting me know about lookups. I have fixed the issue now. Please download latest version for that and few more fixes.
Refresh All did not work correctly. Team names vanished though points were updated.
@Sheeloo... Can you please try with latest version (download again using above links). I tested up to latest Iran's stunning win over Morocco and it works.
Dear Chandoo
Thanks a lot for this worksheet.
However, while refreshing the data, I am getting error message as "Initialisation of Data Source failed".
May I know what version of Excel you are using? Do you have internet connectivity? If you are familiar with Power Query, try tracing the steps in the query editor. And oh, first start with the latest version of file (link above).
@Etienne - yes. Copy row, paste formats will do it, although obviously that will bring the formats of every cell in the row as well as the height.
Latest version seems to be working well.
One request: the Groups & Points tables on the Group Stage sheet have the team names pre-entered. This means they don't get sorted according to the results.
On my copy, I've changed them to a lookup, so they appear in the same order as the points table. It would be good if you can do the same if/when you release a new update!
Here's what I did. It's not the most elegant, but it works, and I didn't have much time to spend on it!
Using helper values of 1,2,3,4 in columns I and N for each group, the formula for the first team name in group A (cell J4) is:
=INDEX(points[Team],MATCH(OFFSET(J4,-(I4),0),points[Group],0)+(I4-1))
This can be copied & pasted to the other team name cells.
Cheers!
Good suggestion. I have made changes to the points table to remove lookups and just show teams in the order they appear in the detailed table. This way, You will see top two teams on first two rows. We could highlight them as well (figured this would make it look like a bowl of M&Ms, so didn't bother) or highlight *YOUR* team.
I consider my Excel skills as above average but far from guru and I love how your little projects like this get me to look at data in a new way. I would like to expand on the data in the points table through the use of some calculations but I am a little challenged by the data coming across as text. The Pts column is easy to deal with, but I'm having problems with the GD. The negative goal differential looks like it may be noted with an en dash instead of a minus sign, but if I search for an en dash in the data Excel doesn't find any. I would like to include conversion to a minus sign in my little macro so I can get everything to numbers but so far I am not having any luck. Any thoughts? Thanks for your help.
Thanks for such kind words 🙂
I suggest adding an extra step in Power Query to convert points, GD & other columns to numbers. You can replace em dash in PQ. I did not do it as this will add another layer of dependency and should the wikipedia page change, one more reason for the query to fail.
As always, an awesome spreadsheet from Chandoo. I love the Power Query score update without macros. The country watch-out is a unique feature as well!
For those who like a predictor template with flag lookup and a ribbon UI, here is our spreadsheet:
https://www.spreadsheet1.com/fifa-world-cup-2018-russia-free-prediction-templates-for-excel.html
Here is our World Cup 2022 template with LAMBDA functions:
https://www.spreadsheet1.com/fifa-world-cup-2022-qatar-free-prediction-templates-for-excel.html
[…] Interesting World Cup Tracker here at chandoo.org : https://chandoo.org/wp/fifa-worldcup-2018-tracker/ […]
Great template!
I came across another one with image vlookups for country flags
https://eexcel.co.uk/downloads (World_Cup_2018_Sweepstake.xlsx)
This is a great Template.
I am running Excel 2010 with the PowerQuery add-in running.
The scores will not update, so I followed the error and the second operation (Fitlered rows) says that the table is empty.
After a few minutes on Wikipedia, I realise that my PowerQuery skills are not good enough to work out what the issue is.
Any suggestions?
I would like to fix it myself is possible.
Thanks,
Sean.
@Sean... Can you try the latest version mate? I think it should work.
Where can I see the results for a specific match?
Thanks!
@Juan... You can now. I have included a results tab that shows match scores. This too is a live table. Just refresh data to get new results. Please download latest version file from links above to use this feature.
PS: There is another version coming soon with all goals too. I just have to spend some more time polishing the Json to table Power Query thingie.