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. As Incubus wrote to me in an e-mail,
In Excel, the function “networkdays” doesn’t work for users in the middle east ‘cos it counts Saturday & Sunday as weekend. This is good enough only if you live in elsewhere, but for us weekend is Friday & Saturday.
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.
Please download the NetWorkingDays Add-in if you want to use this function.
If you are curious what is inside, see the UDF code
How to use the NetWorkingDays() UDF?
Once you download the add-in, just install the add-in by,
- [in Excel 2003] By going to Tools > Addins > Browse
- [in Excel 2007] By going to Office Button > Excel Options > Addins > “Go button” > Browse
- Specify the location where you saved the downloaded file
Now that the add-in is installed, you can use the UDF by writing a formula like this:
=networkingdays("01-06-2009","02-07-2019","12356")
The first argument is start date, the second one is end date and third one tells which days of week are working (Monday is 1 and Sunday is 7). So the above formula counts all the Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturdays between 01-06-2009 and 02-07-2019
Known Errors and Limitations
The formula returns #VALUE! error when you try really long durations (like trying to find all the workingdays between now and a century later)
Another thing is, you cannot feed a custom holiday list to this formula. But that is very easy to add on, so I didn’t bother.
So go ahead and give it a try
Download the NetWorkingDays() UDF Excel Add-in
and tell me what you think…
On dates and times in Excel: Date & Time Formulas | 10 Tips on Using Dates & Times in Excel
14 Responses to “Group Smaller Slices in Pie Charts to Improve Readability”
I think the virtue of pie charts is precisely that they are difficult to decode. In many contexts, you have to release information but you don't want the relationship between values to jump at your reader. That's when pie charts are most useful.
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Chandoo,
millions of ants cannot be mistaken.....There should be a reason why everybody continues using Pie charts, despite what gurus like you or Jon and others say.
one reason could be because we are just used to, so that's what we need to change, the "comfort zone"...
i absolutely agree, since I've been "converted", I just find out that bar charts are clearer, and nicer to the view...
Regards,
Martin
[...] says we can Group Smaller Slices in Pie Charts to Improve Readability. Such a pie has too many labels to fit into a tight space, so you need ro move the labels around [...]
Chandoo -
You ask "Can I use an alternative to pie chart?"
I answer in You Say “Pie”, I Say “Bar”.
This visualization was created because it was easy to print before computers. In this day and age, it should not exist.
I think the 100% Bar Chart is just as useless/unreadable as Pies - we should rename them something like Mama's Strudel Charts - how big a slice would you like, Dear?
My money's with Jon on this topic.
The primary function of any pie chart with more than 2 or 3 data points is to obfuscate. But maybe that is the main purpose, as @Jerome suggests...
@Jerome.. Good point. Also sometimes, there is just no relationship at all.
@Martin... Organized religion is finding it tough to get converts even after 2000+ years of struggle. Jon, Stephen, countless others (and me) are a small army, it would take atleast 5000 more years before pie charts vanish... patience and good to have you here 🙂
@Jon .. very well done sir, very well done.
good points every one...
I've got to throw my vote into Jon's camp (which is also Stephen Few's camp) -- bars just tend to work better. One observation about when we say "what people are used to." There are two distinct groups here (depending on the situation, a person can fall in either one): the person who *creates* the chart and the person who *consumes* the chart. Granted, the consumers are "used to" pie charts. But, it's not like a bar chart is something they would struggle to understand or that would require explanation (like sparklines and bullet graphs). Chart consumers are "used to" consuming whatever is put in front of them. Chart creators, on the other hand, may be "used to" creating pie charts, but that isn't an excuse for them to continue to do so -- many people are used to driving without a seatbelt, leaving lights on in their house needlessly, and forwarding not-all-that-funny anecdotes via email. That doesn't mean the practice shouldn't be discouraged!
[...] example that Chandoo used recently is counting uses of words. Clearly, there are other meanings of “bar” (take bar mitzvah or bar none, for [...]
[…] Grouping smaller slices in pie chart […]
Good article. Is it possible to do that with line charts?
Hi,
Is this available in excel 2013?