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Welcome to Chandoo.org.
My mission is to make you AWESOME in your work.

Hello, Namaste & Kia Ora. Welcome to Chandoo.org. 

My name is Chandoo. My mission is to make you awesome in Excel and Power BI.
I do this by sharing Excel & Power BI tutorials, examples, tips, videos and articles on this website. I live in Wellington, New Zealand with my beautiful wife Jo & our twins Nishanth & Nakshatra. Take a minute to browse various topics of the site to see how I can help you.

Thank you and welcome.

Unpivot data quickly with Power Query [tutorial]

Power Query (Get & Transform data in Excel 2016) is a must have tool, if you wrangle with data every day. Here is a quick introduction, in case you are new.

Let’s learn how to use Power Query to unpivot data.

Essentially, we are trying to go from left to right in the above picture.

Doing something like this thru either formulas or VBA can be very complex. But Power Query can get you unpivoted data in just a few clicks. Sounds interesting? Read on.

Read This »

CP045: Introduction to Monte Carlo Simulations in Excel

In the 45th session of Chandoo.org podcast, let’s get in to Monte Carlo simulations.

What is in this session?

In this podcast,

  • Quick personal updates – 200km BRM and book delay
  • History of Monte Carlo simulations
  • Monte Carlo simulations – an example
  • How to do simulations in Excel
    • Formulas
    • VBA
    • Data Tables
  • Using data tables to run simulations – case study – estimating Pi value
  • Things to keep in mind when setting up your simulation models
  • Resources on Monte Carlo simulations in Excel
  • Conclusions
Read This »

How countries spend their money – chart alternatives

Econimist’s daily chart is a one of my daily data porn stops. They take interesting data sets and visualize in compelling ways. While the daily chart page is insightful, sometimes they make poor charting choices. For example, this recent chart visualizing how countries spend their money uses a variation of notorious bubble chart. Click on the chart to enlarge.

20150912_woc650_1

What is wrong with this chart?

Bubble charts force us to measure and compare areas of circles. Unless you have a measuring tape somehow embedded in your eyes and you are a walking human scientific calculator, you would find this task impossible.

So when you look at the chart and want to find out what percentage Japanese spend on restaurants or how much Americans pay for housing, your guesses will have large error margins.

Not only bubble charts are difficult to read, they are very hard to align. So when you have a bunch of bubbles, no matter how hard you try, your chart looks clumsy (see how the Russian food bubble eats in to Mexico’s bubble, as if it is too hungry 😉 )

Let’s check out a few alternatives to this chart. Read on…

Read This »

Show forecast values in a different color with this simple trick [charting]

Let’s say you made a chart to show actual and forecast values. By default, both values look in same color. But we would like to separate forecast values by showing them in another color.

If you are a seasoned Excel user, you may be thinking, “Oh, that’s easy. I will just create 2 sets of data (one for actual and one for forecast), make a chart from them and apply separate colors.”

But here is a really simple way to get the same effect.

Use a semi-transparent box to mask the forecast values, as shown above. Read on to learn how to do this.

Read This »

Excel Links – Dashboards book delayed edition

Quick update about Dashboards for Excel book:

Dashboards for Excel - advanced Excel, analysis, reporting & automation book from Jordan Goldmeier and Purnachandra DuggiralaAs you may know, my first print book – Dashboards for Excel (co-authored with Jordan Goldmeier) is supposed to release today – 15th September, 2015. But unfortunately, there is some delay with the printing process, so the book is not available yet. Our publisher, Apress, tells us that it can take two more weeks.

Thanks to all of you who pre-ordered this book. I am sorry for this unexpected delay. Just few more weeks and you will be reading it. 🙂

Time for another round of Excel links

Read This »

CP044: My first dashboard was a failure!!!

In the 44th session of Chandoo.org podcast, let’s talk about failures.

What is in this session?

In this podcast,

  • Book announcement about Dashboards for Excel
  • Story of my first ever dashboard
  • Important lessons – Requirement Analysis for dashboards
  • Resources for creating awesome dashboards
    • Podcasts
    • Books
    • Courses
Read This »

Case Sensitive Lookups

We all know that VLOOKUP (and its cousins MATCH, HLOOKUP and LOOKUP) are great for finding information you want. But they are helpless when you want to do a case-sensitive lookup.

So how do we write case sensitive VLOOKUP formulas?

Simple. We can use EXACT formula.

Read This »

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Learn Excel Step by Step

Everything from Power Query to Dashboards, Shortcuts to Formulas, Pivots to Charts in one course.

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Excel & Power BI for you

What people say about Chandoo.org

A relative told me about your website since I need help creating pivot tables, I learned how to do it in a matter of minutes thanks to your tutorial. Where have you been all of my excel troubled life, I look forward to viewing your videos on youtube as well as on your site. You are going to make me EXCELLENT at Excel!
Soulful Sista
Excel Sister
Hi Chandoo, I just want to say I really appreciate your Excel tutorials and all your hard work that it took to compile the huge library of content. Your site has helped me gain a better understanding of Excel which has helped me in my job. You are helping the world!
Felix H
Accountant
Throughout my life as an administrative assistant; your site has been invaluable to me. And now that I’m a recruiter; it’s still an amazing resource for when I need to teach someone something quickly. You are a friggin’ Rock Star!!! Thank you for everything you do.
Jason S
Recruiter

Courses for you

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Excel School

Learn how to work with data, make calculations, pivots, create amazing charts and powerful dashboards from scratch using Excel School + Dashboards program. Suitable for analysts, managers or professionals who need to use Excel often.

vba-classes-from-chandoo

VBA Classes

Use VBA to automate your tasks and build powerful spreadsheet based apps. In this course, learn all about how to program with VBA, how to use the language and object model to your advantage. Suitable for people who build a lot of things with Excel.

cg2018-games-viz-power-bi

Power BI

Power BI, the newest technology from Microsoft is a game changer. You can build rich, interactive and informative displays for your audience using Power BI. In this course, learn all about Power BI, Power Query and Power Pivot and how to combine them to achieve awesome results.

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