Hello everyone. Stop reading further and go fetch your helmet. Because what lies ahead is mind-blowingly awesome.
About a month and half ago, we held our annual dashboard contest. This time the theme is to visualize state to state migration in USA. You can find the contest data-set & details here.
We received 49 outstanding entries for this. Most of the entries are truly inspiring. They are loaded with powerful analysis, stunning visualizations, amazing display of Excel skill and design finesse. It took me almost 2 weeks to process the results and present them here.
But first, let me apologize
Each of our contest participants spent a lot of time crafting their files. But due to unforeseen personal work, I could not set aside time to process the entries until last week of May. I sincerely apologize for taking this much time to showcase the entries.
What about the winners?
This week our panel of judges will be reviewing these 49 entries. Next week we will share short-listed entries for public voting. Once the voting is complete, we will declare the winner. This process should be completed with-in 2 weeks.
How to read this post?
This is a fairly large post. If you are reading this in email or news-reader, it may not look properly. Click here to read it on chandoo.org.
- Each entry is shown in a box with the contestant’s name on top. Entries are shown in alphabetical order of contestant’s name.
- You can see a snapshot of the entry and more thumbnails below.
- The thumb-nails are click-able. So that you can enlarge and see the details.
- You can download the contest entry workbook, see & play with the files.
- You can read my comments at the bottom. The comments are in 2 sections – what is good, what can be improved.
- Please take my comments on “what can be improved” lightly. I do not mean to offend any of the contestants.
- At the bottom of the box, you can find links to the key techniques used. Click on them to learn more.
Thank you
Thank you very much for all the participants in this contest. I have thoroughly enjoyed exploring your work & learned a lot from them. I am sure you had fun creating these too.
So go ahead and enjoy the entries.
PS: We had to disqualify 2-3 entries due to errors in VBA code or inability to open the file.
Migration Dashboard by Aditya Canay
What is good:
- Good colors
- Easy to understand (built in help sheet as well)
- Interactive. Can ask questions & get answers
- Interesting facts & overall summary on top
What can be improved:
- Summary on top is static. It would be better to depend on year or state selected.
- State selection is clumsy. Could have used Active-x combo box or slicer
- Donut chart is not the best choice.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Aditya Srinivaasan
What is good:
- Simple and easy on eyes
- Form controls with auto complete (Active-x combos)
- Added data on Cost of living, Crime rate & Tax rate. Helps understand what may have caused the migration.
What can be improved:
- Missing overall summary or header.
- Logarithmic scale on population breakup chart. Makes it unclear.
- Not sure which year’s data population distribution chart shows.
- Crime rate indexation assume same weightage for all crimes. Could have used a better measure.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Amit Ajmera
What is good:
- Comprehensive dashboard with lots of detail
- Analysis of individual state, comparison with another state and overall trends
- Interactive. Can ask questions & get answers
- Analysis of any year or average of all 3.
- Shows a map of selected state.
What can be improved:
- Could use subtle and better colors. Also apply consistent colors.
- Alignment is off in few places.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Arnaud Duigou
What is good:
- Clickable map to drill down to a state
- Overall statistics vs. Individual state focus
- Interactive. Can ask questions & get answers
- Interesting facts & overall summary on top
- Built-in help bubbles (that can be toggled)
- Analysis on factors for migration (by using additional data like per-capita income, unemployment rate and weather conditions)
What can be improved:
- Not sure how the tool tips button is supposed to work.
- Alignment is off in few places.
- Switching between state view & overall heatmaps seems clumsy. Also, the state selection combo box on top feels redundant
- Colors & fonts can be improved. Feels like too many of them are used.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Biju Chacko
What is good:
- Simple charts with easy to understand colors
- Interactive charts to see migration trends per year
What can be improved:
- Could use a summary on top and few other metrics
- Bar charts have non-zero axis. Creates false impression
- Alignment can be improved. Lots of empty spaces that can be filled with useful insights.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Celso Garcia
What is good:
- Clickable map to drill down to a state
- Color coded map & bar chart for easy interpretation
- Form controls to select year
What can be improved:
- Could use a header with summary statistics
- Map and bar chart represent the same data. Could have used other metrics in the bar chart to give more insights
Techniques used:
Become Awesome in Excel & VBA – Create dashboards like these…
My comments:
- Learn how to create interactive dashboards & reports using Excel
- Develop your own macros & VBA code
- 50+ hours of video training
- Learn at your own pace
- Click here to know more
Migration Dashboard by Cesarino Rua
What is good:
- Map with details on hover!
- Lots of details for selected state, include flag of the state, important cities etc.
What can be improved:
- Some of the tables feel like orphans. Could use titles (and overall summary or title or both)
- The bar chart on right is just repetition of data in the last of column of table before that. Could have used this space for something else.
- Feels like too much data. Need to zoom down to 80% to see everything. Consider using form controls or something else to make it easy on eyes.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Chris Newman
What is good:
- Clear, dashboard style output with details in big fonts.
- Details of migration combined with political tastes of the state.
- Slicers for selecting year
- Good choice of colors, good alignment and layout.
- Built-in help bubbles
What can be improved:
- Poor choice of conditional formatting databar on top. Could have used regular bar chart with 0 axis.
- Giving a choice of additional measures could have added detail to state view.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Daniel Dion
What is good:
- Clickable map to drill down to a state
- Also, slicers to select a state
- Ability to select year, type of metric (leaving, entering, net gain) to view for the selected state.
What can be improved:
- Too many scrollbars. Especially both slicer & clickable map serve the same purpose. So, could have removed the slicer.
- The listing of states & column chart beneath the map are same data. Again this space could have been used for other insights.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by David Hoppe
What is good:
- Map with vectors indicating the movement
- Multiple statistics and ability to switch them (and years)
- Ability to analyze by absolute or relative population
- Slicers for selecting state (or region or division)
- Simple, clean layout with good colors and beautiful presentation
What can be improved:
- Could have added help or instructions
- Could have removed either region or division slicer (as they feel redundant)
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Dwight Johnson
What is good:
- Simple charts with easy to understand colors
- Data validation to select state
What can be improved:
- Could have moved the output to a blank sheet & cleaned it up
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Fakhri Damdi
What is good:
- No comments
What can be improved:
- Could have reduced the formatting and focused on insights
- Feels incomplete and rushed. Could have focused on answering some analytical questions instead of making charts from raw data
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Gangadhar Yeligaty
What is good:
- Simple dashboard with easy to understand layout and charts
- Interactive charts to see migration trends per year
- Scrolling area to see where people move from selected state
- Built-in help
What can be improved:
- Could have added header section with few statistics
- Could have used better formatting for the charts (labels & axis feels heavy)
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Janet
What is good:
- Dual map with ability to analyze by either leaving or entering state
- Ability to focus on various trends (with sortable table, year selection)
- Slicers for selecting year, state, type of sort
- Good choice of colors, good alignment and layout.
What can be improved:
- Sort order slicers are reversed (clicking on Ascending sorts the table in descending)
- Feels like too much data. Could have used 000s or millions notation for population numbers (and removed MoE numbers or have them toggled)
- Could have added help to understand what arrows meant in the last column.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Jean-MarcVoyer
What is good:
- WOW
- Form controls, selectable cells to define analysis
- Good design and colors
- Excellent analysis (with ability to ask a lot of questions and get answers visually
What can be improved:
- Dark background makes it tricky to read numbers. Could have used white or dull background.
- The dashboard is very comprehensive. It could have benefited from help screen.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Jeff Sawers
What is good:
- A very interesting layout and selection mechanism (with slicers for year, region and state)
- Focus on top 10 states with-in selection and where people moved using databars & heat maps
- Good alignment, colors and design.
What can be improved:
- The heatmap section is somewhat tricky to interpret. May be aggregating data at just region level would have made it easy to read.
- A little more analysis or explanation on what may have caused migration would make this even better.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Joey Cherdarchuk
What is good:
- Beautiful and simple design
- Clickable cells for selecting year and state
- Simple colors and attractive maps
What can be improved:
- The labels on bar chart are hard to read. A better color or placement would have benefited.
- If the selected year’s map is highlighted, it would make interpretation of trends faster.
- A quick summary on what may have caused such migration trends would make this dashboard even better
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Jon Schwabish
What is good:
- Simple chart with interactive controls
- Uses the hypothesis that people in poor states move to neighboring states and tests it with the interactive charts & data.
- Good colors and simple design
What can be improved:
- Could have added overall statistics in header
- Could have displayed relevant facts for the selected region or state.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Jorge L
What is good:
- Simple & clear layout with summary on top and state details at bottom. Good colors too
- Interactive controls to select state and year.
What can be improved:
- Selecting state is tricky with data validation. Could have used a slicer or active-x combo box
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Jude Shyju
What is good:
- Data & charts (map or table) in one view with ability to toggle fields & years
- Ability to drill down to a state and visualize inflow or outflow
What can be improved:
- Picture links create clumsy output. Could have used regular charts, tables and drawing shapes instead.
- Lack of alignment in few places.
- Although ability to turn off fields is welcome, it just results in a column with #N/A. Not useful as no space is gained.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Kevin Steiner
What is good:
- Interesting visualization with very tiny cells making up US map, pivot table report filters used for selection
- Choropleth map with Excel cell grid!
- Ability to see the map & full data (as pivot report)
What can be improved:
- The cell grid map, although innovative, does not look perfect. Could have used regular map with a little bit of VBA to color it.
- Instead of presenting all the data in a table (pivot table), could have used charts. This saves space and helps create a better layout.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by krishnakumar
What is good:
- Detailed analysis on regional migration trends (Midwest, northeast, south & west)
- Ability to drill-down to an individual state by selecting year, region and state’s name
- Interesting facts & details about state shown.
What can be improved:
- Regional migration column chart is tricky to read. Could have used a map or diagram for better effect.
- Too long. Requires 2 scrolls to see the full dashboard. Instead could have shrunk or removed a few charts to create a compact report.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by krishnasamymohan
What is good:
- Simple report on state migration
What can be improved:
- Too simple. Could have used some charts or conditional formatting to highlight interesting points
- Year selection does not seem to work.
- Gauge charts a poor choice for visualizing this type of data. Could have used alternatives
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by krishnateja
What is good:
- Interesting layout and state selection mechanism (clickable map)
- Ability to analyze selected state’s migration flows
What can be improved:
- Instead of 4 charts depicting regional trends, one chart with selected region’s trends could be used. This creates space for more analysis.
- In-consistent colors and alignment
- Could have displayed a title & quick summary on top.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Kyle Tan
What is good:
- Interesting presentation with ability to choose a variety of perspectives (destination vs. origin, year, entire USA vs. single state) and various measures for doing correlation analysis.
- Sortable, scrollable chart of state migration flows (with distance from origin!)
- I love the correlation analysis chart. But selecting right measure to analyze feels tedious. Could have pre-calculated or suggested measures based on state selection.
- Good, compact layout.
What can be improved:
- The exploded, grouped pie chart on top feels clumsy and poorly done. Should have used a simple bar chart for top 15 states alone.
- The VBA code feels buggy and sluggish. Could have checked it for errors and disabled screenupdating.
- Could have displayed a title & quick summary on top.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Mark Weber
What is good:
- Superb colors, layout, chart selection and presentation
- Very easy to use with built-in help, lots of buttons to change / show / hide things you want.
- Analysis by state and state-to-state.
- 2 color themes – dark & light version.
- Subtle but powerful use of conditional formatting.
What can be improved:
- Could have added a top section with overall USA statistics.
- The analysis is limited to population numbers alone. Could have added additional metrics for richer analysis.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Matthew Waechter
What is good:
- Beautiful colors and layout. Feels well balanced and easy on eyes.
- Ability to select state & year to understand migration flows. The selection choice feels slick (clickable cells with arrow indicator)
- Interesting ladder / waterfall chart to explain net gains in population.
What can be improved:
- The dot plots on top feel cryptic. Could have added help or title to explain that they are migration numbers for all 50 states.
- The analysis is limited to population numbers alone. Could have added additional metrics for richer analysis.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Michael Bellot
What is good:
- An elegant dashboard with subtle colors, interesting shapes and clever layout
- The clickable map is a very user-friendly way to explore the information.
- Additional metrics like health, education, wealth, crime, climate etc. help explain migration reasons
What can be improved:
- Could have added data labels to the bar charts (or to the map) to make it better.
- The radar chart, although looks pretty, just repeats the data on the shapes. Could have used it for something else.
- A little more clean-up on dashboard sheet is needed. It shows some calculations and data on the right (which could be hidden)
- It is not sure for what year the map & bar chart data is displayed. An year selection mechanism can also be added.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by NA Horansil
What is good:
- Wow, cell grid used to create a giant map of USA. Then conditional formatting is used to highlight state’s cells based on migration numbers.
- Ability to select state & year to understand migration flows.
- Sortable migration trends chart (although in a separate sheet)
What can be improved:
- While the cell-grid map looks neat, could have used a regular map with VBA for color-coding. This provides better fidelity and forces us to focus on numbers rather than technique.
- The work books has 3 sheets with dashboards / charts. Contest rules specify one chart or dashboard. Could have integrated all to one page.
- Could have displayed a title & quick summary on top.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Nathaniel Mahoney
What is good:
- One more cell grid map, this time at zip code level. Looks interesting although stretched.
- Ability to select state & year to analyze migration trends
- Uses pivot tables & additional data.
What can be improved:
- The map gets stretched and looses clarity due to cell grid approach. Could have used a regular map with VBA.
- The dashboard (?) has no title, no additional numbers and has minimal legend. Could have added a title, quick summary and few more charts.
- How the zip code level migration data is obtained is not clear. Could have added instructions & pointed to sources.
- Requires Data > Refresh once selection is made. Could have automated that with VBA.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Nhut Vo
What is good:
- Simple report on state migration
- Ability to select state, year for analyzing migration flows. Ability to sort the list of states based on inflows or outflows.
What can be improved:
- The chart on the right (state-wise distribution) feels busy. Could have shown only top 10 states as sorting is already available.
- The sorting buttons are confusing. Could have used a selection mechanism (or toggle button).
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Niyaz Shaffi
What is good:
- Clean layout with good colors and clear titles
- Slicers for selecting to & from state, year
- Forecast of migration flows
- Choropleth map based on state migration flows
- Ability to expand a chart (and see more data points, although for a poorly executed chart)
What can be improved:
- The radar plots are a poor choice for depicting top 10 states. Should have used bar / column charts
- The migration inflow vs. area bubble chart is not easy to understand. Should have added instructions.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Permana Zainal
What is good:
- Clear, simple layout with bright colors
- A map with bubbles depicting migration trends.
- Ability to analyze by state, year and migration destination
What can be improved:
- The map / bubble chart is confusing with too many colors. Not sure what the state fill colors represent. The bubble colors are also distracting and useless (as the bubble size is what matters). Could have simplified with either Choropleth map or outline map with bubbles.
- The bar charts beneath donuts do not start at zero. This creates wrong impression of the data.
- Summary of total migrants / population chart needs axis labels and ability to sort.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Prashant Sharma
What is good:
- Roll-over selectable map and ability to select year for analysis
- Simple dashboard with state migration analysis
What can be improved:
- The state-wise migration flows chart needs ability to sort.
- Could have added few more charts or analysis tables. The chart & tables are just a replica of original data.
- Could have added a title & quick summary at overall USA level.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Rajesh Sangati
What is good:
- Map with ability to select state, type of migration and year (from drop downs)
- Answers questions like which states get most net migrations, contribute for 90% of outflows, inflows
- Simple layout and easy to use
What can be improved:
- The map feels hand-drawn. May be a better outline map or shapes would do justice.
- Labels on charts are difficult to read. Should have used 2 letter state code with horizontal orientation.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Richard Dutton
What is good:
- Clear, elegant layout with lots of detail
- Can select a state (from drop-down), year to analyze migration flows.
- Sortable state-to-state migration chart
- Clicking on any state in the map shows further statistics.
What can be improved:
- The state selection drop-down is clumsy to use. Should have used either active-x or slicer or clickable map to make it user-friendly.
- The axis labels on state-to-state migration are hard to read. May be 2 letter codes or scrollable chart would do the trick.
Techniques used:
Form ControlsMaps + VBASortable TablesConditional Formatting
Migration Dashboard by Roberto Mensa
What is good:
- Wow. A very colorful, clear and well designed report
- Slicers for selecting year, type of data and state are well placed and formatted. They look very natural.
- The map / bubble chart / xy plot is a clever piece of work and explains where people are heading or coming from.
- Interesting addition of Wikipedia links for state names, so that we can learn more by clicking.
What can be improved:
- Could have added a title on the top
- An outline map instead of geo-political map would have made the bubble + XY plot pop out more.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Roger Haragushiku
What is good:
- A simple data table along with bubble chart depicting migration data.
- Ability to select a state and year for analysis
What can be improved:
- The map depicts data in the data table. Could have removed one and used the space for something else.
- Could have added a title and quick summary on top.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by S Ramesh
What is good:
- Interesting report. Start with a help screen and can speak the numbers upon selecting a state.
- A map where you can select a state for further analysis.
What can be improved:
- The map with radio buttons feels somewhat busy. Could have used a simpler outline map with clickable text-boxes for smooth layout.
- The charts which show details are on other sheets. The contest rules specify creating one chart or dashboard on a single page.
- Although built-in help is nice, there is no way to see it again. A help button would have been useful.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Shailesh Patwardhan
What is good:
- A crisp, simple and number-only dashboard
- Tests a few hypotheses to explain the migration and explores what may have caused the movement
- Sections on key findings & unexplained are very useful
What can be improved:
- The precision of numbers seems excessive given the nature of them (and margin of error). Could have rounded numbers to nearest %, thousand or million as needed.
- A few charts could have made the insights pop out better.
- Could have added analysis by a selected state. This makes the dashboard personal and interesting.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Shamik Sharma
What is good:
- Clear, elegant dashboard with lots of detail, interactivity and analysis
- Ability to analyze by selecting a single state, multiple states and year.
- Additional data on unemployment rate, gross state product (GSP), international migration helps understand the migration trends better.
- Very good colors, alignment, layout and feel.
- Built-in Help sheet to explain the dashboard
What can be improved:
- While the dashboard provides powerful analysis and ability to interact, a little bit of conclusions or summary text could have helped in interpreting it better.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Somalinga K
What is good:
- A simple dashboard with ability to explore any given state’s migration trends and understand one state to another flows.
- Colorful and simple.
What can be improved:
- The data-validation in cell I2 was incorrectly setup (corrected it in download file)
- Instead of showing data as-is based on selection, could have added some analysis or exploration on why the migration may have happened.
- Should have used consistent fonts, alignment & colors and prevented errors thru IFERROR()
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Srinivas Chilukuri
What is good:
- Beautiful colors and layout. Enables quick analysis and exploration.
- Ability to select a state & year for deep-dive analysis
- Additional data median income, temperature & crime-rate helps understand migration better.
- Inflow vs. outflow scatter plot is interesting
What can be improved:
- The Choropleth map on top feels under-utilized. Could have generated map based on selected state instead of all states.
- Alignment is a bit off in few places. Also the charts on right could use grid-lines or repeated axis labels for better readability.
- The file is password protected (VBA code). This is against rules.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Stacey Baker
What is good:
- A very insightful & detailed dashboard.
- Ability to explore migration trends based on state, year, various metrics (crime rate, per-capita income, unemployment rate, median home value, median rent, % of unmarried population etc.)
- Ability to compare up to 4 states on various metrics to understand reasons behind migration.
What can be improved:
- The dashboard is too long. Could have reduced the map size and arranged everything on one screen / page.
- Reading the dashboard is tricky due to its length. A help sheet is needed.
Techniques used:
Become Awesome in Excel & VBA – Create dashboards like these…
My comments:
- Learn how to create interactive dashboards & reports using Excel
- Develop your own macros & VBA code
- 50+ hours of video training
- Learn at your own pace
- Click here to know more
Migration Dashboard by Suriya Banu
What is good:
- Unique design and interesting choice of colors & layout
- Ability to select a state by clicking on cells with state 2 letter codes.
- The neighbor state statistics is insightful. It shows consistent movement of people with-in neighboring states.
- Interesting facts about the state.
What can be improved:
- The home screen is drab and has no insights. Could have used it for overall summary and quick insights on migration trends.
- The pie charts are a poor way to depict data like this. Should have used column or bar charts.
- Year selection feels tricky. Should have used a more obvious method.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Thiruselvan
What is good:
- Very insightful & interesting dashboard
- Good mix of charts, observations, fun facts and analysis.
- Ability to select a state for in-depth analysis.
- Pareto analysis to understand migration of a selected state.
What can be improved:
- The pareto analysis feels forced. It would have been better to test whether a pareto behavior is exhibited by the data before going this route.
- Some place the alignment, font sizes, border thicknesses and colors are a bit off.
- Could have used an Active-X drop down for state selection.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Trevor Eyre
What is good:
- Interesting dashboard with ability to compare 2 states for given time period on various parameters
- Simple & elegant design
What can be improved:
- The controls for date range selection feel un-necessary as we have only 3 years of data. The other controls should have been intergraded in to the dashboard to make it compact.
- The charts & analysis leaves one wanting for more.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Tyler Barr
What is good:
- A colorful, interesting design with built-in help
- Slicers for selecting state & year
- Ability to zoom the map view is an interesting touch.
What can be improved:
- The map, 50 state table at the bottom & top 5 migration states on top right all depict same data. Could have removed one of them and used the space for other types of analysis.
- Picture links make the “Where are they coming from” section a bit stretched. Could have used textboxes or regular cells.
- Alignment is a bit off in few places.
Techniques used:
Migration Dashboard by Vikram Krishnamurthy
What is good:
- A detailed dashboard to explore migration from one state to another
- Analysis by yearly trends, average distance from selected state. Also you can explore GDP, personal income and employment for the selected state.
What can be improved:
- Poor choice of charts & colors. The 3d pie charts, in-consistent colors and layout makes it tricky to gain insights from this. Could have used simple bar charts and subtle colors.
- Lots of white space and redundant charts make it hard to understand key points. Should have reduced the charts and made them in to a tight layout.
Techniques used:
Become Awesome in Excel & VBA – Create dashboards like these…
My comments:
- Learn how to create interactive dashboards & reports using Excel
- Develop your own macros & VBA code
- 50+ hours of video training
- Learn at your own pace
- Click here to know more
Like all? Download one zip file with all dashboards
If you are planning to play with all these dashboards,
download this zip file [50 mb, ZIP file].
Make sure you close all other workbooks before opening these files as many contain VBA code.
How do you like these dashboards?
Quite a few of these dashboards are really impressive. Seeing them is just like watching a magic show or world-class ballet performance. I will share my views & our judges views next week.
Meanwhile, Tell us which entries you liked most? Go ahead and share your views.
99 Responses to “How to use Date & Time values in Excel – 10 + 3 tips”
[...] Date with my sheet - 10 tips on using date / time in excel (tags: excel totw) Posted in Uncategorized | [...]
I have this current formula in place for 2014 "=DATE(YEAR(TODAY()),T2,1)"
How do I change it for 2015?
Thanks 🙂
@Liz
You shouldn't have too
If you use it today 1st Jan 2015 it will return the 1st of the month in cell T2 in 2015
[...] 10 Tips on using Date / Time in Excel [...]
[...] More on date / time: 10 tips on using, formatting date / time in excel. [...]
Hi Chandoo,
Since this article was for Dates, below are 2 easy ones to calculate the Start and End of Month. (without using the EOMONTH formula as available in Analysis Toolpak).
In Cell A1, put any date
then in the cell where you would want the Start of Month put the below formula
1. Start of the Month
=DATE(YEAR(A1),MONTH(A1),1)
2. End of Month
=DATE(YEAR(A1),MONTH(A1)+1,0)
Hope this would help a lot who were dependant of EOMONTH..
cheers
~Vijay
@Vijay: That is an awesome tip. Thank you so much for sharing it with all of us.
Perfect
Why not use the EOMONTH formula?
I run a trolley tour business and need to set up a data base to track tickets sold by mutable vendors (from store, on the street ,etc)and by class ( adult, senior,child and discounts ) can you help or direct me to one that could?
I know how to write macro's for excel, but I have 1 issue that I cant figure out and would appreciate some help.
I want to key a range of dates, (7/1/09-7/12/09) then write a macro to go find the info for that range and bring it back to my spread sheet.
Thanks for any help....
@Glenn: you can try a user defined function if the information you want to gather can be derived only from the 2 dates entered. You can write a macro, if you need to refer to other ranges in the workbook to gather the info based on the dates entered. I am not sure what you meant by "go find the info for that range". May be if you tell what you are trying to find, I can suggest the approach for writing a macro...
[...] Important excel formulas: IF and Then, Vlookup, Offset, Sumif, Countif, Working with date and time [...]
[...] Tips on using date & time in excel, List of excel date & time formulas, More excel quick tips [...]
talking about dates, therz a formula that i use very frequently to calculate the difference between two dates.
its not documented in 2007 though
=DATEDIF(START_DATE,END_DATE,"Y") - gives you the years
=DATEDIF(START_DATE,END_DATE,"YM") - remaining months
=DATEDIF(START_DATE,END_DATE,"MD") - remaining days
im sure you'll know this. wonder why it isnt documented. works fine with 2003 and 2007
[...] free downloads | working with date and time in excel tweetmeme_source = 'r1c1'; tweetmeme_style = [...]
[...] Working with Dates & Times in Excel – 10 tips [...]
Help please... I have two dates eg: 1/8/10 - 10/8/10 and i would like to know the number of Fridays and Mondays in any given period
Ray
Try the following user defined function:
===
Function NoMonFri(uStart As Range, uEnd As Range, Optional uType As Integer) As Double
Count = 0
For i = uStart To uEnd Step 1
If Weekday(i) = 2 Or Weekday(i) = 6 Then Count = Count + 1
Next i
If uType = 1 Then
If Weekday(uStart) = 2 Or Weekday(uStart) = 6 Then Count = Count - 1
If Weekday(uEnd) = 2 Or Weekday(uEnd) = 6 Then Count = Count - 1
End If
NoMonFri = Count
End Function
====
Copy the above into a Code Module
To use just enter
=NoMonFri(A1, A2) or
=NoMonFri(A1, A2,1)
Where A1 & A2 are the Start and End Dates (inclusively)
The use of the optional 1 will Exclude the Start and End dates
@Ray... You can also do this using SUMPRODUCT (ahem)
Assuming first date is in C6 and second date is in C7,
=SUMPRODUCT(--(MOD(WEEKDAY(ROW(INDIRECT(C6&":"&C7)),2),4)=1))
Will give you the number of Mondays and Fridays between C6 and C7 (including both days)
Also, checkout NETWORKINGDAYS() UDF for more complicated counting... http://chandoo.org/wp/2009/06/09/networkingdays/
[...] Process your data: Assuming your data looks like what I shown to left, just use simple formulas to make it look like the table to right. [related: how to work with dates & times in excel] [...]
very useful tip, thanks alot
Hello Chandoo,
How to convert no into time. for ex: 3600(In Seconds) into 1:00:00
Thanks,
Chandra Shekar B
@Chandra
Times are a fraction of 1
So 6am is 0.25
12 noon is 0.5
6pm is 0.75
So convert hrs and mins to a fraction of 24 hrs
1 Hr = 1/24
3600 seconds = 3600/(24*3600)
etc
Hello Hui,
Thanks a lot 🙂
Hello,
I cant get Point 6 above to work (highlighting weekends).
Is there an actual example I can see in action anywhere?
Otherwise a very helpful and informative website.
Regards,
Patrick
Hi Chandoo,
When discussing about time.. I have one question too. Basically, I have one sheet in which we enter "Shift IN" & "Shift OUT" times as "hh:mm" format in A and B columns and next columns C & D pulls the scheduled and present count of agents from other sheet by VLOOKUP-ing times as
IN time (hh:mm) - OUT Time (hh:mm). For eg; 03:30 - 12:30
Columns A and B have been validated to accept only values between 00:00~23:30 (half hour intervals). and when pasting data, the values are usually accepted and I don't get any errors of validation.
But, when performing vlookup to get the number of scheduled agents say as of the time interval 03:30, I get an #N/A error. I have confirmed ranges are all fine, but what I found is that the time although shows same but they are actually of different days. Say for eg;
41023.39583 gives 9:30
41024.39583 gives 9:30 too..
Validation is accepted as time is same, and it works fine if I select the time interval from the validation list. So, was wondering, if I can select the same interval from the list using VBA.. so that whatever the time intervals gets updated, I just need to run a macro to automatically select the interval from the validation list.. I have come across that we can use Cell.Validation.Formula1 in some manner to get the item from list.. but it would take the number of the item in the list.. wondered if I could get the item through text. Any ideas to accomplish this task?
Regards,
Avinash
in time - 9:30 am on 11/24/2015
out time - 6:30 am on 11/25/2015
I have to calculate total hours worked.
Tell me the formula to calculate the total hours, please.
hi,
can you help me in, i just want to know how will i get the corresponding DAY when i entered a specific DATE?
Thanks,
Sheila
Hi,
Following could be a solution for findinng out correspoinding Day, Month & Year to a Date:
=TEXT("CELL ADDRESS WHERE DATE IS PLACED","DDDD") ..... For Day
=TEXT("CELL ADDRESS WHERE DATE IS PLACED","MMMM") ..... For Month
=TEXT("CELL ADDRESS WHERE DATE IS PLACED","YYYY") ..... For Year
One can also customized the view by reducing keywords which will promopt to the following results : Mon, J, Jan, 2007, 07 etc
hi,
sir can u help me,
how to set a validity period & date of time in microsoft excel.
eg:- suppose i m using a file sheet and setting a date of 01.04.2012, time 12.00am & wan't dat the sheet should stop working in 1 month date & time ( 30.04.2012 ).
eg :- suppose we are going internet cafe dere we are taking a browsing of 1hour time, as we r close 2 our time d browsing stop working.
in dis way i wan't sheet to be set by date & time.
so pls help me how to do.
thanks,
navin.
Hi,
Sir ur article is very helpful....Thnaks for that but i need ur help in this one. i have a monthly report workbook and the sheets are saved by date of that month. I have two cells FromDate and ToDate through which opening and closing stock is calculated(using =SUM('01-09-2012:25-09-2012'!D7)+ SUM('26-09-2012:30-09-2012'!D8)) .....Please give me a formula when i will enter any date in ToDate or FromDate cell it will automatically change the other cells formula so to give me sum.
please help me
thanks
Suyash
Hi Mr. Chandoo,
I have 1 question. I have 1 pivot table, successfully done with your guidelines, but how to set Sunday as the start week? means the start day is Sunday, and the end day of the week is Saturday.
TQ in advance.
can someone please tell me that if i want the date of the month to appear on each sheet of my workbook how do i do it by itself? i mean the workbook is of meeting room bookings... so i want to print out sheets date wise for a whole year/
[...] So the formula for end time cell is =start-time + duration-minutes / 24 / 60. Note: We need to divide by 24 & 60 because in Excel each day 1 number, each hour is 1/24th and each minute is 1/24/60th. [learn more about Excel dates] [...]
dear friends, please help me to calculate actual time within the range while actual time more or less of range?
TIME IN
TIME OUT
ACTUAL HRS
ACUTAL HRS WITHIN RANGE (7:30:00 to 18:00:00)
7:15:00
18:15:00
11:00:00
?
7:45:00
17:00:00
9:15:00
?
@Niyas
You may want to start having a read of: http://chandoo.org/wp/2010/06/01/date-overlap-formulas/
[...] INTEREST Date with my sheet – 10 tips on using date / time in excel http://chandoo.org/wp/2008/07/29/excel-keyboard-shortcuts/ [...]
If I have dates in Indian format dd-mm-yyyy, excel is not recognizing the same and instead treating the same as mm-dd-yyyy so a date mentioned in Indian system as 09/06/2013 is being treated as 6-Sep-2013 whereas it actually represents 9-Jun-2013.
Can I convert these dates in Indian format to corrected dd-mmm-yyyy system?
Chandoo,
Please i need an advise ASAP i have been using this statement and it cant help
if(and(c1>=a1:a144,c1<=b1:b144),"yes","no"))
and it just works for the first 2 values c1, c2 and doesn't fit for the others.
the case is i have more than one event at the same video and i need to confirm that no event was taken unless it is between start and end.
here are some samples:
Start dtime End Dtime Event Dtime
16/09/2013 22:13:34 16/09/2013 22:14:18 16/09/2013 22:13:38
16/09/2013 22:15:57 16/09/2013 22:24:30 16/09/2013 22:16:02
16/09/2013 22:24:30 16/09/2013 22:33:49 16/09/2013 22:17:32
16/09/2013 22:33:53 16/09/2013 22:35:05 16/09/2013 22:19:02
16/09/2013 22:35:05 16/09/2013 22:39:57 16/09/2013 22:20:02
So as you can see there are more than one event between one start and end dtimes
thanks guys
[…] Using Date & Time in Excel […]
[…] Using Date & Time in Excel […]
Hi Chandoo,
I have an activity tracking sheet, in which column A has activity A, B, C, D & E and column B has start date, column C has start time, column D has end date & column E has end time. Now what i am trying to do is that suppose activity A starts on 31-Mar 9:00 AM and finishes an 4-Apr 5:00 PM and Activity B starts only after A completes, but if suppose Activity A is delayed by say 1 hour, then activity B, C, D & E which are all dependent on each other will also be delayed by 1 hour, i want to create a template in excel, could you please help?
thanks
Chandresh
[…] Day 32 Date and time arithmetic - The symbols / and – need to be used when inputting dates and Excel has the capability to add dates and times together too. Follow the Excel Easy article here on how http://www.excel-easy.com/functions/date-time-functions.html Chandoo also has some Top 10 tips too http://chandoo.org/wp/2008/08/26/date-time-tips-ms-excel/ […]
Hi,
What will b the formula to get the date more than 3 yrs from the present date ?
Example : today is 16-05-2014 (D-M-Y) then three yrs later what will be the date.
Hi,
What will b the formula to get the date more than 3 yrs from the present date ?
Example : today is 16-05-2014 (D-M-Y) then three yrs later what will be the date.
@Roken
I would use: =EDATE(A1,36)
Where A1 has your date
or
=EDATE("16/5/2014",36)
or
=EDATE(Today(),36)
hi..i want to restrict excel from counting non working time.... so i can prepare end dates for a PROJECT if i have total working hours required for my project..
thank for reply if any....
Hi,
Good Morning,
Please use the formula for the below mentioned format in excel.
Formula :- =TEXT(H3,"dd-mmmm-yyyy").
Format :- 17-September-2014
I'm an evaluator and i evaluate about 20 people everymonth between 6-10 times each depending on their performance. i track my work in excel by adding the dates i did each peorson. The only rule that i have its that i cant evaluate a person back to back so i have to wait at least one day in between each evaluation. is there a formula where excel would not allow me to enter a date if its one day after the date of the cell to the left?
@Andres
To add one day to a an existing date
=Date + 1
=A10+1
Could anyone please help me. I have not been able to find a format that I need. I need to subtract a value everyday. Example. If I have 365 dollars and I would like Excell to subtract 1 dollar everyday for a year I would have 0 dollars left at the end. Or even 7 dollars a week would work for me. Could anyone please help me on this formula. Thanks
@Jayson
If you have the value 365 in cell A2
In A3 enter: =A2-1
Then copy A3 down 364 cells
Is there a simple way (no function) to define a formula in a cell like =F(22/08/2014) ?
Currently, i put the date 22/08/2014 in a cell eg. B2 and do my formula a =F(B2).
Thanks
Hai,
I am sathis Kumar , i want to subtract two dates in xl sheet from 05/11/2013 to 30/04/2014 . now i want two days between how many month
DOJ DOL Experince
01/11/2013 05/06/2014 = (05/06/2014 - 01/11/2013)
@Boostsathis
Put your two Dates into separate cells A1 and A2
Then simply =A2-A1
Thank u ,
I try but (30-04-14(-)5-11-13) = 176.0 but two days between months 6 only , what a formula
5-Nov-2013 30-Apr-2014 = 176.00
boostsathis.....
@Boostsathis
Try: =DATEDIF(A1,A2,"ym")
Refer: http://www.cpearson.com/excel/datedif.aspx
Sir, I am trying to figure out how I can prevent user to enter duplicate date (in a pre booking template). The conditions are
1) User A can put a single date or a date range
2) Other user can't pick any day in between whatever user A had chosen
3) A date picker calendar always shows only next 20 days date
Can you please help me
thanks in advance
Dear Sir,
I am trying to update a 2014 historical facts calendar (It has a fact for every day of the entire year.) to reflect the new dates and days of the week for 2015. Is there a single formula I can enter to shift the dates ahead for the entire annual calendar, or do I need to execute a formula at each month's start? Either way, I am also in need of a formula to achieve this.
Thanks for your help.
[…] Date with my sheet – 10 tips on using date / time in excel – Excel date time features are very handy and knowing them a little in depth can help you save a ton of time in your day to day spreadsheet chores…. […]
sir, suppose a date are given in a cell A1 = 20/04/2013... and suppose I want to add 10 years or 10 years and 07 month then how can I add the above ........ so that I Show 21/04/2023..... please justifiee.. sir...
@Lalit
If A1 has a date 20/04/2013
simply
=A1+date(10,0,0) for +10 Years
=A1+date(10,7,0) for +10 Years, 7 Months
=A1+date(10,7,5) for +10 Years, 7 Months 5 days etc
@Lalit
If you want to be more precise
=A1+date(0,120,0) for +10 Years
=A1+date(0,127,0) for +10 Years, 7 Months
=A1+date(0,127,5) for +10 Years, 7 Months 5 days etc
and suppose... tow dates are given .. 20/04/2013 and 27/08/2003.. then how can seprate (-) kare so that the answer should be return in month.. ... it anser of both question are possible to sent the mention email then pls sent the answer in mention e-mail... .. I shall be highly obeliged ...
Dear Sir,
What is the formula using the Data Validation function at excel, to restrict a cell to accept only 2 days of the months (1st and 16th of the month)? Appreciate your kind help. Thanks.
Hi Pro, i want to find day if given date and weekday. example : Given Tuesday, 31week, 2015 year. Result is 28/7/2015, pls help me!
[…] Date and Time Formulas […]
please help
i trying to write a formula for dates
i have a initial date and i am trying to auto populate for 6 months out and one for 9 months out and have the 6 months out change color and when it is 9 months out change another color
please help
I have an Excel workbook for Study room bookings and within it I have 6 worksheets Monday thru Saturday. Without having to create 365 worksheets with individual dates on them what formula can I print these worksheets with the dates for the remaining days of the year automatically populated or is it possible?
Is there a way to take 2 dates and subtract the newest date from the oldest to get the number of days difference? I tried the one that it says on this page but it didn't work.
@Elyse
I would use =ABS(A1-A2)
That way it doesn't matter which date is oldest
The cell should be formatted as [d]
how to highlight days a month which is greater than 10th of every month
Hi,
How can 1 cell can put 2 dates by date format.
I have the problem of 1 customer make 2 times payment.
I can only record as 01/06/2016 & 02/06/16.
The problem is when i filter that cell can't appear
@Jenny
It is poor practice to store multiple records in one cell
It is much easier to store multiple records ion multiple rows
That also allows flexibility in reporting
When entering data in a record that is mostly similar to the record above, you can use the Ctrl+D shortcut, This duplicates the cell directly above you speeding up data entry
Hello,
Could you please tell me the solution to this? I have spent months, years, looking for it...
When I press ctrl+; to enter the date in a cell, I want it to enter d/M/yy. My short date in windows regional settings is d/M/yy. Excel enters d/M/yyyy. The cells must be formatted as text they cannot be formatted as date. I do not want to have to macro-enable my workbooks, There must be a setting in the registry to set this?
Alternatively, how can I assign that key to my own shortcut for a macro to enter NOW with custom date format? Can't find that either!
I hope you can help!
Many thanks
how to shift date to the next working day if time goes after the working hour. if cell a1 has reference date and time i.e. 04/02/2017 12:30:00
and cell b1 has working duration i.e. 7 hours . it shows in cell C3 04/02/2017 19:30:00 but 19:30:00 is not our working time. i want to show the value of plan date as 05/02/2017 11:30:00 . working time id 09:00:00 to 17:00:00
Thanks
No Comments at this time
I have to develop Calendar in Excel considering Monday being the First day of week . How I can develop the same ? Please provide me guidance .
Hi Chandoo!
I export incident data daily to Excel 2016 and the dates are text (e.g. 8 Apr 2018). I changed cell to short date field format, but it still recognises this as text until I 'F2' then 'Enter' in each cell. Is there a more efficient way to do this; I have 3 columns of dates and about 1000 lines of data.
I need it to be dates so I can then create pivot tables and charts from the data.
Many thanks,
Kirst.
Hi Kirst
You can use Data-Text To Column to change one column at a time.
You only need to change the Column Data Format - Date to DMY and click Finish.
Thank you very much!
some things I find useful:
INT this will give you the date part of a datetime field
MOD this will give you the time part of a datetime field
if you had
21/06/2018 10:25:00
in cell a1
then =INT(A1) would give you 21/06/2018
and = mod(a1,0) would give you 10:25:00
oSUM!
The most important thing is if you do any calculations you need to be careful, given the vagaries of floating point math.
e.g. depending on the day you choose, 4pm minus 3pm may be less than, equal to, or greater than one hour.
Results in some infuriatingly subtle bugs when you forget!
Wow! Came here from India's top blogs and this is superb! For some reason, dates have always confounded me in Excel and this was exactly what I needed - esp the section on adding and subtracting dates. Thanks a ton!
Hi,
I have a mixed combinations of date format in one column i.e. 'dd/mm/yy' and 'mm/dd/yy'. How do I make them all in the same format, either all in 'dd/mm/yy' format, or all 'mm/dd/yy' format? Thanks in advance!
@Kale
Select the whole range
Then apply a Custom Number format (Ctrl+1)
want to conditional format and highlight all sunday and only second and fourth saturday in the list of given dates
Hey
have can i work with this time format
tt:mm:ss,000
I want to develop a formula that will enter a an(hour and minute-not to change) in a cell when any data is entered in another specific cell. This will be used to determine lengths of time between three events
Thanks,
Tom
I need to input in Excel formula for the date as follow: 2019/2020. The period for each year is July - June. I would need a formula that can change each period.
I need to input in Excel formula for the date as follow: 2019/2020. The period for each year is July - June. I would need a formula that can change each period.
The formula for date to change each year November 1, Year.
Hi,
Option 1 is very much helpful for me.
I look this type of formula on google since many times but not satisfied.
Finally I found it.
Thank you ?so much,
Kamlesh Dantani
Great website. These excel formulas, not just this page, have been super helpful while going through old spreadsheets and finding data. Thanks for the info.
Very informative. Date functions are very important. I frequently visit your articles...awesome. Go ahead.
Nice content, keep sharing with us.
Hi Chandoo,
Need a small help to build a formula where we can show the date of Monday i.e. start of week date from time stamp for eg "3/2/2022 9:21 PM" or either from "Week 10'2022" where Week is for entire year i.e till week 52/53 and "2022" represents the year
Thanks in advance
Best
Sid
Hello,
is the format of date case sensitive dd and DD are the same???