All articles with 'downloads' Tag

Project Managers often report financial numbers to the management. In a dynamic world, these numbers are usually based on a lot of factors that may or may not be under your control. So the top management demands that the numbers be reported as per different economic scenarios – Optimistic, Normal or Pessimistic. It is important […]

One of the most dreaded courses during my under-graduation is Probability, Statistics & Queuing Theory. We called it PSQT. I struggled to understand the significance and concept of this course as I could barely concentrate in the class. We had a professor, who is probably a genius, but the moment he started the class, I would magically fall in to one of my after-noon naps. When I woke up, we are either in the middle of an elaborate t-test or going thru intricacies of a Markovian queue.

This was all 11 years ago. Later in life, I have embraced the world of probability & statistics. I still fear queues. May be I will get there one day. 😉

A good understanding of statistics & probability theory is necessary if you want to model complex real-life problems using Excel or similar tools. Naturally, Excel has several functions, features & supported add-ins to help you in this area.

Today, I want to share some of this with you. This article is broken down in to 3 parts.

1. Learning Statistics & Probability using Excel
2. Downloadable Excel Workbooks to understand
3. Full blown models & simulations in Excel

We love to compare. The instinct to compare leaves no one. Even my two year old twins compare their toys with each other (and fight).

It would make Excel hugely popular if Microsoft builds a handy data comparison tool right in to it. Alas, they have customizable ribbon, 3d effects & equation editor…

Since comparison is one of the main uses of Excel, we have written extensively about it here.

But there is always one more interesting comparison problem. Today, I want to share one such problem, based on a comment left by N-Man.

Count How Many Times a List of Values Occurs in a Range
(or How Can I Simplify My Formula)

Today in Formula Forensics we look at how to count how many times a range of values occurs within a Range of cells and in the process simplify a very nasty formula.

This series of articles will give you an overview of how to manage spreadsheet risk. These articles are written by Myles Arnott from Excel Audit Part 1: An Introduction to managing spreadsheet risk Part 2: How companies can manage their spreadsheet risk Part 3: Excel’s auditing functions Part 4: Using external software packages to manage […]

A common Forum Post question and one that Chandoo has written about a few times is, Does my data overlap with another range?

This week Formula Forensics examines Pradhishnair’s Overlapping Chaninage Problem where he wants to know if two values overlap with a range of other values

Not that I have friggatriskaidekaphobia or anything. But since today is Friday & 13th, lets put our Excel skills to test and find out when the next Friday the 13th is going to be.

Here is something fun, personalized and delicious to start your new year. A Picture Calendar built in Excel!

Using this you can print a 12 month calendar with your own photos. Its fun to use, easy to set up and looks great. Read more to understand how this works & download the template.

Here is a new year gift to all our readers – free 2012 Excel Calendar Template.

This calender has,

» One page full calendar with notes, in 4 different color schemes
» 1 Mini calendar
» Monthly calendar (prints to 12 pages)
» Works for any year, just change year in Full tab.

Go ahead and download the FREE 2012 Calendar and Enjoy.

Last year, Steven shared a beautiful Christmas Gift List template with all of us. It is packed with lots of Excel goodness. Just a few days ago, he emailed me another copy of his file with some improvements. So if you are planning for Christmas shopping and want a handy tracker, you don’t want to miss this.

Today we publish what is hopefully the First of many posts by guest author Luke M. it is also the Third post in the Formula Forensics series, which has now moved to a regular and new Thursday slot ?

Luke has taken up Hui’s and 3G’s challenge of explaining how the technique he regularly uses on the Chandoo.org Forums for extracting individual records out of a group.

Today Luke tells us how to extract a list of items from a larger list according to some criteria.

Today, lets learn how to create small-multiples (or panel charts) to visualize trend of 2 product lines over years in various regions. The inspiration for this chart and article came from my friend, Paresh‘s recent article on his blog.

See how you can create a combination of area & line chart to create the small-multiple chart and clone it. You can also download the workbook and play with it to understand this technique better.

While I was away, Hui did a splendid job of starting a new series called Formula Forensics. The idea is to break down formulas for difficult real-world problems so that we can understand them better. In that spirit, I am giving you an interesting and tough formula homework. Situation: Imagine you work for Large Fries […]

Comparison is one of the most common things we do with Excel. Naturally, there are so many ways to compare 2 lists of data using Excel.

Today, I want to share an interesting comparison problem with you.

Lets say you run a small shop which sells some highly specialized products. Now, since your products require quite some training before customers can buy them, you keep track of all product queries and arrange demos.

After a hectic week, you are staring at 2 lists. One with product queries, another with product demos. And you want to know whether all the queries are answered with a demo or not.

Splitting an Excel file in to many is easier than splitting bill in a restaurant among friends. All you need is advanced filters, a few lines of VBA code and some data. You can go splitting in no time.

Context:

Lets say you have lots of data like this in a file. And you want to split this in to multiple files, one per salesperson.

Solution – Split Data in to Multiple Files using Advanced Filters & VBA

The process of splitting data can be broken down to 4 steps …,