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Tag: Learn Excel

Sumerian Voter Problem [IF formula homework]

Here is a simple IF formula challenge for you. Go ahead and post your answers in the comments section. Can this person vote in Sumeria? Imagine you are the chief election officer in the great country of Sumeria. You have introduced a new eligibility criteria for voters just before the grand presidential elections of 2016. In order […]

Figure out slot from given time [quick tip]

Here is an interesting scenario.

Let’s say you are looking at a time, like 9:42 AM and want to know which 15 minute slot it fits into. The answer is 9:30 – 9:45. But how would you get this answer thru Excel formulas?

CP054: Top 10 Pivot Table Tricks for YOU

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In the 54th session of Chandoo.org podcast, let’s make you awesome in Pivot Tables.

What is in this session?

In this podcast,

  • Quick updates
  • Top 10 pivot table tricks
    • Adding same value field twice
    • Tabular layouts
    • GETPIVOTDATA & 2 bonus tricks
    • Relationships & data model
    • One slicer to rule them all
    • Show only top x values
    • Relative performance
    • Show unique count
    • Spruce up with conditional formats
    • Not so ugly pivot charts
  • Resources & Show notes for you

A slicer that doesn’t slice [Pivot Table Tricks]

Mary Ellen, one of our readers, has an interesting conundrum,

I have some data that goes to Pivot table then to pivot chart. There is a slicer to filter the data. But when I slice, my pivot chart gets messed up. How to have the slicer, but still see the insights in the chart?!?

See above demo to understand:

This is because when you slice by a school, the pivot table gets filtered and hence % row total for that school becomes 100% (as there are no other schools).

How to fix the problem? The easy answer is to remove the slicers. But we want to have our slicers and eat a slice of them too. So we crank up the Excel awesomeness valve and get to work. There are two ways to achieve what we want.

  • Old school method: Two pivot tables, some formulas & a line chart
  • New Excel method: Power Pivot and a line chart

Read the rest of this article to know more.

These icons are so pretty, can I get them in green? [conditional formatting trick]

One of our readers emailed this question recently,

I like the conditional formatting icons. I am trying to present some business data where going down is good. How do I get a green colored down arrow icon?

Essentially, Ms. CanIGetItInGreen wants this:

Unfortunately, Excel’s conditional formatting icons are not customizable. So we can’t get the green down arrows without some sneak. And sneak we shall.

Unpivot and then pivot for clarity (case study)

Or more appropriately titled, the one where Power Query solves the problem in less time than it takes you to say Get & Transform Data.

Recently, one of my students Mr. K, sent me a pivot table problem.

Today my boss asked me “how much we paid to staff since the inception of our business with their respective date of joining?” He wanted to know, level wise summary of the last 16 years (on Quarterly / Year wise basis).

The records appended from the database month wise. Have a look to the file and give your ideas.

Mr. K’s data looked like above.