All articles with 'Microsoft Excel Formulas' Tag

In this episode of Formula Forensics, lets talk about how to build a model where costs vary per year and age. In this example, we are talking about a plantation project. The costs & yields of plants vary by the year they are planted in and the age of plants. In this case, how do we calculate the total costs or returns with formulas?

Here is a handy trick to calculate last day of any month.

Assuming y and m contain the year & month for which you want to find the last day’s date, write

=DATE(y, m+1,0)

That is right, you can use ZERO (0) as the day.

When you do this, Excel tells us the last day of previous month.

Lets talk about people who inspire us. People who show us that anything is possible. People who prove that commitment, hard work and perseverance are true ingredients of a genius.

I am talking about Sachin Tendulkar. Those of you who never heard his name, he is the most prolific cricketer in the world. He is the leading scorer in both tests (15,921 runs) and one day matches (18,426 runs). Read more about him here.

Tendulkar has been an inspiration for me (and millions of others around the world) since I was a kid. The amount of dedication & excellence he has shown constantly motivates me. It is a pity that the great man is retiring from test cricket. He is playing his last test match (200th, most by any person) as I am writing this.

So as a small tribute, I have decided do something for him. Of course, I have never been a cricketer in my life. Once in college I was reluctantly asked to be a stand-by player in a game with seniors. I did not get a chance to pad up though. That is the closest I have been to a cricketer. So I did what I do best. Create an Excel workbook celebrating Sachin’s test career.

Thank you Sachin – his test career in a dashboard

Here is a dashboard I made visualizing his test cricket statistics. It is dynamic, fun & awesome (just like Sachin).

(click on the image to enlarge)

Often in my work, I need to replace a bunch of formulas with values. Blame it on old habits, but this is what I used to do:

1. Copy the cells with formulas (CTRL+C)
2. Press ALT+ESV and then enter.

While this is ok, it does take quite a bit of time and key strokes.

Here is a shorter way I recently learned…

Today lets close some gaps.

Recently I saw this interesting chart on Economist Daily Charts page. This chart is based on World Economic Forum’s survey on how women compare to men in terms of various development parameters. First take a look at the chart prepared by Economist team.

So what are the gaps in this chart?

This chart fails to communicate because,

• All country charts look same, thus making it difficult to spot any deviations.
• We cannot quickly compare one country with another on any particular indicator.
• It does not provide a better context (for eg. how did these countries perform last year?)

But criticizing someone’s work is not awesome. Fixing it and making an even better chart, that has awesome written all over it. So that is what we are going to do. You can see the improved chart above. Click on it to learn how you can create it.

Hi folks,

What a night it has been. Unlike hi-fi product launches for a new perfume or car, my book launch did not have hot models or unlimited champagne. And yet, last 18 hours has been an intense and lovely experience. And finally,

My book is out.

You can purchase a copy thru Amazon or our website.

Go ahead and get your copy today.

Keen readers of Chandoo.org would have noticed a slow down in new posts recently. There are a few reasons for that.

• I went to Malaysia to conduct Excel Dashboards & Power Pivot masterclass.
• After coming back, we (our family) went to Goa to vacation for a few days.
• When we got back, we all fell in to a vicious loop of flu, body pains and fatigue.
• And it took a few days to recover and fall back in to routine.
• But the most important reason is, I am writing a book 🙂

Introducing The Vlookup Book

Friends, readers & supporters of Chandoo.org,

I am very glad to announce my newest book – the vlookup book to help you become awesome in answering any lookup related question.

Click here to get your copy.

Today, let’s travel in time. Pack your photon ray guns, extra underwear, buckle your seat belts and open Excel!

Of course, we are not going to travel in time. (Come to think of it, we are going to travel in time. By the time you finish reading this, you would have traveled a few minutes)

We are going to learn how to travel in time when using Excel. In simple terms, you are going to learn how to move forward or backward in time using Excel formulas.

So are you ready to hit the warp speed? Let’s beam up our Excel time machine.

How to Solve an Equation in Excel

Today lets get cozy. Lets start a fling (a very long one). Lets do something that will make you smart, happy and relaxed.

Don’t get any naughty ideas. I am talking about INDEX() formula.

INDEX?!?

Of all the hundreds of formulas & thousands of features in Excel, INDEX() would rank somewhere in the top 5 for me. It is a versatile, powerful, simple & smart formula. Although it looks plain, it can make huge changes to the way you analyze data, calculate numbers and present them. It is so important that, whenever I teach (live or online), I usually dedicate 25% of teaching time to INDEX().

Enough build up. Lets get cozy with INDEX.

Lets say you have a large list of numbers, and you want to calculate the average of every nth value. Not the average of all numbers, but just every nth number.

That is what we will learn in next few minutes.

Lets say you have a list of employees and their birthdays. Now you want to sort this list, based on their birthday, not age. How would you do it?

Hi folks,

I have a quick announcement & a creative dashboard to share with you. First the announcement.

Only few hours left to join our Power Pivot course…

As you may know, I have opened enrollments for our 2nd batch of Power Pivot course few days ago. The aim of this course is to make you awesome in Excel, Advanced Excel, Dashboards, Power Pivot & Advanced Power Pivot.

We will be closing the doors of this program at midnight, today (11:59 PM, Pacific time, Friday, 16th of August).

If you want to join us, click here and enroll now.

Lets say you are the head of purchasing department at Big Corp Co.

You are obviously very busy. Every day starting with a large cup of coffee and ends with a big smile, as you save your company thousands of $s by negotiating best deals, finding best providers and being awesome.

Today, let me share a small Excel tip with you that will make you even more awesome.

As an analyst (or manager), I bet a good portion of your Excel time is spent writing formulas and getting the results.

So today, let us learn 5 important keyboard shortcuts that will save you a lot of time and help you write better formulas.