All articles with 'Microsoft Excel Formulas' Tag

Today, lets learn how to create an interesting chart. This, called as network chart helps us visualize relationships between various people.

Demo of interactive network chart in Excel

First take a look at what we are trying to build.

Looks interesting? Then read on to learn how to create this.

Its homework time again. This time, lets tackle an interesting & everyday problem. Lets introduce our protagonist of the story – Jack. Jack likes long road trips, smell of freshly brewed Colombian coffee, clicky-clack sound of his computer keyboard. He hates toll plazas (they slow him down) & Potassium permanganate. And oh yes, Jack is […]

This is a guest post by Krishna, a football lover & one of our readers.

The wait for lifting the most valued priced in football for Germans was finally over. For a football fan, world cup is best time that is scheduled every four years and that if your favorite team lifting the trophy is like your crush is going on a date with you. 🙂

A sneak-peek at the final dashboard

Here is the final dashboard (it has more functionality than depicted). Click on it to enlarge.

Ok people. Let me tell you that this post is almost not about Excel. It is about how one Excel blogger’s (yours truly) dream of long distance cycling came true. So sit back, grab your favorite drink and read between sips.

So what is this all about?

Last Sunday (27th July) & Monday (28th), I finished my first ever 200KM bicycle ride. I rode for a little more than 12 hours, burned 5,179 calories & rode 206 kilometers.

It is definitely one of the most memorable, tiresome & uplifting experiences in my life. So naturally, I want to share the story with you.

Today lets learn about Excel CHOOSE() function.
CHOOSE eh? What does it do?
To understand CHOOSE() and appreciate its uses, lets invent an imaginary boos-subordinate pair.

Jasmine is the boss. She is, well, lets call her peculiar. She likes olives, Tuesdays & color Red. She hates potatoes.

Martin is the faithful butler of Jasmine. He is obedient, quirky and tall. He likes lotuses, Fridays & color blue. He hates potassium.

Enter Jasmine’s scarf problem:

Jasmine likes to wear a different colored scarf every weekday. She likes to wear Red colored scarf on Mondays & Tuesdays. She likes to put on the blue polka dot scarf on Wednesdays. On Thursdays, she wears her olive colored scarf. On Fridays & Saturdays, she prefers the lovely orange blue scarf. Sundays are no scarf days.

No wonder she is peculiar.

Recently we asked you, what do you struggle doing in Excel? 170 people responded to this survey and shared their struggles. In this post, lets examine the top 10 struggles according to you and awesome remedies for them.

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.

Click on the image to see the entries.

Imagine you are the head of Accounts Receivable department at a large company. Drab, I know, But humor me and imagine.

Now, every month you get a transaction report.

And you want to know which numbers are matching up.

i.e, if your company gave Vendor-0002 $872.34 on 1st of April, 2014 and your received below payments from them subsequently,

• $427.77 on 1st April
• $152.88 on 2nd April
• $291.69 on 2nd April

Then you consider the account matched since the total received is same as total payable.(427.77 + 152.88 + 291.69 = 872.34).

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This is a continuation of Session 9 – Averages are mean

In the earlier episode, we talked about AVERAGE and why it should be avoided. In this session, learn about 8 power analysis techniques that will lift your work above averages.

In this podcast, you will learn,

• Re-cap – Why avoid averages
• 8 Techniques for better analysis
• #1: Start with AVERAGE
• #2: Moving Averages
• #3: Weighted Averages
• #4: Visualize the data
• …
• Conclusions

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In the 9th session of Chandoo.org podcast, lets raise above AVERAGEs.

AVERAGEs are a very popular and universal way to summarize data. But do you know they are mean? Mean as in, AVERAGEs do not reveal much about your data or business. In episode 9 of Chandoo.org podcast, we tackle this problem and present solutions.

In this podcast, you will learn,

• What is AVERAGE?
• Pitfalls of averages
• 5 statistic concepts you must understand
  • Standard Deviation
  • Median
  • Quartiles
  • Outliers
  • Distribution of data
• What next?

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Here is a problem we all face once in a while. We inherit this bulky, bloated, leaking at the edges workbook from a colleague. Now the onus of maintaining it is on us. The person who made this workbook is nowhere to be found. May be she is vacationing in Hawaii sipping pineapple juice. May be he became a vice president and roaming the country in your company’s private jet.

So what do we do? How do we handle this inheritance?

That is the topic of our podcast, episode 8.

In this podcast, you will learn,

• An overview of the inheritance problem
• 6 Tips to understand workbooks made by someone else
• Tip 0: Talk to the creator
• Tip 1: Model the workbook on paper
• Tip 2: Locate the engine, ie the formulas
• Tip 3: See what else is under the hood – hidden sheets, names, VBA code
• Tip 4: Annotate (add comments) as you learn
• Tip 5: Locate the controls – inputs, assumptions, scenarios
• Tip 6: Re-construct from scratch
• Deep dive in to understanding the formulas
• Deep dive in to understanding VBA code
• Conclusions

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In the 7th session of Chandoo.org podcast, lets make you aweSUM().

Imagine for a second that Excel cannot add up numbers. And no it cant subtract them either. What would that look like?

A glorified Notepad. That’s right. Excel’s ability to add up numbers, along with features like formulas, charts, pivot tables & BHATTEXT() are what make it such a lovely software. May be not the BHATTEXT(), but we all agree that Excel is so versatile and useful because it can add up numbers (and perform other calculations) with ease.

But how well do you know the SUM formulas of Excel?

In this podcast, you will learn,

• Special personal fruit announcement 😛
• + operator
• Status bar & total rows in tables
• Auto Sum feature
• SUM() function
• SUMIFS function
• Special cases of SUMIFS function
• SUBTOTAL & AGGREGATE functions
• Other summing functions – SUMPRODUCT etc.

Lets talk about how we can use Excel to calculate Compounded Annual Growth Rate (CAGR for short).

What is CAGR? What does it signify?

Let us say you are the CEO of ACME Inc. You have been selling various widgets since 2009. In your latest annual report you want to tell your shareholder at what rate you have been growing ACME Inc. sales. The figure are,

• 2009 – $150 Mn
• 2010 – $125 Mn
• 2011 – $160 Mn
• 2012 – $174 Mn
• 2013 – $195 Mn
• 2014 – $210 Mn

Now, if you see the growth rates, they are all over the place. Right from -16.67% to 28%. But you want to report a single annual growth rate.

This is where CAGR (Compounded Annual Growth Rate) comes handy.

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In the 6th session of Chandoo.org podcast, we focus on making you a better analyst and propose a road map for getting better at data analysis & improving your career prospects.

In this podcast you will learn,

• Why become a better analyst?
• The road map for becoming a better analyst – BETTER framework
• B for Business Knowledge
• E for Examining user needs
• T for Thinking about analysis
• T for Tools of Trade ie Excel
• E for Expression
• R for Refining yourself
• Conclusions

Last week we learned how to answer questions like, “How many tiles in a room?” using Excel. We learned about CONVERT function and fraction number format settings in Excel.

But why stop at calculation? We can even model a room full of tiles, thanks to Excel’s grid nature.

So today, we will learn how to create a room layout as shown above, using Excel.