All articles with 'MATCH()' Tag

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.

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In the second session of Chandoo.org Podcast, We will be learning how to use 5 Excel lookup functions.

What is in this session?
In this session, we tackle one of the most important areas of Excel. The lookup functions.

You will learn,

• Why lookup functions are necessary
• 5 Important lookup functions in Excel – VLOOKUP, HLOOKUP, LOOKUP, MATCH & INDEX
• When & how to use each of these 5 functions?
• Extreme scenarios:
  • What happens when the value you are looking up is not there?
  • What if too many items match the lookup value?
  • What if you have too many conditions in the lookup criteria?
• Using IFERROR function
• Re-cap of the new powers you acquired
• 4 Resources for you to learn lookup functions better

Blank cells are an invisible pain in the analysis. Dealing with them is frustrating, time consuming and often very complex. At chandoo.org, we are not big fans of blank cells. That is why we wrote:

• How to delete blank cells & rows?
• Dealing with blanks – case study
• Quickly filling blank cells in a table
• Extracting non-blank data from a list

Today, lets talk about one more scenario. Lets say you want to find out the first non-blank item in a list. How would you do it?

Today lets have a poll. Lets debate if this pie chart about world elections in 2014 is good or bad.

First lets take a look at the chart

This chart, published by The Economist talks about how 42% of the world population is going to vote this year. Take a look and read on to learn how you can re-create this in Excel.

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)

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 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.

Welcome back to another gripping episode of “When good formulas go GREAT”.  Just like the immortal combatants in the classic 1986 movie Highlander, over the last three posts in this series our Excel nerds have been locked in an ages-old battle to decapitate. A text-string, that is. Not each other. So far we have seen […]

Last week, we had our very first quiz – “How well do you know your LOOKUPs?”. I hope you have enjoyed it.

Today lets understand the answers & explanations for this quiz.

Today, Formula Forensics examines 3 techniques to determine an interpolated value along a curve.

Few weeks ago, someone asked me “What are the top 10 formulas?” That got me thinking.

While each of us have our own list of favorite, most frequently used formulas, there is no standard list of top 10 formulas for everyone. So, today let me attempt that.

If you want to become a data or business analyst then you must develop good understanding of Excel formulas & become fluent in them.

A good analyst should be familiar with below 10 formulas to begin with.

Today lets tackle a very familiar problem. You have a bunch of very long, complicated file names & paths. Your boss wants a list of files extracted from these paths, like below:

Of course nothing is impossible. You just need correct ingredients. I cannot help you with a strong cup of coffee, so go and get it. I will wait…

Back already? well, lets start the formula magic then.

Today at Formula Forensics, Guest author Sajan shows us how to extract a sorted, unique list of items, displaying the most frequently occurring items first, while restricting the output based on some additional criteria.

After a long time, I am writing one more Excel links post. First let me share a quick personal update.

I am invited to Lome, Togo to spend a day at Ecobank – CFO conference in 3rd week of September. I will be conducting a one day masterclass on Advanced Excel & Dashboard Reporting. I am excited about this trip as I have never been to any African country. I will post some pics and tell you how it went once I am done with the conference.

Moving on to Excel Links for today,

Today Faseeh, from the Chandoo.org Forum, joins Chandoo.org as a contributor with his first post.
Faseeh, helps find a solution to Maljzm’s problem of looking up time values from a list and comparing them to determine if a value meets some criteria.