All articles with 'tutorials' Tag

Calculating elapsed time is very common whether you are managing a project or raising a baby. Elapsed time is nothing but interval between a starting point and the current point in time. We can use excel formulas to calculate elapsed time very easily. In this post, learn how to calculate elapsed time in days, working days, hours, weeks, months, years, minutes and seconds.

Tracking issues and risks is where most of the project management time goes. Once the project planning and organizing activities are in good shape, most of the project management activities are around risk management and issue tracking. In this installment of project management using excel, we will learn how to create a simple issue tracker template using excel and how to analyze issues using excel.

Yesterday we have posted how to use excel combo charts to group related time events. Today we will learn how to change the event grouping dynamically using form controls.

This effect can be easily achieved with a cup of coffee, one combo box form control and the good old IF formula. Read more to learn how to do this.

In his latest book, Now You See It, on pages 165 and 166 of the book, Stephen Few discusses how grouping related time intervals can facilitate analysis of data. As an illustration he explains that when viewing data of daily website visits, it helps in separating weekdays and weekends to differentiate expected traffic during these periods. The use of this technique would make it easier for the analyst to identify any anomalous movement in ether the weekend or the week day.

Fortunately excel combo charts can help you do that. In this guest post, Paresh explains to us how to do this.

Last week we have posted a simple to understand excel pivot table tutorial here. Today I am going to supplement the tutorial with a 15 second video tutorial on Making excel pivot tables.

We all know that incell charts are a very cool way to explore and visualize data. Personally I like them so much that I have written several tutorials on it here. Today we will see how a Job dashboard on “50 best cities for finding a job” originally prepared by Indeed job search engine can be recreated in Excel using In-cell charts. The final outcome is something like this.

Timesheets are like TPS reports of any project. Team members think of them as an annoying activity. For managers, timesheets are a vital component to understand how team is working and where the effort is going. By using Microsoft Excel capabilities you can create a truly remarkable timesheet tracking tool.

In this installment of project management using excel series, we will learn 3 things about timesheets and resource management using Excel
1. How to setup a simple timesheet template in excel?
2. How to make a more robust timesheet tracker tool in Excel?
3. How to use the timesheet data to make a resource loading chart?

In this installment of spreadcheats, we will learn how to use goal seek feature of excel. We will build a retirement savings calculator using excel. We will learn to use Excel’s FV() formula to estimate the corpus that can be accumulated by saving fixed amount every month.

A burn down chart is a good way to understand the progress of a project. It is like a run chart that describes work left to do versus time. In this tutorial we will learn how to make a burn down chart using excel. This is a bonus installment to the project management using excel series.

The other day I was watching Formula 1 on TV. I think it is the ideal game to follow for a lazy dude like me. It is on every other weekend. It takes .32 seconds to understand the game and 3.2 seconds to know the points and scoring mechanism. But I am not here to convince you to follow the game. While looking at score boards, it struck me,

“how about writing excel formulas for sorting a list of durations (or numbers) in the formula 1 order?”

It is the customer on the phone again, she wants to know what products we have.
How cool would it be if we can send her a spreadsheet with all the products neatly listed in a table and she can use filters to find what she likes. Alas, we end up sending a biggish PDF brochure that is both difficult to make and maintain.

Well, not any more.

Today we will learn a very useful and fun trick in Excel. We will create a product catalog using Excel that you can send to your clients or boss (and impress them).

Learn how to create a timeline chart in excel to display the progress of your project. Timelines are a good way to communicate about the project status to new team members and stake holders. Also, download the excel timeline chart template and make your own timeline charts.

Two most commonly asked or searched queries when it comes to charting are,

• How to combine two chart types in one chart, like a line chart combined with bar chart?
• How to add a secondary axis to the chart so that one or more data series are plotted on the secondary axis?

Watch this video tutorial to learn how to do both in less than 15 seconds.

Watch it on youtube: Creating combination charts and adding secondary axis – video tutorial

In today’s installment of project management using excel, we will learn about project tracking tool – to-do lists. Projects are nothing but a group of people getting together and achieving an objective – like building system or constructing a bridge. While it is important to have a overall project plan and vision, it is equally important to understand how various day to day project activities are going on. This is where to do lists can help you a lot. Read on…

This is a 6 part tutorial on project management using microsoft excel. These posts represent few of the things related to project management using excel that I have learned over the years. The first installment deals with Preparing & tracking a project plan using Gantt Charts in MS Excel.

The other parts I am planning are, Day to day operations – using to do lists, Preparing a project time line, Time sheets and Resource management, Tracking issues and risks, Project Status Reporting – Dashboard.

Read the first part of the article to learn how to make excel gantt charts / project plans.