A while ago, we published a new year resolution template. This was a hit with our readers with thousands of you downloading it. During last week, Peppe, one of our readers from Italy, took this template and made it even more awesome.
The original template had tasks and completion check marks. As you finish each task, you can see overall progress too.
Peppe added priorities to this. With his new version, progress is measured based on how much priority we assigned that particular task. Pretty neat eh?!?
Personal Todo list with Priorities – Demo
First take a look at Peppe’s todo list.
How is this made?
Using lots of Excel goodness of course. The basic components of this todo list are,
- Check boxes – to mark each activity as done (or not done)
- Data validation – to assign priority (1 to 5) to each activity
- Conditional Formatting – to highlight a row when the activity is marked as done
- Thermo-meter chart – to show the progress as you mark each activity done
- Formulas – to calculate % done based on how many activities are done & their priorities.
Since first 4 items are already explained on Chandoo.org, let me focus on the formula part.
Calculating % completion based on priorities:
To understand this problem, lets imagine, we have 5 tasks & priorities like below:
Step 1: Calculating weights
First step is to calculate how much weight each task should get. This is a simple job of inverting priority values (1/priority value). We will get this.
Step 2: Calculate weights to 100%
Next, we adjust the weights so that their total is 100%. To do this, we just divide a task’s weight by total of all task weights.
Step 3: Calculate % done only if a task is marked as done
Now, we just use TRUE / FALSE values generated by the check boxes to calculate % done. For this, we just need to multiply 100% weights with TRUE or FALSE values.
The total of this column gives us how much % of all tasks are done.
Note on weights for priorities
In this approach, we are assuming that doing one priority 1 task gives same output (%done) as doing two priority 2 tasks, three priority 3 tasks etc.
That means the weight enjoyed by priority 1 task is twice that of priority 2 task.
Some other possibilities are,
- Priority 1 is 1, 2 is 0.8, 3 is 0.6…
- A mapping table telling us how much each priority weighs
Read weighted averages in Excel to understand more.
Download this todo list template
Click here to download this template and chase that todo list in style. Examine the formulas in hidden column to understand this better.
Thank you Peppe
I find this template quite simple, yet powerful. It shows how much we can do with Excel by using a little creativity, simple features (conditional formatting, form controls etc.) and a some motivation.
Peppe, Thank you so much for sharing this with us.
If you enjoyed this todo list template, go ahead and say thanks to Peppe.
Also, use comments to share how you handle to dos & pending tasks using Excel. Share your tips & ideas with all of us.
Update
Over in the Chandoo.org Forums, Asshu has updated this witha VB Interface
Have a look and use if from: http://chandoo.org/forum/threads/to-do-list-vb-interface.28973/
More todo lists: Simple todo list in Excel, To do lists & Project Management
13 Responses to “Using pivot tables to find out non performing customers”
To avoid the helper column and the macro, I would transpose the data into the format shown above (Name, Year, Sales). Now I can show more than one year, I can summarize - I can do many more things with it. ASAP Utilities (http://www.asap-utilities.com) has a new experimental feature that can easily transpose the table into the correct format. Much easier in my opinion.
David
Of course with alternative data structure, we can easily setup a slicer based solution so that everything works like clockwork with even less work.
David, I was just about to post the same!
In Contextures site, I remember there's a post on how to do that. Clearly, the way data is layed out on the very beginning is critical to get the best results, and even you may thinkg the original layout is the best way, it is clearly not. And that kind of mistakes are the ones I love ! because it teaches and trains you to avoid them, and how to think on the data structure the next time.
Eventually, you get to that place when you "see" the structure on the moment the client tells you the request, and then, you realized you had an ephiphany, that glorious moment when data is no longer a mistery to you!!!
Rgds,
Chandoo,
If the goal is to see the list of customers who have not business from yearX, I would change the helper column formula to :
=IF(selYear="all",sum(C4:M4),sum(offset(C4:M4,,selyear-2002,1,columns(C4:M4)-selyear+2002)))This formula will sum the sales from Selected Year to 2012.
JMarc
If you are already using a helper column and the combox box runs a macro after it changes, why not just adjust the macro and filter the source data?
Regards
I gotta say, it seems like you are giving 10 answers to 10 questions when your client REALLY wants to know is: "What is the last year "this" customer row had a non-zero Sales QTY?... You're missing the forest for the trees...
Change the helper column to:
=IFERROR(INDEX(tblSales[[#Headers],[Customer name]:[Sales 2012]],0,MATCH(9.99999999999999E+307,tblSales[[#This Row],[Customer name]:[Sales 2012]],1)),"NO SALES")
And yes, since I'm matching off of them for value, I would change the headers to straight "2002" instead of "Sales 2002" but you sort the table on the helper column and then and there you can answer all of your questions.
Hi thanks for this. Just can't figure out how you get the combo box to control the pivot table. Can you please advise?
Cheers
@Kevin.. You are welcome. To insert a combo box, go to Developer ribbon > Insert > form controls > combo box.
For more on various form controls and how to use them, please read this: http://chandoo.org/wp/2011/03/30/form-controls/
Thanks Chandoo. But I know how to insert a combobox, I was more referring to how does in control the year in the pivot table? Or is this obvious? I note that if I select the Selected Year from the PivotTable Field List it says "the field has no itens" whereas this would normally allow you to change the year??
Thanks again
worked it out thanks...
when =data!Q2 changes it changes the value in column N:N and then when you do a refreshall the pivottable vlaues get updated
Still not sure why PivotTable Field List says “the field has no itens"?? I created my own pivot table and could not repeat that.
Hi, I put the sales data in range(F5:P19) and added a column D with the title 'Last sales in year'. After that, in column D for each customer, the simple formula
=2000+MATCH(1000000,E5:P5)
will provide the last year in which that particular customer had any sales, which can than easily be managed by autofilter.
Somewhat longer but perhaps a bit more solid (with the column titles in row 4):
=RIGHT(INDEX($F$4:$P$19,1,MATCH(1000000,F5:P5)),4)
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