This is the third post in the Gamification + Excel Training series, and in this post we talk about challenges. One component of our gamification strategy is to encourage competition by hosting challenges. In general, competition is motivating and can help people push themselves to accomplish more. So, it is an element used in our […]
In the second post in our Gamificaiton + Excel Training series, we’ll talk about another fun element used in our training pass: Breakout Puzzles. My family enjoys going to Escape Rooms, and if you haven’t been to one, I’d recommend checking it out. In summary, you go to the Escape Room and they lock you […]
This is the first post in a new Gamification + Excel Training series, where we’ll talk about how gamification is used to motivate students to learn Excel. What is gamification? In summary, it is the use of game design and mechanics to help people achieve their objectives. It is applied in many areas today, from […]
In this post, we’ll discuss one approach for retrieving the first occurrence (or min date) after a specified date. Let me back up. Michael asked for a way to find the first occurrence of an office visit (a date) after the date of being discharged from the hospital (and within 30 days). As this is […]
My Excel-friend John Michaloudis has compiled a podcast with tips from 18 Excel experts and MVPs. He does this annually, and this year he has put together a great collection of tips. This year, you’ll hear tips from: John Michaloudis Jeff Lenning Bill Jelen Mynda Treacy Chandoo Kasper Langmann Alan Murray Jon Acampora Danielle Stein […]
This post will demonstrate how to insert the same few items into a list and create a new row for each item (or each combination, if multiple items). For example, let’s say we have a list of some sort … we’ll use a list of T-Shirts for this illustration. We have a few T-Shirt options […]
Flash Fill is a marvelous feature that is designed to fill values down based on an example in an adjacent column. That is, you have a column of values and then you enter an example of a derived value in an adjacent column. Flash Fill attempts to recognize the pattern from your example and then […]
In this post, we’ll discuss a way to simulate using VLOOKUP to return multiple matching rows and/or columns. What do you mean by “simulate” Jeff? Well, VLOOKUP is designed to return a single value, not multiple values. That is, VLOOKUP scans down the lookup range and stops at the first matching row … ignoring any […]
In this, our final analysis, we will briefly recap each of the 8 rounds and confirm we understand the key differences between these two incredible functions. Then, we’ll confirm we know when and how to apply each in practice. Let’s get to it. Winner? So, which function is better? Which one should we always use? […]
When Microsoft released XLOOKUP, they also released XMATCH. XMATCH hasn’t received as much attention as XLOOKUP, so I wanted to talk about it here. In summary, it is similar to the legacy MATCH function we’ve been using for decades, but it receives similar enhancements introduced with XLOOKUP. Let’s get to it. XMATCH Before we get […]