Excel University Blog

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Create Dynamic Rows for an Amortization Schedule with Power Query

By Jeff Lenning | June 19, 2018 |

Sometimes in Excel, we want to use formulas to compute row values, but, the number of rows is dynamic and changes periodically. For example, let’s say we want to create an amortization schedule and use it for a variety of loans. Some loans are paid in 36 months, some in 120 months, and some in…

Power Query and Zip Code Formatting

By Jeff Lenning | June 12, 2018 |

Power Query is an amazing tool, and I love learning about it. In the Power Query Editor, as you click the command icons, Excel is actually writing M code behind the scenes. M code has many more functions than are available in the ribbon. So, the thing to keep in mind is that if you…

Split Delimited List into Rows

By Jeff Lenning | June 6, 2018 |

This is the second of two related posts that demonstrate how to use Power Query to deal with rows and delimited lists. In the first post, we combined rows into a delimited list. In this post, we’ll do the opposite and convert a delimited list into rows. Well, what are we waiting for … let’s…

Combine Rows into a Delimited List

By Jeff Lenning | May 31, 2018 |

This is the first of two related posts that demonstrate how to use Power Query to deal with rows and delimited lists. In this first post, we’ll combine rows into a delimited list. In the second post, we’ll do the opposite and convert a delimited list into rows. Well, what are we waiting for ……

Power Pivot CalCPA Article

By Jeff Lenning | May 16, 2018 | Comments Off on Power Pivot CalCPA Article

I’m assuming you love PivotTables. I mean, who doesn’t, right? Well, traditional PivotTables are amazing, but they’re not without limits. Instead of using a traditional table as the PivotTable source, you can take your PivotTables to the next level when you use Power Pivot instead. In this California CPA Magazine article, I talk about a…

Set Default PivotTable Layout Options

By Jeff Lenning | April 5, 2018 |

If you use PivotTables often, you’ve probably wished there was a way to set default PivotTable layout options. For example, if you prefer Tabular instead of the default Compact, it sure would be nice if all new PivotTables used the Tabular layout. Well, depending on the version of Excel you have, you may in fact be…

Compute Age from Dates

By Jeff Lenning | March 21, 2018 |

In this post, I answer a question from Emmanuel who asked how to compute the age when given a list of birth dates. We want the solution to be dynamic, so that it is easy to update the age calculation going forward. Since this is Excel, there are many ways to accomplish this. In this…

VLOOKUP on Multiple Columns and Return Text

By Jeff Lenning | March 15, 2018 |

You want to perform a lookup with VLOOKUP, but, there are multiple lookup columns. So, what are you supposed to do? Combine them into a single lookup column? That is certainly one option, but, as with just about anything in Excel, there are multiple ways. In a previous post, I showed one way to do…

PivotTable from Many CSV Files

By Jeff Lenning | March 7, 2018 |

In this post, we’ll summarize data from multiple CSV files with a PivotTable. Specifically, we’ll use a Get & Transform query (Power Query) to retrieve and prepare data from numerous CSV files. Then, we’ll send the query results into the data model (Power Pivot). Then, we’ll build our summary report using a PivotTable based on…

How to Build a PivotTable with the Data Model

By Jeff Lenning | February 22, 2018 |

Traditional PivotTables are an incredible feature of Excel, but, they are not without limits. Many of the typical restrictions are removed when you use the data model rather than a single Excel table. If you’d like to learn how to build a PivotTable using the data model, and learn what the data model is, strap…