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Top 10 Formulas for Aspiring Analysts Posted on January 16th, 2013 in Learn Excel - 64 comments

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.

1. SUMIFS Formula

If you listen very carefully, you can hear thousands of managers around the world screaming… “How many x we did in region A, product B, customer type C in month M?” right now. To answer this question without the song and dance of excessive filtering & selecting, you must learn SUMIFS formula.

This magical formula can sum up a set of values that meet several conditions. The syntax of SUMIFS is like this: =SUMIFS( what you want to sumup, condition column 1, condition, condition column 2, condition….) Example: =SUMIFS(sales, regions, “A”, products, “B”, customer types, “C”, month, “M”) Learn more about SUMIFS formula.

2. VLOOKUP Formula Pop quiz time …. Which of the below things would bring world to a grinding halt? A. Stop digging earth for more oil B. Let US jump off the fiscal cliff or hit debt ceiling C. Suddenly VLOOKUP formula stops working in all computers, world-wide, forever If you answered A or B, then its high time you removed your head from sand and saw the world. The answer is C (Well, if all coffee machines in the world unite & miraculously malfunction that would make a mayhem. But thankfully that option is not there)

VLOOKUP formula lets you search for a value in a table and return a corresponding value. For example you can ask What is the name of the customer with ID=C00023 orHow much is the product price for product code =p0089 and VLOOKUP would give you the answers. The syntax for VLOOKUP is simple. =VLOOKUP(what you want to lookup, table, column from which you want the output, is your table sorted? ) Example: =VLOOKUP(“C00023″, customers, 2, false)

Lookup customer ID C00023 in the first column of customers table and return the value from 2nd column. Assume that customers table is not sorted. Click here to learn more about VLOOKUP Formula. Bonus: Comprehensive guide to lookup formulas.

3. INDEX+MATCH Formulas For every 10 people using VLOOKUP, there is someone realizing its most annoying limitation. VLOOKUP formula can only search on left most column. That means, if a table of customers has customer ID in left column and name in right column, when using VLOOKUP, you can search for customer ID only. You cannot ask questions like what is the customer ID of “Samuel Jackson” ? VLOOKUP would choke and bring your Excel world to a grinding halt. Thankfully, INDEX+MATCH formulas come to rescue. These 2 beautiful formulas help us lookup on any column and return corresponding value from any other column. Syntax: =INDEX(list of values, MATCH(what you want to lookup, lookup column, is your lookup column sorted?)) Example: =INDEX(customer IDs, MATCH(“Samuel Jackson”, Customer names, 0) ) Click here to learn more about INDEX & MATCH formulas.

4. IF Formula Q: What do you call a business that does not make a single decision? A: Government! Jokes aside, every business needs to make decisions, even governments!!! So, how do we model these decisions in Excel. Using IF formulas of course. For example, lets say your company decides to give 10% pay hike to all people reading Chandoo.org & 5% hike to rest. Now, how would you express this in Excel? Simple, we write =IF(employee reads Chandoo.org, “10% hike”, “5% hike”) The syntax of IF formula is simple: =IF (condition to test, output for TRUE, output for FALSE) Click here to learn more about IF formulas.

5. Nesting Formulas

Unfortunately, businesses do not make simple decisions. They always complicate things. I mean, have you ever read income tax rules?!? Your head starts spinning by the time you reach 2nd paragraph. To model such complex decisions & situations, you need to nest formulas. Nesting refers to including one formula with in another formula. An example situation: Give 12% hike to employees who read Chandoo.org at least 3 days a week, Give 10% hike to those who read Chandoo.org at least once a week, for the rest give 5% hike. Excel Formula: =IF(number of times employee reads chandoo.org in a week >=3, “12% hike”, IF( number of times employee reads chandoo.org in a week >0, “10% hike”, “5% hike”)) You see what we did above? We used IF formula inside another IF formula. This is nothing but nesting. You can nest any formula inside another formula almost any number of times. Nesting formulas helps us express complex business logic & rules with ease. As an analyst, you must learn the art of nesting. Lots of nested formula examples & explanations here.

6. Basic Arithmetic Expressions =(((123+456)*(789+987)) > ((123-456)/(789-987)))^3 & " time I saw a tiger" If you read the above expression and not had to scratch your head once, then you are on way to become an awesome analyst. Most people jump in to Excel formulas without first learning various basic operators & expressions. Fortunately, learning these requires very little time. Most of us have gone thru basic arithmetic & expressions in school. Here is a summary if you were caught napping in Math 101. Operator + – * /

What it does

Example

Basic arithmetic operators. Perform addition, subtraction, multiplication & division

2+3, 7-2, 9*12, 108/3, 2+3*4-2

^

Power of opetator. Raises something to the power of other value.

2^3, 9^0.5, PI()^2, EXP(1)^0.5

( )

To define precedence in calculations. Anything included in paranthesis is calcuated first.

(2+3)*(4+5) calcuates 2+3 first, then 4+5 and multiplies both results.

&

To combine 2 text values

“You are ” & “awesome” returns “You are awesome”

%

To divide with 100.

2/4% will give 50 as result. Note: (2/4)% will give 0.5% as result.

:

Used to specify ranges

A1:B20 refers to the range from cell A1 to B20

$

To lock a reference column or row or both

$A$1 refers to cell A1 all the time. $A1 refers to column A, relative row based on where you use it. For more refer to absolute vs. relative references in Excel.

Used to structurally refer to columns in table

ourSales[month] refers to the month column in the ourSales table. Works only in Excel 2007 or above. Know more about Excel Tables.

Used to structurally refer to current row values in a table

ourSales[@month] refers to current row’s month value in oursales table.

To specify an inline array of values

{1,2,3,4,5} – refers to a the list of values 1,2,3,4,5

Comparison operators. Output will always be boolean – ie TRUE or FALSE.

2>3 will be FALSE. 99 =

=

Equality operators. Check whether 2 values are equal or not 2=2, “hello”=”hello”, 45 will all return TRUE. equal. Output will TRUE or FALSE

* ?

Used as wild cards in certain formulas like COUNTIF etc.

COUNTIF(A1:A10, “a*”) counts the values in range A1:A10 starting with a. For more on this refer to COUNTIF & SUMIF in Excel

SPACE

Intersection operator. Returns the range at intersection of 2 ranges

A1:C4 B2:D5 refers to the intersection or range A1:C4 and B2:D5 and returns B2:C4. Caution: The output will be an array, so you must use it in another formula which takes arrays, like SUM, COUNT etc.

7. Text formulas While there are more than two dozen text formulas in Excel including the mysterious BHATTEXT (which is used to convert numbers to Thai Bhats, apparently designed by Excel team so that they could order Thai take out food #), you do not need to learn all of them. By learning few very useful TEXT formulas, you can save a ton of time when cleaning data or extracting portions from mountains of text. As an aspiring analyst, at-least acquaint your self with below formulas:

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LEFT, RIGHT & MID – to extract portions of text from left, right & middle.

•

TRIM – to remove un-necessary spaces from beginning, middle & end of a text.

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SUBSTITUTE – to replace portions of text with something else.

•

LEN – to calculate the length of a text

•

TEXT – to convert a value to TEXT formatting

•

FIND – to find whether something is present in a text, if so at what position You can find several examples of all these formulas & their users in our site. Just search.

8. NETWORKDAYS & WORKDAY Formulas “There aren’t enough days in the weekend” – Somebody Whether a weekend has enough days or not, as working analyst, you must cope with the working day calculations. For example, if a project takes 180 working days to complete and starts on 16th of January 2013, how would you find the end date? Thankfully, we do not have to invent a formula for this. Excel has something exactly for this. WORKDAY formula takes a start date & working days and tells you what the end date would be. Like wise NETWORKDAYS formula tells us how many working days are there between any 2 given dates.

Both these formulas accept a list of additional holidays to consider as well.

•

NETWORKDAYS: calculate the number of working days between 2 dates (assuming Saturday, Sunday weekend)

•

NETWORKDAYS.INTL: Same as NETWORKDAYS, but lets you use custom weekends [Excel 2010+ only]

•

WORKDAY: Calculate the end date from a start date & number of working days

•

WORKDAY.INTL: Same as WORKDAY, but lets you use custom weekends. [Excel 2010+ only] More on working with Date & Time values in Excel.

9. SMALL & LARGE Formulas Almost nobody asks about “Who was the second person to climb Mt. Everest, or walk on moon or finish 100 mtrs race the fastest?”. And yet, all businesses ask questions like “Who is our 2nd most valuable customer?, third vendor from bottom on invoice delinquency? 4th famous coffee shop in Jamaica?” So as analysts our job is to answer these questions with out wasting too much time. That is where SMALL, LARGE formulas come in handy.

•

SMALL: Used to find nth smallest value from a list. Use it like =SMALL(range of values, n).

•

LARGE: Used to find nth largest value from a list.

•

MIN: Gives the minimum value of a list.

•

MAX: Gives the maximum value of a list.

•

RANK: Finds the rank of a value in a list. Use it like =RANK(value, in this list, order)

10. IFERROR Formula Errors, lousy canteen food & dysfunctional coffee machines are eternal truths of corporate life. While you can always brown bag your lunch & bring a flask of finely brewed coffee to work, there is no escaping when your VLOOKUP #N/As. Or is there? Well, you can always use the lovely IFERROR formula to handle errors in your formulas.

Syntax: IFERROR(formula, what to do in case of error) Use it like: IFERROR(VLOOKUP(….), “Value not found!”) Click here to learn more about IFERROR Formula.

3 Bonus Formulas If you can master the above 10 formulas, you will be ahead of 80% of all Excel analysts. Here are 3 more important formulas that can come handy when doing some serious data analysis work.

•

OFFSET formula: to generate dynamic ranges from a starting point and use them elsewhere (in charts, formulas etc.).

•

SUMPRODUCT formula: Unleash the full power of Excel array processing by using SUMPRODUCT.

•

SUBTOTAL formula: Calculate totals, counts & averages etc. on a range with filters.

What formulas do you think are important for analysts? During my days as business analyst, not a single day went by without using Excel. It was an important tool in my journey to become an awesome analyst. I cannot stress the importance of formulas like SUMIFS, VLOOKUP, INDEX, MATCH enough. They play a vital role in analyzing data & presenting outputs. What about you? What formulas do you think are important for analysts? Please share your ideas & tips using comments.

Want to become an Awesome Analyst? Consider our Excel School program If you are a budding analyst or manager, adding Excel Skills can be a very valuable investment of your time. MyExcel school program is designed to help people like you to learn various basic & advanced features of Excel & use them to create kick ass reports, trackers & analysis. This program has 24 hours of Excel training, 40 example workbooks & 6 month online access. Click here to know more about Excel School.

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Tweet Share on emailShare on printShare on facebookShare on deliciousShare on stumbleupon Written by Chandoo Tags: advanced excel, date and time, iferror, INDEX(),large, Learn Excel, list posts, MATCH(), Microsoft Excel Formulas, networkdays(), Networkdays.intl(), OFFSET(),small, SUBTOTAL, sumifs, sumproduct, text processing,text(), vlookup, workday Home: Chandoo.org Main Page ? Doubt: Ask an Excel Question

64 Responses to “Top 10 Formulas for Aspiring Analysts” 1.

Narain says:

January 16, 2013 at 8:37 am

Awesome!! Thanks for sharing. I can’t thank you enough for your posts. They really help me become awesome in MS Excel.

Reply

2.

TheQ47 says:

January 16, 2013 at 10:40 am

This is a great post, thanks sooo much for it. I guess I probably knew all of these Formulas/formulae already, but to see them all in 1 post just makes it easier. Reply

3.

DFruge says:

January 16, 2013 at 1:46 pm

How about SUMPRODUCT()? It’s a very powerful and flexible function.

Reply

Chandoo says:

o

January 16, 2013 at 2:15 pm

You are right. SUMPRODUCT is very versatile and powerful. That said, for a budding analyst, it might be a huge roadblock. If someone has access to Excel 2007 or above, it is better to use SUMIFS / COUNTIFS / AVERAGEIFS for most things. When SUMPRODUCT has to be used, then just learn it

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4.

PPH says:

January 16, 2013 at 1:47 pm

Rather than just SUMIFS, I’d say all of the -IFS formulae as a group (AVERAGEIFS, COUNTIFS..). Not to mention array formulas so that you may IF other functions where the IF(S) version doesn’t exist, like MIN(IF(, MAX(IF(, SMALL(IF(

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Chandoo says:

o

January 16, 2013 at 2:16 pm

@PPH & Chiquitin: I agree. I did not mention the other IFS / IF formulas as they all have similar syntax and use. Once you know SUMIFS, you know the rest.

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5.

Hui says:

January 16, 2013 at 2:06 pm

I would add the following functions for Analysts: Basic Statistical Functions Linest(), RSQ(), Slope() Forecast/Trend Functions: Forecast() and Trend() All are described in: http://chandoo.org/wp/2011/01/24/trendlines-and-forecasting-in-excel/ http://chandoo.org/wp/2011/01/26/trendlines-and-forecasting-in-excel-part-2/ http://chandoo.org/wp/2011/01/27/trendlines-and-forecasting-in-excel-part-3/ DataTable: http://chandoo.org/wp/2010/05/06/data-tables-monte-carlo-simulations-in-excel-a-comprehensive-guide/ I would also recommend understanding Averages and Weighted Averages http://chandoo.org/wp/2010/06/15/weighted-average-excel/

Reply

Kenneth says:

o

January 18, 2013 at 3:30 pm

Thank you, Hui. I think it would surprise a lot of people new to the business world just how often average vs weighted average has to be explained.

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6.

Chiquitin says:

January 16, 2013 at 2:10 pm

Awesome post. Really, If you master these formulae you can do almost anything with excel. But I miss one formula: COUNTIFS Regards from Spain. Reply

7.

Shar says:

January 16, 2013 at 5:38 pm

I consider myself pretty awesome with Excel, but you always show me there’s a zillion things I still don’t know. I’m wondering about the % under #6 – Basic Arithmetic Expressions. How does ‘Divide with 100′ make 2/4% = 50? I don’t understand what the % is doing. As always – excellent post!! Reply

o

Anton says:

January 17, 2013 at 4:22 am

Hi. It seems it takes precedence over the “/”. So it will do “4%” first. = 4 / 100 as % divides by 100. It gives 0.04. Then 2 is divided by that result to give 50. Reply

Suhas says:

o

January 18, 2013 at 5:41 am

Hi, Shar, use “Evaluate Formula” to understand formula behavior. Reply

8.

5antiago says:

January 16, 2013 at 5:44 pm

I would add also that it’s good to get used to the boolean side of things, they can replace IF(), particularly when making calculated helper columns in data tables to use later in pivot tables

Reply

9.

Analyst says:

January 16, 2013 at 5:52 pm

Thanks for the post! More financial modelling tips would be much appreciated!

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10.

shair says:

January 16, 2013 at 5:53 pm

Disregard my previous post … it’s just a percent (ie /2% = /.02). It’s just worded strangely.

Reply

11.

Peter O'Neill says:

January 16, 2013 at 5:55 pm

I have offset() as one of my primary formulas & I would include indirect() as well. Most of that is for creating automated reports/dashboards but invaluable for this.

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Wouter says:

o

January 17, 2013 at 10:34 am

Didn’t know indirect() function. Thanks for the tip!

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12.

Jay says:

January 16, 2013 at 6:56 pm

Thank you. This is perfect!

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13.

DataDame says:

January 16, 2013 at 7:00 pm

In healthcare, I can’t live without the unique count =IF(SUMPRODUCT(($c$2:$C2=C2)*($d$2:$D2=D2))>1,0,1)… with huge reports of patient activity, I need sometimes to identify and discard duplicates easily either with conditional formatting to highlight or filter out the zero value.

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14.

Mark says:

January 16, 2013 at 7:33 pm

I would love to share this with my co-workers in a monthly newsletter. Can I get your permission to do so if I give you full attribution and include a link back to your site? (If not I understand) Thanks for all your great tips/tricks/knowledge sharing! Mark Reply

Chandoo says:

o

January 16, 2013 at 11:41 pm

Thanks Mark. Please proceed. You can include a short excerpt & A link back to this page.

Reply

15.

Guy says:

January 16, 2013 at 8:21 pm

regarding the segments of the vlookup formula… I believe that the final segment of the formula snytax is asking you to input “True” if returning the nearest match is ok or “False” if you require exact matches only… not whether or not your list is in ascending order as presented below…

VLOOKUP Formula Pop quiz time …. Which of the below things would bring world to a grinding halt? A. Stop digging earth for more oil B. Let US jump off the fiscal cliff or hit debt ceiling C. Suddenly VLOOKUP formula stops working in all computers, world-wide, forever If you answered A or B, then its high time you removed your head from sand and saw the world. The answer is C (Well, if all coffee machines in the world unite & miraculously malfunction that would make a mayhem. But thankfully that option is not there) VLOOKUP formula lets you search for a value in a table and return a corresponding value. For example you can ask What is the name of the customer with ID=C00023 or How much is the product price for product code =p0089 and VLOOKUP would give you the answers. The syntax for VLOOKUP is simple. =VLOOKUP(what you want to lookup, table, column from which you want the output, is your table sorted? ) Example: =VLOOKUP(“C00023?, customers, 2, false) Lookup customer ID C00023 in the first column of customers table and return the value from 2nd column. Assume that customers table is not sorted. Click here to learn more about VLOOKUP Formula. Bonus: Comprehensive guide to lookup formulas. Reply

Chandoo says:

o

January 16, 2013 at 11:48 pm

You are right. Most people would find nearest / exact match switch confusing (as your list needs to be sorted in ascending order for nearest match to work). So I used plain English version of it in the syntax.

Reply

16.

Sally says:

January 16, 2013 at 8:40 pm

In 1998 I went on an Excel Data Analysis & Reporting course. One of the things covered was vlookup – I could immediately see a use for it in creating a price book for my company. In the 15 years since, this has become my most used formula. At the course we also learnt about if statements, and scenarios and pivot tables & lots of other things but it was the vlookup that grabbed me ….

It has only been in the last few months, since starting to work on excel 2010 that I have managed to master pivot tables. Back in 1998 I couldn’t see how they were of any use, now I love them – especially with the use of slicers (and they are so much easier to construct now) I will slowly work through mastering some of your other Top 10 Formulas – thanks for sharing them in such a clear way. Sally Reply

17.

Kiev says:

January 17, 2013 at 12:29 am

Well, this is really a great post, i need to re-learn some of them, like OFFST and Match. How about Date, Year, Month, Day formula, they are very useful as well.

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18.

zur says:

January 17, 2013 at 4:13 am

Chandoo: Your list is absolutely must with if formulas added

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19.

Wimpie says:

January 17, 2013 at 6:22 am

Good day Chandoo Can I please borrow your chrystal ball. (Not sure how else you do it). Everytime I start a new project you publish what I need to get it done. Thank you so much for this great site and your information sharing. With your help I am now one of the “Guru’s” in my division and people come to me for help.

Reply

Chandoo says:

o

January 18, 2013 at 5:32 am

I knew you are going to ask, so I already mailed it you. Give it a few days to arrive. Jokes aside, I am so glad you are learning and growing in your work. More awesomeness to you.

Reply

20.

Roberta says:

January 17, 2013 at 9:33 am

great List – I crunch lots of data for mailing lists – one sort of “text” field I use constantly with imported data is =value() to turn what should be numbers in numbers. Much easier to use with large numbers of rows than filling down with the tag.

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Dave says:

o

January 17, 2013 at 4:35 pm

I don’t often find myself trying to convert text numbers into numbers, but I have always just multiplied the cell by 1 (= A1 * 1). The new cell is recognized as a number. I was unaware of the Value() function. Thanks for the new info.

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Chris says:



January 18, 2013 at 10:44 pm

I use a lot of data exported from other systems where the number values come across as text. Rather than adding another column to convert the text (e.g., =–(A1) ), I lke to use the Data/Text to Columns feature to

convert text to numbers in place. In fact I found that I use it it enough that I wrote a little macro that I keep in Personal.xlsb just to perform this task. One limitation is that it o (note that like the text to columns tool, it will only convert one column at a time. Sub ConvertToText() ‘ convert selection to text ‘ cjhx 1/9/2012 ‘ ‘ SHORTCUT: ctrl + shift + t ‘ Selection.TextToColumns , DataType:=xlDelimited, _

TextQualifier:=xlDoubleQuote,

FieldInfo:=Array(1, 2) End Sub Reply

21.

Brian says:

January 17, 2013 at 3:35 pm

Your list is well thought out… I was originally just looking for 10 things to teach to a new co-worker Thank you! Reply

22.

Jon says:

January 17, 2013 at 4:23 pm

A great and comprehensive list. I think the $ deserves its own post because when used effectively an analyst is much faster and also less error prone.

Reply

23.

Dave says:

January 17, 2013 at 4:33 pm

Great list, some of my personal favorites are listed. I would consider adding in the bonus area something about using absolute vs relative cell references (as mentioned by Jon). I transformed from someone who was just good at Excel to a SME when I learned how to use the $. For all of the formulas mentioned above, the $ can make pasting across rows/columns much more efficient and effective

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24.

sam says:

January 18, 2013 at 4:29 am

I think its pretty unfair to leave out ROW() and COLUMN() which help you to iterations in a formula

Reply

25.

Anand Kumar says:

January 18, 2013 at 5:59 am

Countif is surely very helpful in a lot of cases. Sumif would be second, and the combination of offset and match functions so that they can be used as vlookup on the left side of data is also helpful. Thanks, Anand Kumar Reply

26.

Mark K says:

January 18, 2013 at 3:19 pm

My sister claims that learning vlookup helped her get three promotions. At my own job it has helped me become “The Magic Report Guy”. Small and Large… I beat my head against the wall for ages trying to find a function that did that. I know these are not formulas but pivot tables and basic macro creation and editing can make you appear to be a genius. I thought one guy was going to cry when I created a macro that automated a report he spent

about a week every month doing by hand. After that my boss stopped giving me grief about surfing the net to look at Excel sites. Reply

Kenneth says:

o

January 18, 2013 at 4:04 pm

vlookup is great, but I’ve switched to index & match for pretty much everything. After using vlookup for so long the syntax seemed weird at first, but once I got used to it I didn’t want to go back. Consider the difference here: =VLOOKUP($G4,$A2:$D13,2,FALSE) This looks at the value in G4 and finds a match in the range A2:A13, then when it finds a match it returns the value in the 2nd column on the match row. =INDEX(B2:B13,MATCH($G4,$A2:$A13,0)) This gets the same result, it’s just formatted a little differently. One significant difference here is that with vlookup, if you copy the formula and paste it one column to the right, it returns the same result. In order to return the value from the third column, you need to change that 2 to a 3. When you’re dealing with large amounts of data you end up copying/pasting the formula, then doing find/replace to change the “,2,”s to “,3,”s, then in the next column to “,4,”s, etc. Using the index/match method, you just copy/paste the formula over to the next column and you’re done. Whichever method you use, you need to be sure the $s are in the right places for absolute referencing. Another significant difference is that not only does index/match not require the lookup value to be in the far left column, but it doesn’t even require that the lookup values and return values are in the same rows. You can have A2:A5 be the return values and ZZ32:ZZ35 be the lookup values.

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PPH says:

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January 18, 2013 at 4:28 pm

Yeah, I never ever use VLOOKUP and actually find it annoying, particularly when I have to review and edit someone else’s work that uses it extensively.

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Mark K says:

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January 18, 2013 at 11:00 pm

This works well. It is a little more work to set up but I really like that the columns returned increment unlike they do with vlookup. I have never understood the reason that they don’t. They want to increment the search column instead. I hate to think how much time I have spent redoing column return values in vlookup. Thanks!

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Steph Locke says:



February 1, 2013 at 1:09 pm

With column references in vlookups – if I need to do a number of consecutive columns, I use the column() function with a constant to retrieve the column so that the vlookup becomes fully dynamic…. =VLOOKUP($G4,$A2:$D13,column() + 3 ,FALSE) Reply

27.

Ravi says:

January 21, 2013 at 8:07 am

Sir I like your site very much especially my father like most because he use always in excel. Can you give me some tips that how can I earn from my website at your level. Reply

o

Hui... says:

January 21, 2013 at 2:05 pm

@Ravi

Start with the Beige box at teh top of the main Chandopo,.org web page It has a section called ” Welcome to Chandoo.org. New here?“ In there there is a whole section on Learn Excel Topics and Courses Consider exploring both

Reply

28.

Blog Posts of the Week (13th - 19th January 2013) - The South Asia MVP Blog - Site Home - TechNet Blogssays:

January 21, 2013 at 1:24 pm [...] Top 10 Formulas for Aspiring Analysts [...]

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29.

Juan says:

January 21, 2013 at 2:06 pm

It’s wonderful to have all this functions in a great compilation, it helps me a lot to start learning the functions I am not familiarized with. Personally I felt in love with VLOOKUP and MATCH functions, they simplified my life a lot and increased the productivity very fast. Excel is full of surprises and awesomeness is just around the corner.

Reply

30.

Top 10 Formulas for Aspiring Analysts « Another Word For It says:

January 24, 2013 at 12:41 am [...] Top 10 Formulas for Aspiring Analysts by Purna “Chandoo” Duggirala. [...]

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31.

Stan says:

January 31, 2013 at 10:49 pm

This is a great post and I feel honoured to contribute to it. A combination I get excited about when I get a chance to use it is SUM and IF in an array. The format goes like this: {=SUM(IF(E5:I5=E5,IF(D6:D15=D9,E6:I15)))} It allows you to sum across a range, E6:I15 in this case, based on reference values in both your row and column headers. It’s like a two-dimensional SUMIFS. It works left to right or right to left, up or down, like INDEX MATCH. It will also sum based on the same reference value in two different columns, which I’m not sure SUMIFS will allow you to do. Reply

32.

Colin says:

April 4, 2013 at 3:40 am

The list is pretty much what I would recommend for budding analysts – but I have a criticism about terminology. VLOOKUP, SUMIFS, etc are not formulae but Excel FUNCTIONS. Formulae in Excel are algebraic statements (expressions) which use a combination of mathematical operators and at least one or more of the following: constants, range references, functions to return a result. Many formulae in a model may not even contain a function! Many will see this as pedantic, but to avoid confusion Function anf Formula should NOT be used interchangeably. Reply

33.

LeonK says:

April 16, 2013 at 11:31 am

User Definable Distinct rows formula.

Hi Chandoo, I meant to respond last week with this formula but forgot. I almost always use this formula in a helper column to identify distinct rows. I then use them in Pivot tools: Column D: If(sumproduct(($a$2:$a2=a2)*($b$2:$b2=b2)*($c$2:$c2=c2))>1,0,1) However, I usually create 2 helper columns as follows: Helper Column 1 Column D: =a2&b2&c2 Helper Column 2 Column E: =If(sumproduct(($d$2:$d2=d2)*($d$2:$d2=d2))>1,0,1) LeonK

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34.

DinoWeb says:

June 6, 2013 at 11:49 pm

I have used the vlookup function for 15+ years, but I still remember how excited I was when I first discovered it. I have tended to move away from it more now though. One thing I have always found usefull in functions like vlookup, sumif etc, is when you want to match values across multiple columns, to make a lookup value column, by adding the apporopriate columns together. eg: to find “John Smith”, when the name is stored in two columns as FirstName, Surname. In the LookupValue column just use =FirstName & ” ” & Surname, and then look up on this value. It’s a simple concept but one that took me years to realise.

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35.

jason chroman says:

June 13, 2013 at 8:42 am

Several thoughts:

1. LOOKUP is simpler and more useful, in most cases than =VLOOKUP. The main reason to use =VLOOKUP is if you need to do an exact match through unsorted data. Otherwise, the constraint of having to put in a column offset with VLOOKUP makes it less useful than LOOKUP. 2. Being able to work with real dates is essential in a financial model. As such, it’s important to know how add days or months to a date. So, the date number format is important, as well as the DATE function, and also the EDATE and EOMONTH formulas. 3. Once you have your cashflows and dates, running an XNPV or XIRR is fundamental. They allow you to be much more precise in your return calculations than NPV or IRR, which assume regular cash flows. 4. Data Table functions (by this I mean “Data/Data Table” and not the Excel 2007/2010 feature called “Tables”)are essential for automating sensitivity analysis. Also, it’s much more important to be able to do a one factor data table than a two factor.

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36.

Jackie says:

July 23, 2013 at 12:56 pm

Wow! I just discovered your blog. You’re an awesome person for putting this valuable resource for others to see. Thank you and I look forward to increasing my nerdy ways through Excel.

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37.

shree says:

July 29, 2013 at 4:22 am

hi… chandoo,it’s amazing using sumifs, thanks for it. Reply

38.

Ken Stephens says:

July 29, 2013 at 8:30 pm

Are you aware of any Excel macros that compute the Probability of Acceptance for double sampling plans, such as, n1, c1, n2, c2?

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39.

pankaj says:

July 30, 2013 at 11:51 am

Thanks a ton for sharing… We can use “ASAP uitilities” (readymade Micro) which helps in solving many Complicated excel operations like identifing Duplicates, Fill In, and many more….

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40.

Jonathon Williams-Ross says:

August 2, 2013 at 5:28 pm

Appreciate your great explanations as always. Working with Excel in Search Engine Marketing, sometimes I’ll download a list of Keywords & I’ll need to add a + sign in front of them. For example, one of my keywords may be “Green Shoes”, & I may also have “Black Shoes”, etc. I may have 500 keywords & will often need to add a + in front of all of them. Basically I need something that will add a character to all of the individual characters in a cell. Any formula suggestions? I tried =”+”&B8&”+” for example, but that puts the + in front of the first word and behind the last one. I need the plus in front of both. Thanks!! Reply

41.

shilpee says:

August 3, 2013 at 7:05 pm

Hello, Thank you for providing tips for Excel.

I have a query for changing the text in upper or lower case. When we change the text in upper or lower case with the formula: =upper(C4), the case of the text changes. However, when we delete the text in the origional cell, the cell where the changes were made also gets deleted automatically. Please provide assistance in how to save the text with the changed case and delete only the origional text. Thank you.

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42.

indesignkat says:

August 5, 2013 at 12:40 am

You can copy the cells with the upper formula then paste over them using paste special/values, then the origin cells can be deleted. As long as there is still an active formula referencing them, deleting the origin will mess up the result.

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43.

Mark says:

August 5, 2013 at 5:06 pm

Are Pivot Tables formulas too? I would put them on this list.

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44.

Ken Qualitist says:

August 6, 2013 at 12:43 am

Top 10 Formulas for Aspiring Analysts | Chandoo.org – Learn …

Jan 16, 2013 … They really help me become awesome in MS Excel. ….. macros that compute the Probability of Acceptance for double sampling plans, such as, … http://chandoo.org/wp/2013/01/16/top-10-formulas-for-aspiring-analysts/ The above was an entry on a web search, but I couldn’t find anything on “Probability of Acceptance for double sampling plans” as mentioned in the entry. Please advise

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45.

Qualitist says:

August 14, 2013 at 10:22 pm

Why does the following VBA Code give an error, “A value used in the formula is of the wrong data type” ?? ‘Function to Compute Probability of Acceptance for Dodge and Romig Type Double Sampling Plans Function DRDSPa(N, P, N1, C1, N2, C2) Dim i As Long Dim D As Long, PA1 As Long, PA2 As Long D=N*P ‘ PA1 is Probability of Acceptance on First Sample PA1 = Application.WorksheetFunction.HYPGEOM.DIST(C1, N1, D, N, True) PA2 = 0 For i = C1 + 1 To C2 PA2 = PA2 + Application.WorksheetFunction.HYPGEOM.DIST(i, N1, D, N, False) * Application.WorksheetFunction.HYPGEOM.DIST(C2 – i, N2, D – i, N – N1, True) Next i DRDSPa = PA1 + PA2 End Function Reply

Hui... says:

o

August 15, 2013 at 4:13 am

@Qualitist I suspect that your first line should be Function DRDSPa(N as Double, P as Double, N1 as Double, C1 as Double, N2 as Double, C2 as Double) as Double

Is it possible for you to upload the file as I suspect it is the lack of definition of the data types or the data itself that is at error

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46.

pankaj says:

August 16, 2013 at 9:59 am

Hi, Thanks a ton for sharing….. Can you light on “Macro”, as they help a lot and saves time. Most of the time we do the same operations daily just the data base changes, and even if you know formulas it takes a lot of time to save the time and get accuraccy Macro is the solution. Thanks in Advance… Regards, Pankaj from INDIA

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47.

Robert says:

August 19, 2013 at 3:26 pm

this is a great list that everyone who uses excel should have. I’ve had issues teaching people the basics of SUMIF. with SUMIFS, SUMIF should just be eliminated. one thing to note: trim does NOT take care of internal spaces (above it references “middle” of text), but substitude can do it just fine. also, thank you for introducing me to trim, it would have saved me several minutes over the last few years, but now i know! Reply

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Submit Meet Chandoo At Chandoo.org, I have one goal, "to make you awesome in excel and charting". This blog is started in 2007 and today has 450+ articles and tutorials on using excel, making better charts. Read more. New to Excel? 1. 100 Excel Tips & Tricks 2. Excel Pivot Tables - Tutorial 3. 51 Excel Formulas in Plain English 4. VLOOKUP Formula for Dummies 5. Free Excel Chart Templates Advanced Excel Tricks 1. Excel Dynamic Charts 2. Learn Conditional Formatting 3. Making Dashboards using Excel 4. Project Management with Excel 5. Working with Excel Tables Topics & Archives 1. Learn Excel - Topic-wise 2. Charting Tips, Tricks and Tutorials 3. Ask an Excel Question 4. Best Excel & Charting Tips

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25 Very Useful Keyboard Shortcuts 1. To format any selected object, press ctrl+1 2. To insert current date, press ctrl+; 3. To insert current time, press ctrl+shift+; 4. To repeat last action, press F4 5. To edit a cell comment, press shift + F2 6. To autosum selected cells, press alt + = 7. To see the suggest drop-down in a cell, press alt + down arrow 8. To enter multiple lines in a cell, press alt+enter 9. To insert a new sheet, press shift + F11 10. To edit active cell, press F2 (places cursor in the end) 11. To hide current row, press ctrl+9 12. To hide current column, press ctrl+0 13. To unhide rows in selected range, press ctrl+shift+9 14. To unhide columns in selected range, press ctrl+shift+0 15. To recalculate formulas, press F9 16. To select data in current region, press ctrl+shift+8 17. To see formulas in the worksheet, press ctrl+shift+` (ctrl+~) 18. While editing formulas to change the reference type from absolute to relative vice versa, press F4 19. To format a number as currency, press ctrl+shift+4 (ctrl+$) 20. To apply outline border around selected cells, press ctrl+shift+7

21. To open the macros dialog box, press alt+F8 22. To copy value from above cell, press ctrl+’ 23. To format current cell with comma formats, press ctrl+shift+1 24. To go to the next worksheet, press ctrl+shift+pg down 25. To go to the previous worksheet, press ctrl+shift+pg up

20 Situations and How to Solve them using Excel Formulas 26. To get the first name of a person, use =left(name,find(” “,name)-1) 27. To calculate mortgage payments, use =PMT(interest-rate,number-of-payments,how-much-loan) 28. To get nth largest number in a range, use =large(range,n)… Get Full Tip 29. To get nth smallest number in a range, use = small(range,n)… Get Full Tip 30. To generate a random phone number, use =randbetween(1000000000,9999999999), needs analysis toolpak if you are using excel 2003 or earlier… Get Full Tip 31. To count number of words in a cell, use =len(trim(text))-len(SUBSTITUTE(trim(text),” “,”"))… Get Full Tip 32. To count positive values in a range, use =countif(range,”>0″)… Get Full Tip 33. To calculate weighted average, use SUMPRODUCT() function 34. To remove unnecessary spaces, use =trim(text) 35. To format a number as SSN using formulas, use =text(ssn-text,”000-00-0000″)… Get Full Tip 36. To find age of a person based on DOB, use =TEXT((NOW()-birth_date)&”",”yy “”years”" m “”months”" dd “”days”"”), output will be like 27 years 7 months 29 days 37. To get name from initials from a name, use IF(), FIND(), LEN() and SUBSTITUTE() formulas… Get Full Tip 38. To get proper fraction from a number (for eg 1/3 from 6/18), use =text(fraction, “?/?”) 39. To get partial matches in vlookup, use * operator like this: =vlookup(“abc*”,lookup_range,return_column) 40. To simulate averageif() in earlier versions of excel, use =sumif(range, criteria)/countif(range, criteria) 41. To debug your formulas, select the portions of formula and press F9 to see the result of that portion… Get Full Tip 42. To get the file extension from a file name, use =right(filename,3) (doesn’t work for files that have weird extensions like .docx, .htaccess etc.) 43. To quickly insert an in cell micro-chart, use REPT() function… Get Full Tip 44. COUNT() only counts number of cells with numbers in them, if you want to count number of cells with anything in them, use COUNTA() 45. Using named ranges in formulas saves you a lot of time. To define one, just select some cells, and go to menu > insert > named ranges > define

15 Excel Tips on Improving Productivity Using Excel 46. To format a number as SSN, use the custom format code “000-00-0000″… Get Full Tip 47. To format a phone number, use the custom format code “000-000-0000″… Get Full Tip 48. To show values after decimal point only when number is less than one, use [ tools > options > and un-check grid lines option. (Excel 2007: office button > excel option > advanced)… Get Full Tip 50. To hide a worksheet, go to menu > format > sheet > hide… Get Full Tip

51. To align multiple objects, like charts, drawings, pictures use drawing toolbar > align and select alignment option… Get Full Tip 52. To freeze rows on top, select the a row and use menu > window > freeze panes… Get Full Tip 53. To disable annoying formula errors, go to menu > tools > options > error checking tab and disable errors you don’t want to see… Get Full Tip 54. To change the shape of cell comments from rectangle to some other symbol, select the comment, go to drawing tool bar and change the shape from there… Get Full Tip 55. To transpose a range of cells, copy the cells, go to empty area, and press alt+e+s+e… Get Full Tip 56. To save data filter settings so that you can reuse them again, use custom views… Get Full Tip 57. To select all formulas, press CTRL+G, select “special” and check “formulas” 58. To select all constants, press CTRL+G, select “special” and check “constants” 59. To clear formats from a range, select menu > edit > clear > “formats” 60. To move a chart and align it with cells, hold down ALT key while moving the chart

9 Charting Tips for Everyone 61. To create an instant micro-chart from your normal chart, use camera tool… Get Full Tip 62. Understand data to ink ratio to reduce chart junk, using even a pixel more of ink than what is needed can reduce your chart’s effectiveness 63. Combine two different types of charts when one is not enough, to use, add another series of data to your sheet and then right click on it and change the chart type… Get Full Tip 64. To reverse the order of items in a bar / column chart, just click on y-axis, press ctrl+1, and check “categories in reverse order” and “x-axis crosses at maximum category” options 65. To change the marker symbol or bubble in a chart to your own favorite shape, just draw any shape in worksheet using drawing toolbar, then copy it by pressing ctrl+c, now go to the chart and select markers (or bubbles) and press ctrl+v 66. To create partially overlapped column / bar charts, just use overlap and gap settings in the format data series area. A overlap of 100 will completely overlap one series on another, while 0 separates them completely.… Get Full Tip 67. To increase the contrast of your chart, just remove grayish background color that excel adds to the chart (in versions excel 2003 and prior) 68. To save yourself some trouble, always try to avoid charts like – 3D area charts (unstacked), radar charts, 3D Lines, 3D Columns with multiple series of data, Donut charts with more than 2 series of data… Get Full Tip 69. To improve comparison, replace your radar charts with tables… Get Full Tip

6 simple steps for better chart formats 70. Remove any vertical grid-lines 71. Change horizontal grid-line color from black to a very light shade of gray 72. Adjust chart series colors to get better contrast 73. Adjust font scaling (for versions excel 2003 and prior) 74. Add data labels and remove any axis (axis labels) if needed 75. Remove chart background colors

5 Excel books for everyone 76. Excel 2007 Bible by John Walkenbach 77. Excel 2007 Formulas by John Walkenbach

78. Excel 2007 Charts by John Walkenbach 79. Excel 2007 Power Programming with VBA 80. Teach Yourself VISUALLY Excel 2007 PS: Links to Amazon, affiliate code used

20 Excellent Resources and Blogs for getting latest Excel Tips & Charting Ideas 81. PTS Blog 82. Andrew’s Excel Tips 83. Microsoft Excel 2007 Team Blog 84. Contextures 85. Junk Charts 86. Daily Dose of Excel 87. Digital Inspiration 88. Life Hacker 89. Jorge’s Charts Blog 90. DSA Inisights 91. Excel Blog @ TVM Calcs 92. Juice Analytics 93. More information per pixel 94. Newton Excel Bach 95. Presentation Zen 96. Visual Business Intelligence by Stephen Few 97. Cell Matrix 98. Allen Wyatt’s Excel Tips 99. Code for Excel and Outlook 100. All the Popular Excel Bookmarks in Delicious

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