www.goodly.co.

in

advanced formulas | array formulas | advanced cell naming |

pivot tables | form controls and much more…
Introduction
The real power of Excel lies in integrating isolated concepts. For
instance creating a dynamic chart by integrating formulas with named
ranges.. that’s super fun!

This book is divided into 9 parts that talk about various advanced
concepts and explain how to integrate them with one another

I have tried to write this book like a dialogue to make it fun filled and
humorous while the technical alchemy is at play. The topics are placed
in logical order and often draw learnings from each other, alongside
you must also refer to the spreadsheets that come along

Happy ‘Excel’-ling :-D

Table of Contents
1. Advanced Formulas 04

2. Array Formulas 36

3. Excel Tables 43

4. Advanced Filter 49

5. Advanced Cell and Range Naming 53

6. Form Controls 59

7. Pivot Tables 69

8. Custom Formatting and Applications 84

9. Sheet Protection 91
1. Advanced Excel
Formulas – Lookup
Functions

4
Index
The INDEX function is the big daddy of the VLOOKUP function, How? Because
of its powerful utility and faster processing. Let’s go check out this beast and
mature our understanding step by step

Syntax
INDEX(array, row_num, [column_num])

Array is the range of cells where the lookup is to be done

Row_num is the row number that you want to look up
Column_num is the column number that you want to look up

The Index function returns the intersection of the row and column number

Case
Lets say we want to find the record Ashley for the Month of Feb, which you
can easily do it with a VLOOKUP formula but here is how the INDEX would do
it
Column Number

James’s record is in
row 4 and col 3

Row
Number

Now apart from simply being an alternative to VLOOKUP and returning the row
and the column number

Tricky Question? What if you wanted to do a total for James sales and not
just return the sales of Feb ? Here the VLOOKUP would fail!

Column number as 0 returns all the values in the

Rows

Now when you press enter the formula will give you ‘James’ as an output. The
reason is that no excel formula is capable of giving multiple values as an
output. But writing 0 in the column number fetches all the values in the row.
Now all you need to do is wrap the INDEX around the SUM function

=SUM(INDEX(B3:G11,4,0)) This formula will give

you the total sales for James
© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 5
Match
In continuation to what we have learnt, let’s fuel our INDEX with MATCH
formula. Let’s quickly get rid of some theory of MATCH function and jump on 2
interesting examples

Syntax
MATCH(lookup_value, lookup_array, [match_type])

Lookup_value – What are you looking for ?

Lookup_array – Where are you looking (data range) ?
Match_Type – It has 3 options (Exact match or Match less than the lookup
value or match greater than the lookup value)
We will stick to the exact match (denoted by 0) option for discussion as of now

YOU

Can you tell, what is your

position number starting from
Answer these questions the Left ?

Again, what is your

YOU position number
starting from the Top ?

The answer 7 and 4 are no brainers, that is exactly what a match

function does for you, it will return the position number of what you
are looking for in a range of data and yes it can work horizontally or
vertically :-D

Now lets make a big deal out of this no big deal MATCH function ..
Ready?? Ok lets go ahead and solve 2 problems

• Using Index Match together

• Lookup to the left ?

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 6
Index and Match together
Put both of them together an you have Superman ready !

Now the same example and we are trying to find the position of James

2 1. In this snapshot we are trying to find James. (lookup Value)

2. Trying to find James in the Range (lookup_array)
3. We want match to find the exact match

This will return the position of James i.e. 4

1 3

The Match formula feeds in the row

number for James and the column
number is 3. The result is 131

Self Work

Can you write a INDEX MACTH formula

to look for James and Apr

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 7
Lookup to the Left
Lets put our superman to work for looking up to the left of the data range

For some reason our unique employee id

lies on the extreme right and we want to
look for the designation of these 2
Employee IDs ?

• EMPID0011
• EMPID0012

Lets first write a MATCH formula to find the position number of those 2
employee IDs. Note that I have frozen the lookup range

Now add the INDEX function to make our superman work

Note that the INDEX is

only applied on the Designation
MATCH gives us the correct
row number of the Emp ID

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 8
Index – Advanced *
Now think of INDEX like your intelligent secretary who is better
than VLOOKUP. What I mean to say is that this secretary of yours Hi, my name is
(INDEX) has the capability of looking up at different data sets. So INDEX

if INDEX wont find the lookup value in one data range it will go
and find it another range

Let’s discover her (INDEX’s) capabilities, I mean work capabilities ;-D

Syntax
INDEX(reference, row_num, [column_num], [area_num])

Two things change here (reference and area number, so I’ll cover those 2 and
rest remains the same
Reference – is the range of the multiple data sets
Area_num – is the number of the range where you want to search

Ok, so now 2 tables containing names,

we want to either look up in table 1 or
table 2

1. Reference – These are data ranges.

Note that they are places in
separate brackets and are
separated by comma

* The index function has two syntaxes, for simplicity reasons we are denoting it as Index Advanced. You
see both the syntaxes when you type =INDEX(

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 9
Index - Advanced
2. We enter our usual row and the column input.

We have manually entered any row and

the Column numbers as 4,2

This is where we will

write our area number
and reference it to our
Index formula

3. The area number is the data range

where you want to lookup. Not
necessarily all data ranges that you
specify should have same dimensions
i.e. same number of rows and columns

You can specify the area

number in C20 and INDEX
will pull up row 4th and 2nd
column from that area
3 number

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 10
Choose
I think life becomes great when we have the options to choose from. To make
your formulas more versatile excel gives you a CHOOSE function. Lets take a
look

Syntax
CHOOSE(index_num, value1, [value2], ...)

Index_num – This is your choice number

Value 1 – This is the value of the first choice
Value 2 – This is the value of the second choice and so on..

As you change the choice number in

C12, the CHOOSE formula will pick up
10%, 20% or 15% the values get picked
up in the order of their occurrence in
the formula
Choice 1 – 10%
Choice 2 - 20%
Choice 3 – 15%

Self Work
Let’s play with the capabilities that we have acquired till now. Being INDEX
MATCH and CHOOSE in your arsenal your secretary has now become a super
woman.

Same case but a different question, you have to find the salary of ‘Greeko’ but
you don’t know in which table has his record and you neither know his row
number
Hints

• Index will allow you to select different

areas (data ranges)

• Match will let you know the row number

• Choose give you a choice to select the

table 1 or table 2

You are not allowed to hard code formulas in the cell

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 11
Indirect
Let’s say we are making a journey, but we don’t know where are we going? ..
I know it kind of sounds bizarre but I said that WE don’t know about our
journey someone else knows, so we have to go to that someone and find out
where we are going. I know I know it sounds like a big BS but hang in there

Hi
A100 Cell A100, has the text
This is our Indirect
Hi
function, going to This is ‘someone’ (Cell
‘someone’ which is INDIRECT will return
A1) and it is asking us
cell address A1 value in A100 i.e. Hi
to go to Cell A100

I know INDIRECT gives you a kind of feeling that where the hell am I going to
use it ? But I will settle your woes in a while, as of now lets cover the syntax
in a bit more structured way

Syntax
INDIRECT(ref_text, [a1])

Ref_Text – This is your cell address which leads you to another cell address
A1 – This is the way how Indirect will read the cell address. Let’s just stick to
choosing TRUE as an option for now. This is an optional input & gives the
TRUE value by default

Take a look

This is cell C6 and is asking

the INDIRECT to go and
fetch the value from cell N15.
So the INDIRECT will return
the value in N15

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 12
Offset
Pure Monster! It has absolute killer utility but should be used with caution
because of its volatile nature, we’ll discuss a bit on volatility later but as of
now lets ride on OFFSET for a while

OFFSET function can start anywhere

in your sheet and capture any set of
data and give you options to sum,
average any range and a whole bunch
of other stuff

Syntax

OFFSET(reference, rows, cols, [height], [width])

Reference – This is your starting point in the sheet. Typically a cell address
Rows – No of rows you want to travel downwards/upwards from the start point
Cols – No of columns you want offset to travel left/right from the start point

We’ll discuss height and width (which are optional) in a while as of now let’s
take a stock of what we got here!

Start from D14 then move up five rows (-5)

and then move right one column (1) and
OFFSET returns the value 200

Now lets say that you want to select the

entire range of cells here and add them up

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 13
Offset Advanced
Just for simplicity reasons lets call this as Offset Advanced. Let’s look at our
case where I want to add the range of data (100,800,300,200)

Just to reiterate Start at cell D14, then move

five rows up (-5) and then don’t move any
column (0), from here you want to select 4
cells

Now we specify
• Height as -2 (our range of cells is 2 rows
upwards in height)
• Width as 2 (range of cells is 2 columns in
width)
• Don’t press enter!!
Width
Height

OFFSET holds the array of cells in its mind and is not capable of displaying
them in one single cell, secondly we have not specified anywhere that we want
to take a sum of those value… OFFSET is so dumb!! I know .. but we’ll have to
wrap OFFSET around a SUM function

Now the possibilities are limitless of how can you use this. I’ll discuss some of
its advanced features a bit later.
Please note that
o Positive Row Numbers or Height – Travel Down that many rows
o Negative Row Numbers or Height – Travel Up that many rows
o Positive Column Numbers or Width – Travel Right that many columns
o Negative Column Numbers or Width – Travel Left that many columns

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 14
Columns and Rows
They say simple things always make a killing utility, the saying goes true for
COLUMNS and ROWS functions as well

Syntax
=COLUMNS(array) =ROWS(array)

Array – select a range of cells and it will specify how many columns or rows
are there in that range

This will return 7, since

there are seven Rows formula will
columns in the range return the
selected. Damn simple, number of rows
isn't it ? in the range
selected i.e. 8

Lets make a killing by combining the VLOOKUP and the COLUMNS function
1

1. I have used the column function to

count the number of columns to use
in VLOOKUP

2. The column number in

VLOOKUP is linked to the cell
which has the column function

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 15
Address
The simplest way to describe this function is that it returns the cell address of
any cell. Let’s take a look

Syntax
ADDRESS(row_num, column_num, [abs_num], [a1], [sheet_text])

Row_num – The row number of the cell

Col_num – The column number of the cell. A is 1st column & B is 2nd and so on
Abs_num – This input is Optional. How would you like to reference the cell.
There are 4 options here
• 1 stands for absolute referencing ($A$1)
• 2 stands for freezing the row (A$1)
• 3 stands for freezing the column ($A1)
• 4 stands for not freezing either row or column
A1 – Optional. Style of referencing, lets stick to A1 style (denoted by 1 or
True)
Sheet_Text – Optional. This is the sheet name where you are addressing the
cell.

Lets say we are using the ADDRESS function on the cell A5 (outlined in
picture)

5 and 1 denote the

row and column
number. 1 denotes
absolute referencing

1 denotes the A1
style referencing.
When you press enter you’ll get the cell address $A$5. We’ll stick to A1 style
Now seriously, there is no big deal about this. Let’s get referencing to most
into a case where use the INDIRECT function with the part of our learning
ADDRESS Function

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 16
Indirect Function Application
Lets take a look at an interesting case. I have 3 sheets and some data on each
of them

Sales of Jan in Sheet 1

Ron Susan Pualine Daura

Sales of Feb in Sheet 2
301 242 218 328

Ron Susan Pualine Daura

Sales of Mar in Sheet 3
412 239 392 487

My job is to consolidate data on a single sheet. There could be many ways to

do that (ranging from copying the data to linking each cell) but we are going
to use the INDIRECT function

The cell address is placed here

The INDIRECT formula can

pick up cell address from cells
I have written the sheet names here linked

Note a couple of things

1. & operator is combining the sheet name with the cell address
2. Proper cell referencing is allowing to pick up data from multiple sheets
3. As of now we have manually written the sheet names and cell address but
we can automate that too with ADDRESS function

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 17
Using Wildcards in Formulas
Just like the Joker in playing cards (which can fit anywhere) we have
wildcards in excel that do a similar job. Now these wild cards can be
combined with excel functions like AVERAGEIF/IFS, COUNTIF/IFS,
H&VLOOKUP, MATCH, SEARCH, SUMIF/IFS, etc..

Lets get going with an example. In the example below we have to total the
CTC for all employees whose EMP codes are in 11 series (i.e. starting from
11). Now if this data would have been a couple of thousand rows, it would
truly have been a nightmare without the wildcard feature

We have here EMP ID and their CTC

Notice the * (asterisk) sign before and after 11. This

simple SUMIF formula will give you the total CTC for
EMP series 11

This will find all the records which have 11 in the EMPID

How the * Asterisk works: If the asterisk symbol is applied before a text
string, it would match everything that ends with that text string. For example
SUMIF(Range,”*ber”,Sum_Range) will include the sales for the last 4 months
because they end with the string ber (September, October, November,
December)

How the ? Question mark works : Unlike the asterisk, a question mark
matches any single character For example, =COUNTIF(range, “sm?th”) will
count all the smiths either with an I or Y (smith / smyth)
© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 18
1. Advanced Excel
Formulas – Date &
Time Functions

19
A quick recap - how date & time works in Excel
There is a special way how excel treats dates. For Excel, dates are nothing but
numbers. To give you more insight, each date is a sequential number to excel
for example my birthday 27-Apr-1986 is numbered as 31529. Now the obvious
question is that, where did this number come from?

Let’s unravel this, The excel calendar begins on 1st Jan 1900 so that it is
stored as the number 1 in Excel’s memory, 2nd Jan 1900 is stored as the
number 2. Programmers have stretched the calendar till 31st-Dec-9999 (I am
not sure if we are going to go that far in any sort of calculations, at-least I
have not!)
DATES ARE NUMBERS IN EXCEL

1-Jan-1900 31-Dec-9999
Starting date Last date

1 2 3 4 5………………………………………………………………………………………………………..2958465

A quick exercise - Can you find out the number of your birthdate ?

Just like dates, time is also a number but time being a smaller fraction (as
compared to dates) they are presented as decimals. Let’s continue with my
birthday, so the number is 31529

Take a look at how the time progress as I increase the decimals

Notice how the time changes when the

decimal values are changing. If you
increase the decimal places the time
would reflect in minutes and seconds
too!

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 20
Day, Month, Year
Now that you have an understanding that dates are nothing but numbers in
excel. Lets take a look at 3 foundation building functions (DAY, MONTH, YEAR)

Syntax DAY function

DAY(serial_number)
Serial_number – The date or the serial number

Simply put the DAY function will return the DAY of the month, for example if
the date is 14 Feb 2014, DAY will return the number 14 (as the 14th day of
the month)
Make no mistake in understanding, The
DAY function is extracting the day of
the month from a serial number(which
is appearing to you as a date)

Syntax MONTH function

MONTH(serial_number)
Serial_number – The date or the serial number

The MONTH function will return the Month of the Year, for example if the date
is 14 Feb 2014, MONTH will return the 2 (as 2nd month of the year)

MONTH is returning the month

number, starting from Jan as 1

Syntax YEAR function

YEAR(serial_number)
Serial_number – The date or the serial number

The YEAR function will return the Year, for example if the date is 14 Feb 2014,
YEAR will return the 2014 (as the year number)

Since all the dates are of 1997. The

YEAR function returns 1997

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 21
Date
The date function in excel can combine the (DAY, MONTH AND YEAR) function
and return the date. The previous 3 functions can disassemble a date and the
DATE function can reassemble a date

Syntax
DATE(year, month, day) – They are pretty explanatory, so I’ll directly jump
into an example

In our earlier example we used the DAY, MONTH and YEAR function. I am now
adding a fourth column to combine the 3 separated elements (day, month,
year) by the DATE function

Lets do a quick exercise to create a series of month starting dates. Take a

closer look athe DATE function used. I have mannually input the year and the
day and to get the correct month number I have used the ROWS function
(with expanding range) by locking on the first part of the range

As you copy the formula down the

range keeps expanding.

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 22
Second, Minute, Hour
Here we break down the date into even smaller elements (Second, Minute and
Hour). Lets take a look

Syntax SECOND function

SECOND(serial_number)
Serial number is again the date or a number

The SECONDS function is

extracting the seconds from the
date and time, which otherwise
would be a big formula alchemy

Syntax MINUTE function

MINUTE(serial_number)

The MINUTE function is

extracting the minutes from the
date and time

Syntax HOUR function

HOUR(serial_number)

The HOUR function is

extracting the hours from the
date and time

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 23
Time
Just like the DATE function, the TIME function combines the 3 elements of
time (Hour, minutes and seconds)

Syntax
TIME(hour, minute, second)

Here the TIME function is combining the smaller elements and giving the time

Ok let’s look at a similar function which combines the TIME and the Date
together

Now
=NOW() returns the present date with time

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 24
Weekday and Weeknumber Functions
Excel has some built in functions that help you do different date related
analysis like counting the day of the week or counting the week of the year,
lets check out these

Syntax Weekday Function

WEEKDAY(serial_number,[return_type])

Serial_number is the date or the number

Return_type this input determines on which day do you want to start and end
the week

Weekday function returns numbers 1 to 7 denoting the day of the week. Let’s
say I want to know which day of the week was 3rd May 1988. In the example
below I select the date and choose the week starting number. Take a look at
the drop down that pops up when I am inputting the return type. It gives you
a lot of flexibility to choose when is your week is starting

Choosing 1 will set the

week number starting
from Sunday and ending
on Saturday

Syntax Weeknum Function

WEEKNUM(serial_number,[return_type])

Serial_number - is the date or the number

Return_type - this input determines the starting day of the week

This function returns the week number of the year. Continuing with 3rd May
1988, the week number of this date is 19 (if we start the week on Monday)

Choosing 2 will set the

starting day of the week
as Monday

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 25
Time Stamp Problem
Now with some of functions under our belt let’s solve a typical problem at
work. Lets say we need a time stamp against every data entered but the
condition is that once the time is stamped against the data it cannot be
changed. We would use a simple IF formula for this but with a new concept
called Circular Referencing

Introducing Circular Referencing – One or more cell references in a

circular formula circles back to itself. For example.. IF you type the following in
Cell A10

=IF(A10<1000, A10+1, A10) It is a Circular Formula

Each time we run the formula (pressing F9) the value in A10 will goes up by 1.

Setting Iterations for Circular Formulas – Although the formula is made in

such a way that it will increase the value by 1 each time but the number of
iterations that are set in excel settings for circular formulas can change the
result.

Turning ON Iterative calculations - Office Button > Excel Options > Formulas >
Check

Circular loop stops after 100 iterations

Check this Option

Now that we have understood circular referencing, let’s make a circular

referencing formula. Be sure to turn ON circular referencing
The IF Formula is checking IF
1. Cell B9 is empty if it is not Empty
then it gives nothing
2. If not empty then it checks IF cell c9
is empty (here the circular
referencing starts)
3. If cell c9 is empty then it enters the
current time and date using NOW
function else gives the value of C9

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 26
1. Advanced Excel
Formulas – Math
Functions

27
Ceiling and Floor Functions
I think these 2 functions are incredibly simple and powerful

Syntax CEILING function

CEILING(number, significance)

Number – can be any number

Significance – is the multiple

I think I’ll make more sense with this example. Consider a set of numbers, In
the formula I have specified the number and the significance as 3. Now this
function will take the numbers and push them up to the next multiple of 3. For
example if =CEILING(11,3) will result in 12, because the next multiple of 3
after 11 is 12

Note the CEILING

function is returning
the next multiple of 3

For Example
=CEILING(14,3) will
result in 15

If you have understood the CEILING function the FLOOR function is just a
sitter for you. Just as the CEILING function pushes any number to the next
multiple of the significance, the floor function pushes the number downwards,
here is the syntax

Syntax FLOOR function

=FLOOR(number, significance)
Nothing much to explain in the syntax here, lets jump right into an example

The FLOOR function here is returning

the previous multiple of 3

For Example =FLOOR(14,3) will result in 12

(which is the previous multiple of 3)

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 28
 Even and Odd
A little less sophisticated are the cousins of CEILING & FLOOR i.e. EVEN and
ODD functions

Syntax EVEN function

=EVEN(number)

Number could be any number

Just as the name suggests, the EVEN function returns the next even number
to the number specified in the function

Syntax ODD function

=ODD(number)

Right opposite to that is ODD which returns the next odd number to the
number specified in the function

Take a look, its pretty easy!

The EVEN function is returning The ODD function is returning

the next even number to the the next odd number to the
number selected number selected

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 29
Finding out Quarters of Dates
Self work Exercise

Make a formula to find out quarters of the dates. For example

• 02-Feb-2014 is the 1st Quarter

• 15-Apr-2013 is the 2nd Quarter

• 27-Aug-2010 is the 3rd Quarter

Finding Indian Quarters - See if you can tweak the formula a bit to find out
Quarters for Indian financial year? That means that quarter 1 is from Apr -
June

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 30
1. Advanced Excel
Formulas – Information
& Text Functions

31
Cell and Info Functions
These come handy when you want to know some information about a cell.
Take a look the syntax

Syntax
=CELL(info_type, [reference])

Info_Type – It gives you a list of information that you can pick up from
Reference – Cell address for which you the information selected. This is
optional if not specified the formula gives the information about the cell in
which the formula is typed

Choose the information type

that you want to see and press
Enter

The INFO Function is similar to cell function. Just type =INFO and select the
information that you need

Just pick the information that

you need!

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 32
Ifna
IFNA function is similar to IFERROR function. The only difference is that it only
checks for #N/A error

Syntax
IFNA(value, value_if_na)

Value – Could be a formula or reference to a cell that you are evaluating

Value_if_na – Is the value/number/formula/cell reference that you want in
case the value returns a #NA error

In the case mentioned below IFNA will return N/A since the VLOOKUP range is
empty, in that case the formula will return the text OK

Since the VLOOKUP range is empty it will return #N/A

IFNA will return the text ‘OK’

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 33
Clean and Trim
These two function come very handy when you have to clean your data. Lets
take a dive

Syntax CLEAN function

CLEAN(Text)

Text could be any text

The clean function is used for removing all non printable characters from the
next. Take a look at this case where each last name is appearing the next line.
I have to remove all the ‘enters’ before the last name for which I can use the
clean function

The CLEAN function is cleaning all the

unwanted (enters) before the last name

Syntax TRIM function

TRIM(Text)

The trim function removes all spaces from text except for a single space
between words. You can use TRIM on text that you have received from
another application that may have irregular spacing

Notice the irregular spacing between the

words in the text. The TRIM function is
clearing all the spaces apart from a single
space between the words

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 34
Rept
At the first glance this function will look like, am I really going to use this? But
I’ll tell you one of the coolest trick with function. Let’s do this

Syntax
=REPT(text,num_times)

Text – is any text

Num_times – is the number of times you want to repeat that text

For example if you write =REPT(“a”,10) it will repeat ‘a’ ten times and return
aaaaaaaaaa, now as promised let me show you something cool about this
function. Lets say we have a set of sales numbers for which we want to make
a chart

I have used the REPT function to repeat a

line “|” the number of times of sales and it
somewhat looks like a compact chart.

Self Work – Based on this I have a question for you

How would you make a chart using the REPT function when the sales values are
large, consider this example ?

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 35
2. Array Formulas
They are also know as CSE (CTRL+SHIFT+ENTER) formulas because of their
conditional capability of only working by pressing Ctrl + Shift + Enter. This is
one of the difficult topics in Excel so to make this topic fun and interesting
we’ll take a look at various concepts in various examples discussed in this
section

36
Array Formulas
An array formula has an advanced capability of handling operations for not a
single cell but a range of cells together.. Eh?? Confused? Forget that take a
look a case here

We have close and open price information

of 5 stocks

Question : You have to find the total change (close price – open price) by
writing one formula in a single cell?

I am sure you can do that with that giant

ugly formula. But could there be a better
way?

Introducing Array Formulas: Now to do the same operation I am going to

write simple and short (array) formula, which is going to be slightly different
than how a normal formula would look like.. Ready?

This formula will take the difference between

each value of the 2 ranges and then sum it up.
Please make sure to press CTRL SHIFT ENTER
to execute this formula. A simple ENTER
command will not work

Notice the following

1. Inside the SUM function I have selected the Close Price Range and Open
Price Range
2. The way it will work is, the formula will take the difference between each
values in the 2 ranges and then sum it up
3. But I cannot run this formula by pressing ENTER, it will give me a #VALUE
error, I have to use CTRL + SHIFT + ENTER to execute this formula

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 37
Array Formulas
Now the obvious question arises that how would you know if a formula is an
array formula?

Some ground rules of array formulas

1. Whenever you force an array into a formula argument that cannot by

default handle an array, you turn the formula into an array formula
o In the case that we just discussed, although SUM function can handle
a range of cell (or an array) but inherently it cannot perform any
calculation with the array selected
Notice that we are first performing array
calculation then wrapping that around the
SUM function. The sum function does not
support that so we use CTRL + SHIFT +
ENTER to enforce that into an array
formula
2. Array formulas only work only by pressing CTRL + SHIFT + ENTER, without
that either the formula gives you a wrong answer or an ERROR

Auditing array formulas

Undoubtedly array formulas can do the unthinkable in Excel and sometimes

these formulas can become extremely lengthy and geeky. Just to get a hang
of how the array formulas are working, you have got to know a way to audit
them. As an example I would use our recently discussed =SUM array formula

To see how the formula is working

Select the range and press F9

It shows the values in the range

Select the second range and press

F9. It would show the values for
that range too

Select the two ranges together

and press F9

It then shows up how each value

of the range is picked up to give a
difference

The when you press F9 on the

entire SUM function, it finally
gives you the answer 224

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 38
Array Formulas
Observations from the example

1. Do not press enter mistakenly after you have evaluated a part of the
formula by pressing F9. WHY? Because F9 is the calculation key and it
would replace the cell references with absolute values in the formula after
you press enter. So either press ESC key (to come out of formula cell edit
mode) or press CTRL Z to undo the F9 key effect

2. Just as we saw in the example the F9 key can evaluate a part of the
formula so you can technically break down the evaluation in bits and pieces
and understand a formula

3. This F9 calculation feature is insanely beneficial when you are making some
serious formula alchemy and you want to keep testing the results as you
build up a giant formula monster

Boolean Logic in Array Formulas

Lets delve deeper and get more Geeky with Array Formulas. Let me pick up an
example an introduce a new concept (that works as a backbone) in array
formulas. We have stocks their Purchase Price and Market Price. We have to
find the total Profit made on all the stocks but keeping the power of array
formulas in mind, we got to do that with a single formula in one single cell

The Logic is that the stock would obviously be sold if the Purchase Price is
less than the Market Price, else one would not sell the stock! Sounds Right?

The IF statement has 3 parts

1. We are checking if the Purchase

Price range is less than the
Market Price Range
2. If that condition is true I want
the difference of the market
price range and purchase price
1 2 3 range
3. Else 0

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 39
Array Formulas
Evaluating the formula with the F9 key – How the Boolean Works

1. Select the first range in the IF Condition and press F9 – The first rang
expands to show the purchase prices of different stocks

2. Select the second range in the IF Condition and press F9 – You will get the
range of market prices

3. Select both the ranges in IF condition and press F9 – You will get TRUEs
and FALSEs for purchase price being compared to market price. Where ever
the condition is true it will display TRUE else FALSE

These TRUES and FALSES are Booleans. For each True IF will
pick up the difference between Market Price and Purchase
Price and for each False IF will pick up 0
4. Select the next range for Value if TRUE and you will get the difference
between the two ranges by pressing F9

5. Finally select the entire IF statement and press F9 - IF will pick Market
Price – Purchase Price for only the TRUE Values

Check out the 0 (zeros) in between the values. Those are places
where the IF condition was giving a FALSE

6. Now SUM will sum only the positive values (i.e. where you have made a
profit)

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 40
Array Formulas
As of now we have been talking about formulas that can be forced to operate
and calculate arrays by pressing CTRL SHIFT ENTER but then there are also
exclusive array formulas that just work with CTRL SHIFT ENTER not otherwise

Frequency Function
This function can calculate the frequency distribution between different
intervals.

Syntax
=FREQUENCY(data_array, bins_array)
data_array – The data from which we want to calculate frequencies
bins_array – These are intervals

Lets take a look at an example

We have race time data for which we want to

find how many values fall between the specified
time intervals

Although we have written the intervals in this

fashion but the Frequency formula would need a
series of values

This formula would require you to first select a range of cells where you want
the result (one extra cell than the bins_array)

1. Select the cells (one more than the bins array

2. Select the data array and bins array
3. Use CTRL + SHIFT + ENTER to execute the
formula
Note that Bins_array is always the upper limit. We
select one additional cell while typing the formula
because that gives us frequency more than the last
value in the bins_array
© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 41
Array Formulas
Transpose Function
This function can turn horizontal data into vertical and vice-versa

Syntax
=Transpose(array)
Array is the range of cells that you want to transpose. Excel automatically
converts a vertical array to horizontal and vice-versa.

Take a look at an example here

This is a vertical data

With TRANSPOSE formula we have converted that into a horizontal

1. Select the number of columns/rows needed to fit the data

2. Write the TRANSPOSE function and select the array
3. Press Ctrl + Shift + Enter to execute
This can also be done with Paste Special but in that case the Data is pasted
and there is no link between the two data sets, so in case your main data
changes the changes will not reflect in the paste special transposed data

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 42
3. Excel Tables
Before we get started with this section, I want to write a prologue
about its awesomeness. I have not seen this feature to be too familiar
with the excel fraternity but this is very powerful for whole bunch of
reasons. Lets take a sneak peak into what are we going to cover in
this section

1. Excel Tables – What are they and how are they created ?

2. 8 reasons should you consider using excel tables !

3. Writing formulas in Excel Tables - Introducing structural

referencing

43
Excel Tables - getting started
What are Excel Tables ?

An excel table is a structure given to a set of data in excel automatically when

you access this feature. The structure includes
• A neat and prominent formatting of data
• The data is stored under the Table Name as Table1 or Table2 and so on, you
can also customize the name of the table
• Because the data is stored under a unified table structure, excel does not
see this as individual cell addresses but as Table1 or Table4 etc..

I am not going to make this boring.. So let’s take a look at some sales
transaction data

590 rows of
such data

Creating a Table ?

This data spreads from Column B to G and runs in about 600 rows. Lets
convert this data into a table

1. Select any cell inside the data range and use the shortcut Ctrl+T
2. You’ll have a ‘Create Table’ dialogue box intuitively guessing the
range of the data and asking if your data has headers
3. Go ahead and click OK. Note that headers should be present in the
data range and should be ticked (in our case)

• Formatting
has changed
• Filters
appeared
• Alternate
rows
coloured
• Thin border
outside the
table

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Excel Table – What is so special about them
Here are my top 8 reasons to use table. Lets explore them

1. Quick Formatting – As soon as you convert the data range to a table

structure you quickly format the table. Even you revert the table back to a
normal data range the formatting stays

2. Effortless data entry – As soon as you enter a new row or column Excel
picks up the new data in the table structure

3. Customize Output Options – This is awesome, You can change the

operations (for sum, count, average etc) at the end of any column

Total column has filters to

change the Operations (Sum,
Count, Avg etc)

Also note that the headers are always

visible. Here the column names have
been replaced by the table headers
4. Visible Headers – The table feature will always display the headers of the
data, even if the screen is scrolled till the end of the table. In that case the
column headers are replaced by the table headers

5. Auto Fill Formulas – Let’s say I am calculating the costs (Amount –

Profit) in our table, the table feature auto fills the rest of the rows by itself
for a particular calculated column

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 45
Excel Table – What is so special about them
If you are wondering, how is the formula written. Is this range naming or
something else? Let me tell you it is none of those but Structural references

6. Structural References – Lets decode structural references. In table the

way you reference an entire column is by its header name, since you convert
the entire data into a table structure, individual cells (or range of cells) lose
significance

Lets say you want to calculate 30% tax on profit, the way it will work in tables
is as follows. Start typing in the highlighted cell

=[Profit]*30%

As soon as you press enter excel will populate the answer in the cells in the
Tax Column. This kind of referencing is called structured referencing

Please take a note of a few points to make better sense of structured

referencing

1. Since there is no cell referencing (=A1) the table is referred by its structure
or the headers for example =[sales]*[commission], this will take each row
in the sales column and multiply it with each row in commission column

2. If you only type headers or column name (always in square [..] brackets),
be sure to be working in the adjacent row or column of the table. Like we
just did our tax calculation(which was an adjacent column to the table)

3. If you are referring the column header in some function or anywhere else
in the sheet (which is not adjacent to the table) then you also have to
specify the table name. Here is how you do it
=SUM(TableName[Sales]) this would total the sales column in the
table name you specify
=Sales[Profit]*Tax[TaxRate] this would take each item row of Profit
Column from the sales table and multiply it with TaxRate column in the
Tax Table

4. Naming Tables – By default your tables are named as

Table1 or Table2 (in the order you create them). But a
better practice is to name the tables by clicking anywhere
in the Table and from the Design tab, click in the Table
Name field and type the new name for your Table
Table name
field
© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 46
 Excel Table – What is so special about them
7. How formulas work in Structural referencing – Don’t be afraid it is
pretty simple.. Simpler than you think :-D

Case
For instance we have two tables

Name

Named as
Named as Sales
Cust

Our task: find the correct customer code from the customer table and put it
against each customer in the sales table. Simple VLOOKUP, here is how we
would do it!

[customer Name] Cust

becomes the Lookup value Table is the Table array

Next Task: We have expanded the customer table and we have to find the
total of each customer sales from the sales table

Take a note of couple of things

1. Since we have to pick up the criteria range from the sales table we have to
specify the table name along with the column header i.e. Sales[Customer
Name]
2. We are writing the formula in the ‘Cust’ table so no need of table name
3. The sum range is again picked from the sales table i.e. Sales[Amount]

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 47
Excel Table – What is so special about them
8. Dynamic Charts and Data Ranges – now such a beauty can be extended
to charts and dynamic ranges in pivot tables as well. Consider the following
data, where we have used a table to make a chart

When you enter July’s Sales the

chart will self update

The same concept can be applied to pivot tables as well. Let’s say we want to
make a pivot table from Sales table

We just entered the table name in the Range field, now as and when new data
is added to the sales table the Pivot table just needs to be refreshed and new
data will be picked up in the Pivot Table automatically

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 48
4. Advanced Filter

49
Advanced Filter in Excel
This is one of the most underrated features on the contrary it is of great utility
and easy to use !! Lets pick up a case to get a hang of this

Consider this data

Filter criteria for data

• Sales Rep = Veronica
• Customer = MNTL

The advanced filter is located in the DATA tab by the name ‘Advanced’
(Shortcut key – Alt A Q)

Make a separate place for writing the criteria on the sheet, let’s say on the top
of our data. Include the headers too while writing the filter criteria, with the
help of headers advanced filter will identify the which criteria will apply to
which column of the data. So this is how we do it

Criteria for Advanced

Filter

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Advanced Filter in Excel
Applying the Advanced Filter
1. Go to the DATA tab and click on Advanced
2. Advanced Filter dialogue box pops up with 4 inputs
o List Range –> Select the entire data including the headers
o Criteria Range –> Select the criteria range (two rows including the
headers)
o Click the Radio Button –> Copy to another location and click anywhere
else on the sheet, where you want the filtered data to be copied
o Unique Records –> If you are looking for only unique records then
check the unique records button
3. And you are done! Yes it is that simple :-D

Filter
criteria

List Location where you

want to copy

Applying Diverse Filter Criteria - You can apply filter criteria in a diverse
ways.. lets check outs some

Filtered records for Veronica and MNTL and records for White Associates
with Sales greater than >10000

Filtered records from 2-Jan-2005 till 31-Dec-2006 for Varsha

Filtered records between 2-Jan-2005 and 31-Dec-2006 for Customer MNTL and
filtered records for Boston Consultants for Sales >10000 in the Region East

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 51
Advanced Filter in Excel
Partial Filter Result - You can also retrieve partial information, for instance I
want to apply the following filter

• Sales Rep = Swati

• Region East = East

And the filtered records should only come for Date and Sales for that just
write the headers Date and Sales in the Copy to Location (on the sheet) Select
those headers only in the advanced filter (copy to location) option The records
will only populate the Date and Sales for Swati and East

Criteria

Filtered
records only
for Date and
Sales

Food for thought !

Have you thought of using Advanced filter with wild cards.

Give it a shot!

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 52
5. Advanced Cell and
Range Naming

53
Cell & Range Naming
This is very straight forward and is the foundation of what we are going to
learn about dynamic range naming and integrating multiple ranges in a
formula. Lets get done with this quickly. You have a list of employees for which
you need to calculate 20% commission on annual CTC

1. Lets name the commission % cell. Select the cell and type the name in the
Name box on top left corner. Be sure to press Enter after typing the name

2. Now write your formula to calculate commission using the cell name

You can start typing the name and

excel will automatically pick up
the reference

Just like naming a singe cell you can name the entire range as well. Nothing
too complicated, just select the entire range and type a name in the name box
and then use them in your formula. Here is a snippet

The entire range is named as

Salary

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 54
Cell & Range Naming
Cell Naming Rules that you need to keep in mind
• An Excel name can't contain space characters
• The first character of a name must be a letter, underscore (_) backslash (\).
Remaining characters in the name can be letters, numbers, period,
underscore characters
• Names can contain uppercase and lowercase letters, and Excel does not
distinguish between them. For example, North and NORTH are treated as
the same name.
• Names cannot be the same as a cell reference, such as A$35 or R2D2

Additional Naming Options

1. To edit/delete/modify the names. Visit name manager by Ctrl + F3. Also
can be accessed in the formula tab
2. To auto complete the cell name or your function, use the Tab key
3. To insert the name in your formula use F3 (this will display the list of all
names in the workbook)
4. Use the shortcut Ctrl + Shift + F3 to name a bunch of cell together. This is
how it works

Lets say we have a range of values

1. Select the entire range

including the variable
2. Use the shortcut CTRL +
SHIFT + F3 and then tick left
columns
3. All the cells with numbers will
be named with the variable
text values

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 55
Formula Based Range Naming
Now that we have covered all good to know stuff, lets have the real meat. So
we have a situation where we need to automatically create a sales chart for
the most recent quarter

Need to create a chart for

the most recent quarter. So
the logic goes like..
When ever new data is added
please take that data and
make a chart
So I need to start counting from the start and count till end and pick all the
data in the last row.. Sounds right? We’ll pick the Offset formula from our
arsenal
1 2 3 4
1. The Offset starts at $B$7
2. Then counts the number
of filled cells from the
next cell. We have
selected some blank cells
in the range so that when
we add new data that gets
picked up automatically.
3. We then move to the next
column by specifying 1
4. Width is set to 4 which
will pick up the data in
the next 4 columns

Note that this is not the correct place to write the formula. The formula will be
written in the Name Box

If you have gotten till here understanding most of what we have discussed
then you must be thinking that this can be done by Excel Tables (they are self
expanding when new data is added) but my friend they just expand and pick
up all the data in the table, but we need to only pick up on the most recent
quarter and not all.

We are going to do this by creating a dynamic range (a named range which

only pick up the most recent quarter) with a formula
Hi my
Jack (the genius) will tell us how to do it
name is
Jack

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 56
Formula Based Range Naming

Copy the formula in the cell

edit mode

Now go to the Name Manager (CTRL + F3) in formulas tab and click on the
‘New’. A New Name dialogue box will appear

Enter a suitable name. Keeping in mind

the cell naming rules!!

Paste your formula here

Now pick up the last of data and make a simple column chart

1. Right click on the chart

and choose select data
option
2. Then click on Edit in the
left column

I have first written the sheet name

and then written my named cell
(which picks up the last row)

‘mapping sheet.xlsx’!Last_row

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 57
Formula Based Range Naming

• As soon as I enter new

data the chart updates
itself
• But there is a slight
problem! Could you
figure that out?

Yeah that’s right the label of

the chart is incorrect !
Because it is not dynamic as
the data is. Can you make
the label dynamic ?

Jack’s Dynamic Data Label Challenge!

Here are a few hints for you excel studs!

1. Create a formula that only picks up the quarter in the last row
2. Name a cell with that formula
3. Place it in the chart!!

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 58
6. Form Controls

59
Form Controls
Ever imagined talking to your spreadsheet report

You: Hi, Spreadsheet can you show the comparison between Co A and Co B and
take off Co C from the chart

Spreadsheet: Sure sir.. <Some operations….axkj jhbkznkbhwih921u392u49> here

you go.. This is the updated chart with only Co A and Co B information

You: Ok great, Now I want the top ten customers for Co A and Co B

Spreadsheet: <asldk289.amskjdf912342.0> here are the top 10 list of customers

(with graphs) for Co A and Co B

The form controls feature let’s you do just that. Cool..eh? We can develop
some self explanatory buttons and tools to get answers to questions like
above and make our bosses happy… So let’s do this

Where are Form Controls ?

Form controls are placed in the Developer Tab. If you are unable to locate the
Developer Tab you’ll probably have to turn it on

Turning on the Developer Tab Excel 2010 and 2013

1. Go to Excel Options in the FILE Tab

2. In the Excel Options Window go to Customize Ribbon in left panel
3. And tick on ‘Developer’ option

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 60
Form Controls
Turning on Developer Tab in Excel 2007

1. Visit the ‘Excel Options’ again by clicking the Microsoft Window button on
the top left corner of the screen
2. The Popular Tab (left panel) will have option to turn on the Developer Tab

Inserting Form Controls

Click on the Insert button drop down in the Developer Tab

for accessing a whole range of Form controls. As you can see
there are two types of controls and both look similar, the
other one being Active X Controls. We’ll talk about them
once we finish discussing Form Controls

Let’s get started! There are 9 of them out there of which we

will cover 6. Before I start naming each and help you
understand how to use them, I just want to mention two
critical aspects about Form Controls

1. Using Form Controls – Form controls are extremely easy and intuitive to
use. For example if you see a scrollbar you don’t need an Einstein brain to
figure out what to do with it.. Its simple.. Just scroll baby, just scroll up and
down

2. Creating Form Controls – Now here is where you will require some
geniuses because you need to connect that scrollbar to your data in excel
so that when the user is using it, it populates correct data

Our learning will be focused on becoming

geniuses i.e. Creating Form Controls

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 61
Form Controls
Creating Form Controls – Form controls are found in the Insert Tab drop
down in the Developer Tab

Here are the

Form Controls

You can pick any form control and cursor icon will change to a plus sign.
Simply drag the plus sign on the sheet and Form Control will be drawn. No
rocket science, its very intuitive!

Renaming Form Controls

Form Controls make no sense with their default names the. So you can right
click on (any) form control and choose Edit Text option. When you are done
editing the name simply press the Esc key. The form control naming has no
effect on their working, its is just for the reference of the user

Click here to rename

the Form Control

Format Control Options

This is where the real game lies. Each Form Control comes with different
formatting options. In the coverage ahead we are mainly going to discuss only
the formatting options of some very useful form controls

To Open the formatting options

of any Form Control, click here

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Form Controls
1. Button

Looks and works like any button. So what would happen if you press the
(on/off) button on your laptop.. Yeah right your laptop will turn ON or it will
turn OFF? .. Getting smarter.. Huh?

Just as the way buttons work in real life.. They do something. The excel Form
Control Button will also do something. Now that something comes from a
Macro so as soon as you draw the Button control excel will populate an Assign
Macro window to assign some Macro (that will do something) to that button
you just created. When you press the button that macro will run

Here we are setting our bounds to some crazy out of the box stuff without
using VBA

2. Combo Box

I am sure you are familiar with the List option in Data Validation which creates
a drop down, the combo box is just a bit different. The format control gives 3
design options to link this with the spread sheet

Range to be shown in drop down list

The cell (any cell) which is to be
linked to the spreadsheet
When you drop
• If you select the first Item …any
down the list how
item (text or num) from the list,
many items you
the cell linked will show number 1
want to show.
• If you select second item it will
The rest can be
show number 2 and so on
scrolled

I know the above explanation is not enough, we need to be more practical

here so lets do a case. You have a long list of Emp IDs and Grades, you need
to make a combo box which selects one ID and based on that it shows the
grade of the employee
Step 1) Insert a Combo Box, close to
the data on the sheet. That is simple!!

40+ records

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 63
Form Controls
Step 2) Open the format controls of the combo box inserted and select the
data from the sheet, link it to cell in the sheet and specify the drop down lines

Range of employee IDs

A cell linked to sheet, which will
No of items that change as the user selects the
will be displayed value from the drop down
in the drop down,
rest can be
scrolled

Step 3) Now when you click the combo box dropdown it will show the list
drop down of the EMP IDs we just need to connect the drop down to a formula
that fetches the correct grade for that ID.. Which is our regular INDEX or a
VLOOKUP (you are already a pro at it)

When list item is

picked, the number
of the list item gets
displayed in the cell

A simple index
formula to get the
desired Grade for
the Emp ID selected

We’ll this could have been done without the combo box as well.. but at times
combo box serves as a great utility in dashboards and automation reports!

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 64
Form Controls
3. Spin Button

They are pretty simple to construct, but they can only be constructed like a
portrait. By looking at spin button you can realize that it is meant to increase
or decrease a particular value

Let’s create a spin button and open the Format Control box

Current Value displayed at start

Minimum Value
Maximum Value
Increment when you click the button

Address of the linked cell

Since we specified the current value as 1, we start from 1 and increment by 2

till we reach 100 (3,5,7,9 and so on..) each time you click the up button

4. Option Button

Option button are meant to give the user the flexibility of choosing an option
between some. You can insert as many option button on a single sheet and
link them all to a single cell. Lets insert 4 option buttons on the sheet and
work with them
Apart from inserting 4 option buttons
I have also renamed them by right
clicking and choosing Edit Text option

Let’s format them each!

The format Control box gives us the only option to link each of the Option
button to a single cell in the sheet

Address of the linked cell

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 65
Form Controls
When you change the value of the Option Button the value updates in the
linked cell
Note that the linked cell picks up the value as per the
order of options button inserted.. So the option button
inserted first will by default have the number 1 and so n.
The cell value has nothing to do with the text that you
enter to name the option button

You can use them in various scenario analysis

4. List Box

The list box can hold a list of values (some) visible at a time (if your list is
large) and lets the user choose any one of the list item. Depending the
number of the item chosen (from top to bottom) it will give its sequence
number. Lets explore this as well

Here is how we format this

Although the format control

gives us the option to select
multiple values from the list,
but alas! multiple values cant
be executed without a VBA
Code (macro)

5. Check Box

The check box lets you check and uncheck the button and return a
TRUE/FALSE Boolean where TRUE means 1 and FALSE means 0. The format
controls of the Check Box looks like this

Only gives you the option to link to a cell

address. When you check the check box it
returns TRUE, when unchecked it returns
FALSE

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 66
Form Controls
6. Scroll Bar

The scroll bar scrolls a particular value up or down. You can insert the scroll
bar horizontally or vertically. Lets first get the format control basic right and
then delve into an interesting case
The value appears as per the scroller’s
position in the bar

Change in value
when you click the
corner arrows

Change in value when

you click in between
Linked cell in the
the scroll bar
sheet

Case – Making a scrollable list!!

Lets say that we have a long list of Employee Names and their Cost to
Company

150 records

Step 1) Create a vertical scroll bar and link it to a cell in the sheet

1. Minimum value has been set

to 0
2. Maximum value has been set
1 to 140
3. And linked a cell in the sheet
2
The reason why have we
specified mini value as 0 and max
3 value as 140 will be clear to you
in a while!!

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 67
Form Controls
Step 2) Add row numbers next to the scroll bar. Use the =ROWS function with
an expanding array (freeze only the first part of the range)

Step 3) Write a simple INDEX formula to pull the records from the table. Lets
see how the INDEX formula is working

1 2 3 4
• It is taking the array on the data range specified
• The row number is deriving from the ROWS function used and we are
adding the value in the cell linked to the scroll bar.
o WHY ? Because when you scroll down.. The value will change (2,3,4,
and so on) the new value will then be added to the ROWS function
that is being fed into the INDEX… phew!! Too much is it??
• The column number is 1 for the Names and should change to 2 (manually)
when to copy the formula right to fetch the CTCs

This trick is incredibly helpful in dashboards, you can further compact the
formula by consolidating the logic in a single formula and may be using the
MATCH function to fetch the column numbers

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 68
7. Pivot Tables

69
Pivot Tables
In my opinion Pivot Table’s usage has been mixed. Some live and sleep with it
and some shy away. I am going to discuss some basic stuff and more of
unconventional advanced stuff in this topics. Let’s see if I can spurt your love
for pivot tables ?

Let’s roll some unique features with a case (data)

~600 such
records

Exploring the Grouping Feature

We want to summarise the data region wise by quarterly sales. So we draw a
quick pivot table on the data and it looks like this

A pivot table with Region in

columns and Date in Rows
looks like this

But this kind of pivot table wont be of much help since the dates are not
showing in quarters and years. So Let’s group them
1. Right click on the dates in the pivot table data and choose Group
2. Then Group it with quarters and years
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Pivot Tables
Once you have done the grouping the data will show something like this.
Beautiful.. Just as we wanted!

Just as this
you can do
grouping in
multiple ways

Problems associated with Grouping

This was cool, lets check out some problems that you might face with
grouping. Lets create another pivot table on a different sheet with the same
data and try and group the dates into months and years this time

Just for saving space I have

skipped inserting the regions in
the columns

Notice 2 things

1. Since you had grouped the

earlier pivot with Years and
quarter a new year field
starts to appear

2. If you change the grouping by

months the earlier pivot also
changes.. That is not what we
want

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Pivot Tables
The solution is to separate the grouping for each pivot table, so we are going
to go back in 2003 and take the solution from there. Old is gold!! Lets create a
pivot table like the way it was done in version 2003. The shortcut was ALT D
P. It will pop with the 3 stage process

1. Click Next, make sure that

the options selected here
match with your working

2. It will self select the

data and show you the
range, Click Next

3. Now this dialogue box is important. If you read the message it says you’ll save
memory if you choose to keep the same grouping as the other pivot table but
that is exactly that we don’t want to do.. So choose NO
After you are done with this process you can freely group the dates in a
different date structure

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Pivot Tables
The grouping feature also can split the data in class intervals. Take a look at
this case
We want to find the number of people
in the following categories
• 20-24
• 25-29
• 30-34
• 35-40

Names and age of

about 600 people

We have dropped the Age in the rows and

Name in Columns (that will give the count of
name

In the grouping dialogue box we simply

define the start and end age brackets
and specify the class interval to be 5

And we get the desired result

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Pivot Tables
The problem occurs when the data (numbers) are in decimal units
We want to find the number of people
in the following wage categories
• 20-24
• 25-29
• 30-34
• 35-39
Tweaked the data • 40-44
a bit with Names
and Wage/Hour

We follow the same pattern to add Age to Rows Field and Name to the Values
field in the pivot table
Take a look at the class intervals and answer the
following question

In which category the value 30 will belong ?

• Category 2
• Category 3

When the grouping feature in pivot tables are dealing with decimal numbers
the categories are created in continuous forms but our question is still
unanswered. In this kind of grouping lower limit is included and upper limits is
not included in category. So the value 30 will belong to category 3

Slicers and Timelines in Pivot Tables

If you have not been a serial user of excel 2010 and pivot tables then Slicers
will send you a tingle.. Ready for the tingle?

If I have to explain slicers, I would say they are better looking filters that can
be applied on pivot table reports. Consider this Pivot Table report of our initial
data with date as years in columns and customers in rows

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Pivot Tables
Find slicer option the Insert Tab. As soon as you click on slicer excel will throw
a dialogue box asking on which field do you want to apply slicers?

This is a slicer, found in the Insert Tab

Excel inserts a neat looking

option box (slicer) where you
can choose between
different regions
Got the tingle? Now let’s explore Timelines (to enhance the tingle) along with
slicer on the same data. Just next to slicer you will find the option for inserting
timelines. Could not see it ? Hmm

Timelines (enhanced tingle) is available in Excel 2013 only.. So

upgrade!!

Nevertheless, check out its awesomeness

Timelines in Insert Tab of Excel 2013

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Pivot Tables
Check out the timelines are inserted on Dates. You can select partial period to
display adequate data. You can also change the unit of the date from months
to quarters to even days

Timelines can be adjusted to select

relevant time period.. And look
equally awesome!!
One of the issues that you may face with Slicers and Timelines is that you may
want to attach a single slicer to many pivot tables or vice versa, here is how
you do that
So I have two pivot
tables from the same
data and a single slicer
should work on both
pivot tables

1. Select the slicer that you want to connect or disconnect and go Options Tab
(only highlights when you select the slicer)
2. Click on Report Connections
3. In the dialogue box pick up the pivot tables where you want to link the
slicer

Pick up the pivot tables you want to link

on unlink to the slicer here

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Pivot Tables
Now that we have looked at some unique features of Pivot Tables lets grab
some calculations too

Running Totals
Let’s say we have grouped the dates by month and years and calculated sales

Running Total
Jan (214100)
Jan + Feb (214100 + 122500)
Jan + Feb + March (214100 + 122500 + 196450)
And so on.. For all years
This is what we want!

Right click on the sales and select

Choose this option

Then select the running total on Dates

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Pivot Tables
Then select the running total on dates and your sales column will be replaced
by running total grouped by years. Just add sales again to your value field to
have two columns – one for running total and the other for sales

Sales column

Running Total (column

name has been renamed)

Just as running total we also have difference from calculation, lets check
that out. I have restored the earlier monthly sales and now we want to take
the difference from the last month
Difference From Last
Month
0
154900
-30800 The additional column is telling us if
83400 the sales have increased or decreased
-154700 from the last month
212850
-145750
8100

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Pivot Tables
Right click on the sales and choose  Show Values as  Difference from
option  click on Previous in the dialogue box  OK

Be sure to choose
previous for calculating
the difference from the
previous month

Here is the result.. Pure

awesomeness

You might want to check out some other interesting options like
• Ranking of the data
• % Difference from (to calculate the % change)
• % Running total (to calculate % additions)
• Many more useful operations depending on your needs

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Pivot Table – Data Models
Finally we now come to a bird called Data Model in Pivot Table. This bird is
found in excel 2013 and beats the shit out data analysis.. Guys here is
DATA MODEL

Jokes apart, data model feature really takes the analysis capabilities of pivot
table to another level. Lets begin with an example

We have our old

Sales Data with
Customer Code
this time

Customer data, with 12 unique

customer names. These are the
same customers that appear in
the sales table with Customer
code and an association date

Now convert the data in Excel Tables (refer to the tables reading) by pressing
Ctrl + T
• Name the Sales table as mysales
• Name the Customer table as Customers

Make a pivot table from the sales data and be sure to check the data model in
the Pivot Table dialogue box

Be sure to check the Data Model option

before you click OK

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Pivot Table – Data Models
Let’s keep some the data model aside for a while and lets get our head around
a couple of concepts

Primary Key – Sound like you have heard it ?? It is the genesis of forming
data relationships. Anything item which is unique and exists in a set of data is
a primary key. Could you guess what is the primary key in our sales data ?
If you have guessed
correctly, there is
no primary key in our
sales data, since no
unique field exists

Ok how about the customer data, what is the primary key here ?
The primary key here is the
customer code. If you are
thinking the primary key to be
Customer Name, which is wrong
because in the real world the
customer names can be same (but
as of now they are not repeating)

Foreign Key – would be the repeated records in table which can be uniquely
identified by records in another table.. Eh?? Ok ok sorry for the weird
definition take a look at the example.

Customer Code in Sales Table is a Foreign Key, WHY ? because the records are
repetitive but if I want to bring together all the transaction of a particular
customer code together I have a customer table with unique customer code
that matches with the customer codes (multiple entries) in the sales table!! I
hope you got it this time.. NO?? Read again, slowly, you’ll get it

Customer Code in mysales table is the foreign key that can be identified uniquely
with the Customer code in customers table

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Pivot Table – Data Models
Coming back to our pivot table. Take a look at the pivot table field list, Mysales
table has been added. Note a few visual and conceptual difference
1. A little table symbol in front of MySales – displaying column headers in it
2. A separate tab for Active tables and All tables

Two tabs for Active Tables and All

Tables

MySales table added to the pivot table

Field List

Right Click and take the customers to

the Active Tab for further analysis

Now establish the relationships that we have just learnt

The Relationships exist in the Analyse Tab.

Click and establish a new relationship

• Customer Code in Customers table is the Primary key

• Customer Code in MySales table is the foreign key
• Click Ok
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Pivot Table – Data Models
Now that we done set up the field for our analysis lets make a pivot table
report. Notice a couple of interesting things going around here..!!

• You have two tables MySales and Customers and

their columns to choose from
• I have taken Customer (name) from the Customers
table and Region and Sales values from the
MySales table and make a pivot out of it

Now this is really something incredible.. No

VLOOKUP stuff to get the customer name and then
make a pivot, I deserve a treat here.. Don’t I?

This way you can do multiple tables and link them in a single pivot table. Just
a couple of things before I close on Pivot Tables

• Identical data type in both columns: Columns that you are connecting in
both tables should have same data type (i.e. both numbers or dates or text
etc.)
• One to one or One to many relationships only: Data Model works with
only one to many or one to one relationships. That means one of the tables
must have no duplicate values on the column you are linking to

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8. Custom Formatting &
Applications

84
Custom Formatting and Applications
This feature allow you the change the way how your data appears.. Something
like before and after make up transformation

But just as the old and wise say.. Make up does not change who you really
are! So does it apply to custom formatting, it does not change the underlying
data but only changes how it looks (and this is really important to remember)

Custom Formatting Basics – Structure and Logic

Custom formatting is applied by writing a code in the Format Cells dialogue

box (shortcut Ctrl +1) in the custom formatting section

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Custom Formatting and Applications
We’ll discuss how to make a code in while but let’s discuss some ground rules
first!!

Thumb Rule 1) The custom formatting code can consist of 4 parts

1. The Positive Numbers (1, 4, 100, 5000 etc)

2. The Negative Numbers (-1, -5, -10, -1000 etc)
3. Zero (0)
4. Text (Hi dude, Million, Days etc)

You don’t necessarily need to write the code for all 4 parts. Excel will assume
the following in case you choose to omit one or more parts of the code

1. If you writing only the first part – then it applies to all numbers (+ve, -
ve and zeros)
2. Writing only first and second part – then first part formats +ve
numbers and zeros and second part formats the -ve numbers
3. Three parts – 1st formats the +ve numbers, 2nd formats the -ve
numbers, 3rd formats the zeros

Thumb Rule 2) You have to follow the sequence while writing the code. I
mean you cannot write the code for a text first and then for a negative
number… it wont work!! So the sequence for all 4 parts of the code will be
Positive Number Code ; Negative Number Code ; Zero Code ; Text Code

Thumb Rule 3) Always separate the parts of codes with a semicolon.

Remember the separator is a semicolon (;) not a comma. Simple right?

Thumb Rule 4) Put the text in the code in double quotes, example “Mn”

Writing a Short Code – Case

Consider this
Sale/Profit data
over 6 months
Your boss asks you to format it this way

1. Stacey (even if you are not Stacey :-D ), all the positive sales/profit
numbers should appear this way – $ 173.0 Mn
2. All negative numbers should appear this way in red color - $ (14.0) Mn
3. All zeros should be replaced with a hyphen -

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Custom Formatting and Applications
According to the rules our code will follow this sequence
positive number code ; negative number code ; zero code

1. Select your data (numbers only)

2. Go to cell formatting (Ctrl+1) and click custom and start writing the code
(by replacing ‘General’)
3. Code for positive numbers for excel to format any profit/sales number in
one decimal prefixed with a $ sign and suffixed with a Mn, we need a
variable for sales/profit number.

0 is a variable for any number. So we will write $ 0.0 “Mn”;

Code for negative numbers Now negative number need to be in red and in
brackets, rest is the same as positive number coding

Thumb Rule 5) When applying color to any part of the code, make sure the
color is written first in square brackets [Red]

So our revised code looks like - $ 0.0 “Mn”;[Red] $ (0.0) “Mn”;

Finally Code for zeros We don’t need to see zeros, instead we want a hyphen
or a dash so our revised quote looks like $ 0.0 “Mn”;[Red] $ (0.0) “Mn”;-

Note: code is separated with semicolon. Press Ok and see the result

Characters used in Coding and their function

”“ Displays any text between the double quotes

\ Displays the next character as it is

@ Character for displaying any text

* Repeats the preceding character to fill the width of the cell

Displays only significant digits and does not display insignificant zero’s, for example it
#
won’t display 0001 rather will display 1
Displays both significant (non zero numbers) and insignificant zero’s, for example the
0
code 000 will display 001,002 and so on
Decimal separator shows the number of decimal places after the number, for
.
example 0.0 will show insignificant zeros and 0.# will only significant decimal places
Comma if suffixed after # or a 0 it divides the number by 1000, for example 0, “k” will
,
result the number (15000) in 15 k
The percentage (%) symbol multiplies the number by 100 and suffixes the number with
%
a % symbol, for example #.0% will result in 12.0%
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Custom Formatting and Applications
Date & Time Characters and their utility

d Shows the number of the day

dd Shows the number of the day in 2 digit places. For example 07, 09, 15

ddd Shows the day in words. For example Sun, Mon, Tue

dddd Shows the day as unabbreviated. For example Monday, Tuesday, Friday

m Shows the month number from 1-12

mm Shows the month number in 2 digits for example 01, 02, 10

mmm Shows the month as a short word, example Jan, Feb, Mar

mmmm Shows the month as a complete word, example March, April, September

Show the last digits of the year, for example 2014 will be shown as 14 and 2000 as
yy
00

yyyy Shows all four digits of the year

h Shows the hour

hh Shows the hour in a 2 digit number example 02 or 09

[h] Shows the total hours, for example a number (2) formatted as [h] will show 48

Shows the minutes. Note it only shows minutes if used as time formatting code (hh
m
mm ss) otherwise it shows single digit months
Shows minutes as a two digit number. Note it only shows minutes if used as time
mm
formatting code (hh:mm:ss) otherwise it shows single digit months
Shows the total minutes, for example a number (2) formatted as [m] will show
[m]
2880

S Shows seconds

ss Shows the seconds in a 2 digit number example 02 or 59

Shows the total seconds, for example a number (2) formatted as [s] will show
[s]
172800

am/pm Adds am/pm after the time as per 12 hour clock

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Custom Formatting and Applications
Adding Conditions to your custom formatting code !

This is a real game changer and alters some of the thumb rules that have
been with us this far. In custom formatting you can also apply conditions
if the number is > than 100 then color is red else color is blue

The new rules!

1. The conditions are written in square brackets [condition]

2. If any color needs to be applied with a condition then colors will come first
in the code. For example [red] [condition]
3. The sequence of the condition is important – Excel stops reading the code
further if the condition is met
4. Semicolon (;) is used to separate conditions
5. You can write 3 conditions at max

Consider this Code

[>=1000000] 0.0#,, “m”;[>=1000] 0.0#, “k”;0

1. Notice the semicolons. 2 semicolons for separating 3 conditions

2. 1st Condition (in square bracket) is checking if the number is more or equal
to 1000000. If this condition is met then format the number as 1.0 m
3. 2nd Condition is checking if the number is greater or equal to 1000 then
format the number as 1.0 k
4. 3rd Condition is checking if the number is not meeting any of the above
conditions just write the number

This is how the code will format the following numbers

Number Custom Format

5293925 5.29 m
4761090 4.76 m
874911 874.91 k
390410 390.41 k
5246138 5.25 m
4514427 4.51 m
1785909 1.79 m
2802888 2.8 m

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Custom Formatting and Applications
Fractions in Custom Formatting

Number in Custom
Result
the Cell Formatting Code

2.235 ?/??? 447/200

2.25 # ?/? 2 1/4

2.235294 # ?/?? 2 4/17

2.235 # ?/??? 2 47/200

2 # ?/2 2

2.333333 # ?/3 2 1/3

2.25 # ?/4 2 1/4

2.25 # ?/8 2 2/8

2.2 # ?/10 2 2/10

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 90
9. Sheet Protection

91
Sheet Protection
If you want to prevent the user from accidentally or deliberately editing or
deleting important data (cells) from your worksheet, you can protect certain
or all cells, with or without a password

Lets say we have Loan Rate, Amount and Interest (Calculated) in a sheet and
you wan that the user should not be able to edit the formula in the Interest
calculation. This is how you would do it

3
1

1. Select the interest cell

2. Go to format cells dialogue box
3. And uncheck locked (by default all cells are locked)

1. In the Review Tab

2. Click on Protect Sheet
3. And if you wish you can specify a
3 password. The user would need the
password to edit
4. OK

Note that without protecting the sheet, cell

locking is useless

The users are just allowed to perform the

following if the sheet is protected.

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Password Protect Different Ranges
You can also protect different ranges with different passwords. It’s called Allow
Users to Edit Ranges and found in the Review tab

Lets say we have 4 regions where each region will have a different user enter
the data

1. In Review tab in
the Changes group > Click
on Allow Users to Edit
Ranges button

2. Click on ‘New’ to set up your

first range for North, which
will be cells C3:C14 and enter
your password

3. Repeat for regions South, East

and West using different
passwords for each

4. Now you should have all 4

ranges listed in the Allow
Users to Edit Ranges
dialog box
5. Click on the Protect
Sheet button and enter a
unique password (this is
your master password so it
Note the Following should be different from
1. Upon the user entering their password, the passwords for the
that range becomes unlocked while the users)
other ranges remain locked. 6. Now when anyone
2. You can unlock multiple ranges and attempts to enter data
doing so will not lock any previously into the protected cells
unlocked ranges. they’ll be prompted for
3. Once a range has been unlocked by a their password
user, it will remain unlocked until the
workbook is closed.
4. Saving a workbook doesn’t lock any
ranges.
5. No protection is actually applied until
you password protect the workbook.
Don’t forget this step

© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 93
 Thank you for reading…

I hope you enjoyed reading this e-book!

Let me know if you have any questions or even if you would like to drop in
a “hi”, I am active on [email protected]

Hey, feel free to send this e-book over to your folks / excel nerds

Apart from delivering live training sessions for companies, I also run online
training courses on Mastering Excel and Business Intelligence Dashboards.
If you want to acquire top notch excel skills you much check them out

Cheers & stay tuned to Goodly

Chandeep

www.goodly.co.in
© Goodly www.goodly.co.in 94