by Oz du Soleil | Jun 21, 2013 | Data Management, Excel Geekdom, Tips
Let’s add this to an earlier post about the 6 Quiet Habits for Working with Excel & Data. In that post I listed several best practices that won’t ever end up in a “Make Excel Your Friend” manual. Yet, they are just as helpful as a nested IF...
by Oz du Soleil | May 17, 2013 | Data Management, Spreadsheet Development, Tips
There are no fancy Excel stunts here. These are 6 simple pointers that escape the Excel tutorials. Like anything that’s done well, there are personal habits that quietly develop to keep you focused or avoid traps. I wasn’t aware of my own habits until I...
by Oz du Soleil | Apr 26, 2013 | Data Management, Data Management for Nonprofits, Spreadsheet Development, Tips
Nonprofits, by their definition, are primarily funded by the public. That means they’re always fundraising. It helps a nonprofit to know: How much did it cost to raise $1? Nonprofit fundraising can get complex, time-consuming and expensive, sometimes...
by Oz du Soleil | Jan 28, 2013 | Data Integrity, Spreadsheet Development, Spreadsheet Tidiness, Tips
The image below is an Excel Dashboard section generated from 847 rows and 11 columns of data related to classroom and book sales. In the range D1:N5 we summarize Monthly Sales Totals by Sales Rep. So much easier to look at this instead of scrolling around in the...
by Oz du Soleil | Jan 14, 2013 | Data Management, Excel Geekdom, Screencast, Tips
Tonight, I’m preparing to teach a workshop and need examples to show the students. Here’s your behind-the-scenes peek into using Excel to generate data to build useful examples. WHY GENERATE BOGUS DATA (AKA DUMMY DATA) SETS? Knowing how to generate random...
by Oz du Soleil | Dec 31, 2012 | Tips
Tomorrow is the first day of 2013. 10 February 2013 is the first day of the Chinese New Year, the Year of the Snake. Have you reflected in the victories and lessons of 2012, and what 2013 will bring? The Snake represents calm, prosperity and good luck. There’s...
