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  • 6 min read

That Pivotal Moment

There is no such thing as "the right time" when it comes to developing your talents in Excel. You are always on call as the swiss-army-knife of information. Today a financial analyst, tomorrow a visualization specialist... within each role you are consistently relied upon to evolve your talents at a moment's notice. So, throw away your abacus because you're about to learn one of the best tools for your arsenal. I've seen people spend hours writing COUNTIFS that could be replaced with a few drag-and-drop actions. Pivotal, indeed.

  • 4 min read

The Best Truth Is Data

Information is not an argument, it's a conversation.  As a developer, having the ability to remove personal feelings about what you think a workbook should be will take you far in you career.  Always be mindful that your end users may simply want the freedom to drive their own story in an easy-to-use format. And that's perfectly fine. Not everyone is going to dedicate the time that is needed to be an Excel expert like you. But when they start asking questions about inconsistencies within the data, speak softly and carry a big data validation stick. You're going to need it.

  • 4 min read

For Inquiring Minds

It started out innocently: every year needed its own tab, then every month, then every day. Before you knew it, finding "that one tab" turned into Legends of The Hidden Temple with Kirk Fogg yelling directions at you as you feverishly click about. Enter the Inquire add-in - Microsoft's hidden gem for auditing workbooks so complex they've achieved sentience. Cell relationships, workbook comparisons, formula tracing that goes to 11. Let's enable it.

  • 2 min read

WATCH OUT!

In a world of instant gratification and "I need this done yesterday," it's difficult to consistently check your work. Being the mad data scientist that you are, you would prefer to double-, triple- and even centuple-check your workbook before releasing it into the wild. Well, what if I told you that you could be both thorough and efficient? Go on... All you have to do is watch.

  • 6 min read

You Don't Owe Anyone An Explanation

A common theme you will hear me discussing is storytelling. "They" say a picture is worth a thousand words, and the human eye is receptive to shapes and colors as a means for detecting object variances. The chart we're building today uses IF, SMALL, LARGE, Number Formatting, Gap Width, Trendline and Data Labels - quite a bit of work for just 6 bars, right? But through all these layers, you end up with something your end users can understand at a simple glance. Finally, we're doing data visualization.

  • 4 min read

To Err Is Computational

You will never learn more about Excel than on the day you inherit a broken workbook. You're tasked with uncovering the method to the original author's madness, and if you're not careful you can get lost trying to understand why the author did things the way they did instead of finding the solution.

  • 3 min read

We Need To Talk

Excel is not the solution to your problems, you are. But comparison operators? Those are the tools that help you ask the right questions. Greater than, less than, equal to - these simple symbols unlock 816 possible combinations of logic (I did the math, you'll see). Combined with IF statements, they'll take you from recreational user to the person everyone asks for help. Just do it.

  • 5 min read

The Illusion of Movement

You've been clicking around in Excel for years, maybe decades, thinking you've seen it all. Spoiler alert: you haven't. Today I'm introducing you to the Developer tab - the gateway drug to buttons, spin controls, and dropdown menus that respond to user input. Fair warning: once you enable this thing, there's no going back to your old life. From this day forward, you are a developer. *Insert infomercial speech about how easy Excel is and how to master in a weekend.*

  • 3 min read

Mad Maximum Value

Every hero needs a villain. Every dataset needs a maximum (and minimum) value. Today we're talking MAX, MIN, and the criminally underrated EOMONTH function - your new best friend for calculating month-end dates without wanting to flip your desk. No BOMONTH function exists though. I know. Serenity now.

  • 3 min read

Wait a Minute Doc. Are You Telling Me That You Built a Time Machine Out of a Spreadsheet?

Listen, I get it - dates in Excel feel like that one friend who insists on explaining the plot of Primer at parties. But here's the thing: once you understand that Excel treats every date as a number (January 1, 1900 = 1, for the curious), you unlock the ability to build spreadsheets that actually do math with time. Past, present, future - it's all just addition and subtraction. Great Scott!