Book Image

Exploring Microsoft Excel’s Hidden Treasures

By : David Ringstrom
Book Image

Exploring Microsoft Excel’s Hidden Treasures

By: David Ringstrom

Overview of this book

David Ringstrom coined the phrase “Either you work Excel, or it works you!” after observing how many users carry out tasks inefficiently. In this book, you’ll learn how to get more done with less effort. This book will enable you to create resilient spreadsheets that are easy for others to use as well, while incorporating spreadsheet disaster preparedness techniques. The time-saving techniques covered in the book include creating custom shortcuts and icons to streamline repetitive tasks, as well as automating them with features such as Tables and Custom Views. You’ll see how Conditional Formatting enables you to apply colors, Cell icons, and other formatting on-demand as your data changes. You’ll be empowered to protect the integrity of spreadsheets and increase usability by implementing internal controls, and understand how to solve problems with What-If Analysis features. In addition, you’ll master new features and functions such as XLOOKUP, Dynamic Array functions, LET and LAMBDA, and Power Query, while learning how to leverage shortcuts and nuances in Excel. By the end of this book, you’ll have a broader awareness of how to avoid pitfalls in Excel. You’ll be empowered to work more effectively in Excel, having gained a deeper understanding of the frustrating oddities that can arise daily in Excel.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
1
Part 1: Improving Accessibility
6
Part 2:Spreadsheet Interactivity and Automation
12
Part 3: Data Analysis

Understanding the Scenario Manager feature

Scenario Manager can save you time as it eliminates the need to recreate portions of a worksheet to compare different sets of assumptions. Even better, Excel offers two reports that will compare the results of your sets of assumptions automatically.

There are a couple of constraints to keep in mind:

  • Scenarios are limited to a single worksheet, meaning all inputs in the scenario must be on the same worksheet.
  • Each scenario is limited to 32 inputs. However, you can apply scenarios sequentially to go beyond the 32-item input.
  • There is no limit to the number of scenarios that you can store on a given worksheet.

First, let’s set up a calculation that serves as a vehicle for understanding scenarios. Following this, we’ll create multiple scenarios that we’ll swap through the calculation, and then use comparison reports to see the results of our scenarios side by side. Additionally, you’ll see...