r/excel 16h ago

unsolved I've been doing time tracking/licensure tracking this way since 2015... theres gotta be a better way. also, when will my excel file become corrupt?

15 Upvotes

TL;DR

I have 580 sheets, spanning since 2015. how much more can my poor little excel file handle? The file is about 3.5mb in size 😯.

So, i work in architecture, and this is generally how i track my time throughout the day. i will NEVER remember what i do when it comes time to doing my timesheets and this makes it way easier. i also have a place at the bottom that tracks my architectural licensure hours. i have to manually input that, and there are two sheets at the end that summarize this data (none of that is relevant i'm just including the explanation for context).

i've used this excel since 2015 and there is a "sheet" for every single week since about july of 2015.. so there are about 580 weeks/sheets... when will my excel explode and refuse to open? I've started saving a copy and backing up the file each week.

I'm open to a more robust system, but needs to generally have the UX (or similar) of this workflow. I have gone as far as vibe coding prototypes but i dont have the confidence that AI will be more stable than what i'm currently doing, and i'm not a coder so i can only take it so far.

anyway, input would be appreciated.


r/excel 21h ago

Waiting on OP Number formatting to 3 sig figs with wide variety of data

11 Upvotes

I've been working as an engineer for a couple years and every once in a while, I get asked to format some data or calcs to 3 sig figs. You would think this is no big deal, but the data I'm usually dealing with is not uniform, and there are usually thousands of data points I have to review manually. Here is a quick example of the variety I'm referring to with the intended output format:

123,456 -> 123,000

0.00000012 -> 1.20E-7

12.3456 -> 12.3

1 -> 1.00

0.12345 -> 0.123

12,345 -> 12,300

0.000912 -> 0.001

These numbers would be in subsequent cells. For decimals, I've been using the inc and dec decimal buttons. For extremely small decimal values, I have been changing the formatting to scientific notation. For numbers >999, I've been using the round function. It takes hours to do all of this manually for the thousands of cells I have to edit.

I would like to make a macro to read the way the number is displayed and change it to 3 sig figs, but I am not the best at coding and the VBA coding forums are largely unhelpful. I was wondering if anyone on here would be able to help me create a macro for this purpose?


r/excel 7h ago

Waiting on OP Want to create buttons for a staff roster - macros?

6 Upvotes

We have a staff roster in excel.
I am wanting to create “buttons” or a “macros” (unsure which it is), that will allow me to click a button which will change the colour of the cell and remove the data.

For example.
5 cells will contain a name, that person is going on leave for 5 days. I want to be able to select all days they are away, and click a button that removes their name from the cell and changes the colour to green.


r/excel 18h ago

unsolved Setting up an 'Order List' based off PN's for different equipment

5 Upvotes

Hi all. I work as a service engineer for laboratory equipment. I cover a range of different products and I am trying to 'simplify' the way I build lists of parts that need ordering. I have a list of products similar to the example in the first picture. In the second picture I have an example of what I want to happen. I want to be able to choose the product type, eg Pump A, from the dropdown list (I can set up the dropdown list), and have this then show me all the parts needed for that pump. This would then be multiplied so I can have multiple drop down lists to choose Pump 1, Pump 2 etc, then Doodah 1, all from drop down lists which then show the list of all parts needed from the 1st sheet for the particular configuration I have set up.

I appreciate I probably haven't explained this in the best way possible, so please let me know if you have any questions. Is this possible in excel? How would you suggest going about it?

Thanks for your help!


r/excel 22h ago

unsolved How can multiple people work on an Excel sheet stored on a Synology NAS?

4 Upvotes

So multiple people need to work on excel files stored on a Diskstation. Unfortunately Synology Office messes up the formats a lot. Is there a better tool or a way to use proper Excel without having to store the files in the MS cloud?


r/excel 6h ago

Waiting on OP Problem with the scatterplot function in Excel

3 Upvotes

For an assignment, I was tasked to create an excel scatterplot of some sample data. When I try to create a scatterplot using multiple cells as if to distribute data points for two subjects, I get an error. In addition, if I limit the graph to just one subject I get a weird series of labels on the x-axis and no points actually appear on the graph. How can I fix this problem so that I can properly graph the data distribution for one subject and create a graph so that the data distribution for subject one and two are shown.


r/excel 7h ago

Waiting on OP Data Reporting Formula reporting Status as True or False

5 Upvotes

Hello!

I have a spreadsheet tracking information with 5 different status.

I want to write a formula on another sheet in the same workbook that will return a true or false (doesn't necessarily need to be true or false) on whether a collection of those cells are one specific status.

Essentially the status could be hold, terminated, ongoing, and complete. I wanted the formula to tell me true if all cells are complete. The other status don't really factor in except that they are not complete.

I will have probably 50 batches of cells like this from 4-50 status.

Can anyone point me in the right direction on how to write a formula?

EDIT BELOW

For the advanced ask.

I'm trying to track the status for unique identifier numbers.

Is there anyway to change the formula provided below by excelevator to look for all of a certain number in a designated column, then check the status and return the true/false.


r/excel 15h ago

Waiting on OP Grouping data points together based on name/ID associated w/ 1000+ records

3 Upvotes

I have a spreadsheet that details a list of all transactions within two particular account types, and each transaction has a name & user ID associated with it. Nearly every user ID is associated with more than one transaction, and there are 1000+ users in the full list. I am looking for a way to combine all transactions attached to each individual user ID, while also designating the two different account types, and that can be automated to apply to the full sheet. I know how to do this using SUMIF but I don't know how to achieve this without having to enter every name/ID manually.

Eg:

USER ID Transaction Type (A or B) Transaction Amount
#0001 A $125
#0001 A $125
#0001 B $200
#0002 A $500
#0002 B $650
#0003 B $750
#0004 A $100
#0004 B $100
#0004 B $150
#0004 B $150

Ultimately what I need to end up with is the maximum, minimum, and average total transactions per unique user ID, separated by type A and type B transactions.


r/excel 2h ago

Waiting on OP Time off in Lieu Calculator

3 Upvotes

I'm trying to create a sheet that has a running total of my hours, but is able to deal with negative time, ie when i've left early or whatever, though i'm finding it hard to have excel represent negative time.

Currently i have my expected time on site subtracting from my actual hours worked, which is most of the time giving me a positive number but it's hard to convert the numbers from hours to get an accurate calculation.


r/excel 17h ago

Waiting on OP What is the best Excel setup for lectures with 3 teachers?

4 Upvotes

I'm making an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of lecture videos.

My basic columns are:

Series → Teacher → Video Name → Time

Most videos have one teacher, but sometimes a single video has two teachers.

For example:

Series Teacher

Anatomy Dr. Rajesh Dr. Jay Mr. Imran

I'd like to merge/group the Series cell so it looks like one video/group, while keeping the teachers on separate rows.

The problem is filtering. I want to be able to select Dr. Rajesh from a filter and see every lecture he's involved in, without having "Dr. Rajesh, Dr. Jay, Mr Imran" treated as one filter option.

Is there a clean way to do this in one Excel sheet?


r/excel 15h ago

unsolved Bubble plot on Map

2 Upvotes

Hi,

I am trying to do a very basic visualization on a map chart and I'm running into an issue.

I have 5 different cities in the US with potential candidates in each city (based on information from a 3rd party). It all works until I look at the map and it just highlights the individual cities and it's way too small. Is there a way to change the highlighted cities to a bubble plot that's reasonable to see?

I can do it on 3d maps, but I'm going to be asking others to enter their own 5 cities with corresponding numbers and 3D maps are too difficult for them


r/excel 19h ago

solved Formula to highlight cells in a column, based on the numbers in another column

2 Upvotes

So I have a spreadsheet (Spreadsheet A) with 200+ rows. One of the columns is a list of serial numbers (we'll say H2-H250). I have another column in another spreadsheet (Spreadsheet B) with more serial numbers that need to be highlighted in Spreadsheet A H column. I have been going line by line doing a Ctrl F to highlight the rows containing matching serial numbers in Spreadsheet A. I feel there has to be an easier way to do this. Any advice?


r/excel 19h ago

solved Excel keeps changing my default font

2 Upvotes

In File-Options-General under When creating new workbooks I see my preferred font and font size. However each time I create a new workbook to test this, it reverts to Calibri 11, even though it still has my preferred font and size listed as what it should use on a new worksheet. Does anyone know how to change this permanently?


r/excel 21h ago

solved How make a range of cells reference a single cell?

2 Upvotes

I want to make a range of cells (G30:G508) automatically reference the value of a single cell (B3).

I’m working on a spreadsheet that displays energy consumption of a group of machines across an 8-hour shift. I have columns with the raw data from various machines, and a column with the totals. These are referenced in a graph that shows energy consumption as a fluctuating line with time as the x axis and kilowatts as the y axis. I also have a single cell (B3) that displays the average of all the values in the totals column. I would like to make a new column that shows the value in B3 across the entire range (G30:G508) so that the average energy use for the shift appears as a straight line across the graph.

I know I can do this by manually copying the data from B3 and pasting it to G30:G508. But I would like to make the new range automatically update if the value of B3 changes. If I put =B3 in the formula bar, it works for the first cell, but if I drag it down the rest of the range populates as =B4, =B5, etc which is not what I want. I essentially want every cell in the G30:G508 range to have the =B3 formula without having to type “=B3” 478 times.

Can anybody help me with this?