Microsoft Excel Advanced Tips

1

Microsoft Excel Advanced Tips

MAGI East06 May 2014

Mary K.D. D’Rozario

MSCR, MBA, CCRP, RAC, CCRA

Social Media for Health Care & Life Science

mary.drozario@crplink.com

@marydrozario

marydrozario

marykddrozario

Read to the end for my top tip

on HOW to approach Excel

problems.

2

Outcomes:If you don’t already have these skills, by the end of this presentation you will be able to:

Pull analytic information from text

Create multiple IF statement

Rock VLOOKUP and HLOOKUP

3

But First,My #1 Advanced Excel Tip…

Someone else has already done it.

Not just the formula, but *exactly* what you are trying to do.

And then they were so proud of themselves they had to put it on the interwebz.

So be crazy specific in your search.

4

Text Analytics: How Not to Do It

Using

autofilter to

analyze large

text blocks or

to filter by

multiple items

will cause

missed rows.

5

Example We Are Working With(This spreadsheet available on the conference website for this session.)

Slide 7Slide 9

Slide 10

6

The Queen of Excel Logic: The IF statement

=IF( LOGICAL TEST, VALUE IF TRUE, VALUE IF FALSE)

7

Text Analytics: Use a Formula

• Create a FIND formula: =FIND(“aspirin”, F2)

• =IF(ISNUMBER(I2),“Y”,“N”)

Easier to place the word on a second page and link with a formula

Returns the character count of where the word is first found in the cell.

Y if it is a number, N for the error message that the word was not found.

8

Tips for Multiple IF Statements

• Where possible, put each piece of the statement

in its own column.

• Un-nested statements are easier to troubleshoot,

easier to document, and easier to QC.

• When you have to nest, line breaks (Alt-Enter)

make the formula easier to read

9

When to Use Filter for Text Analytics in Excel

• Build up to a final Y/N marker for your search.• Filter on that Y/N marker only.

Looking for all open queries with the word “aspirin” in them:

=IF(G2="Y",

IF(I2="Y","Y","N"),

"N")

Checks that open query is YTrue Checks that the “aspirin” ISNUMBER is Y Returns Y or NFalse Returns N

10

Nesting Three IF Statements

=IF(G2="N",IF(H2>20,IF(J2="Y","Y","N"),"N"),"N")

Each subsequent check is done in the TRUE space.

So at the end all you have to do is close all your FALSE spaces

11

The King of Combining Tables: The LOOKUPs

Much of the time the LOOKUPs are used, a more robust table and a Pivot Table Can Get the Same Result……but, Pivot Tables rebuild every time they are run.

LOOKUPs allow you to build tables where you can then insert exceptions and make notes

Example: Out of range visit, and then a plan of visits to get back onto the protocol schedule, with notes.

Example: Extra payment for a visit including unusual SAE follow-up.

12

=VLOOKUP(value to look for, table to look in, column number to return)

=VLOOKUP("Visit 2",VisitTableV!A1:B6,2)

VLOOKUP

13

=VLOOKUP(value to look for, table to look in, row number to return)

=VLOOKUP(, "Visit 2”,VisitTableH!A1:E4,3)

HLOOKUP

14

LOOKUP Troubleshooting

• Your list is not being recognized as a list. (Some of the columns fall off.) Select all the cells that make up the list and right click. Select “define name” Give the list a name.

• You have more than open cell with the same text in the LOOKUP column/row The formula will return the result from the first instance

it finds. It will NOT warn you that you have multiple instances.

15

My #1 Advanced Excel Tip…

Start making formulae that get in the right direction.

You won’t build on all of them but…

…building something is the only way to get where you are going.

My #2 Advanced Excel Tip… You Don’t Need to Know How You are Going to Get There, You Just Need to Start

16

Questions