Excel Tips for Compensation Practitioners Month 1 Introduction This is the first of what will be a weekly column with Excel tips for Compensation Practitioners. These tips will cover functions in Excel that are particularly useful when working with compensation data, and which can save hours of time if used effectively. Some you will know already, some will be new. Each month will be a different theme, starting off with efficient formatting of data, and covering areas such as statistics, sub-totals, pivot tables, data validation and graphs. Functions will be described in both Excel 2003 and 2007, where these differ. Week 1 Setting Column Width and Row Height for the Whole Worksheet We ll start with a basic tip on how to quickly format the whole worksheet. If you need to set optimum column width for a number of different columns, do not do this one column at a time. Rather click on the top left hand corner between Row 1 and Column A, or click cell A1 and press Control A. Either method will select the whole worksheet. Next double click on the line to the right of Column A (or any other column). This will set the optimum column width for the whole worksheet. While the whole worksheet is selected, you can also make all columns the same width by dragging the line to the right of Column A (or any other column) to the desired width, or make all rows the same height by dragging the line below Row 1 (or any other row) to the desired height. You can also set the font, alignment or any other formatting option for the whole worksheet. Efficient Copy / Pasting of Data When I teach my Excel class, I am always amazed at how many of the delegates do not know this time saving tip. There are many ways to copy / paste data. You can a) use Control C, Control V b) click the copy and paste icons c) right click in the cell to get copy and paste, or d) (in Excel 2003) click Edit Copy, Edit Paste. However, by far the most efficient way, when you need to copy / paste down the worksheet, is as follows: Say you have monthly basic cash data for all your employees in Column A with a heading, and you wish to calculate annual basic cash for all employees. Next to your monthly data, in the second cell of Column B, cell B2, you put in a formula to calculate annual basic cash: =A2*12.
While still in cell B2, move your cursor to the bottom right hand corner of the cell until it forms a thin black cross, like this: +. Double click the cell, and the formula will be copy pasted down as far as the data in column A extends. This method is so much faster than any other copy / paste method, and the more records you have, the more time it saves!
Week 2 Converting Data from One Column to Two or More Columns Sometimes you need to convert data from one column to two or more columns in order to work with the data or use it in a sort. For example, first name and surname may be in one column and you may wish to sort the data alphabetically by surname. In this case you need to extract the surname into a separate column. Another example is where you need to split up a payroll cost code into separate components, e.g. division, department and section code. Say you have a list of employee names or a list of payroll cost codes in Column A with a heading in cell A1. To convert the data from Column A to two or more columns: Ensure that you have two blank columns (or as many as you need) to the right of column A, or insert two (or more) columns to the right of column A.. Select the data in Column A to be converted excluding the heading. (A quick way to select a long list of data is to click on the first cell, hold down the Shift key, then press the End key, then the down arrow key on the keyboard.) For employee name data with a space between first name and surname, click Data, Text to Columns. Select Delimited, Next.
Check the space box. Make sure no other boxes are checked. Click Next. Change Destination to B2 (so that it does not over write your original data). Click Finish. Click
For data, such as payroll cost code data, with no spaces between the data to be separated, click Data, Text to Columns Fixed Width, Next.
Insert a line at the appropriate point/s in the data, for example after the 3 rd digit and after the 6 th digit of the cost code. Click Next. Change Destination to B2 (so that it does not over write your original data). Click Finish. The data will now be divided into separate columns. This is a definite improvement on manually separating each name or cost code, as many people have told me they did before learning this technique! In next week s column, we will discuss how to do the opposite, how to combine data from two or more columns into one column.
Week 3 Converting Data from Two or More Columns to One Column Last week we discussed how to convert data from one column to two or more columns. Sometimes you need to do the opposite and convert data from two or more columns into one column. For example, when you divided up name into first name and surname, using a space as a separator, some surnames might have had two or more parts, e.g. De Niro or Mc Callum, and you would need to combine these into one column. There are two methods for doing this. The first method is as follows: Say you have data in two columns, Columns A and B, with a heading in the first row, that you wish to combine into one column. Ensure that you have a blank column to the right of column B, or insert a column. In field C2 click the f x icon, to the left of the formula bar. In the Select a Category box, click Text. In the Select a Function box, click Concatenate. Click OK. Select field A2. In the box next to Text2, press the space bar once to get a space. When you move on to Text3, Excel will put inverted commas ( ) around the space to indicate that it is text and not a cell reference. In the box next to Text3, click field B2. Click OK. (Note this will insert a space between the two fields. If you do not want a space between the fields, click B2 next to Text 2, then click OK.)
The second method is to use ampersands (&) to combine the data. You obtain an & by pressing the shift key and 7. To join cells A2 and B2 with a space in between - in cell C2, write the following formula: =A2& &B2. If you do not want a space between the fields, write the formula as =A2&B2. For both methods, copy paste either the concatenate or the ampersand formula down column C using the double click method. Converting Formulae to Values This data will be in the form of formulae. If you wish to convert the formulae into values (the result of the formula), click on the letter C at the top of the new column to select the whole column. Click the Copy icon, then the down arrow, next to the Paste icon in 2003 or below the Paste icon in 2007, and select Values.
The formulae will now be converted to values, which will be in text format. If you need to convert the text into numbers, and are not sure how to do this, next week s tip will outline two methods of converting data from text to numbers.
Week 4 Converting Text to Numbers Sometimes numerical data downloaded into Excel from a payroll or other source is imported as text instead of a numerical value. This means that you cannot do calculations on the data, and if data, for example an employee number, is formatted in one place as text and in another as a number, a vlookup function connecting the two sets of data will not work. You can tell that a cell is formatted as text instead of a number, as, in the formula bar (the white bar just below the tool bars), it will have a sign in front of the data (Excel 2007) or in Excel 2003 it will have one of three signs in front of the data, a, ^ or sign, meaning that it is respectively left, centre or right aligned. Excel 2003 and later versions also automatically highlight any numbers stored as text, and show a green triangle marker in the top left hand corner of the cell. When you click on the cell an icon appears on the right hand side of the cell with an exclamation mark. There are two primary ways to convert the data to text: The first and easiest way is to select all the cells with numbers stored as text. If it is a very large selection, use the scroll bar on the right to scroll back up to the first cell in the selection. Click on the down arrow next to the exclamation mark icon. Click Convert to Number. A second method, which can be used in earlier versions of Excel than 2003, is as follows: Assuming the numeric data formatted as text is in Column A with a heading, in cell B2, enter the
formula =A2*1. Copy paste this formula down column B using the double click method. The data in column B is now numeric and can be used in calculations.
Formatting Numbers with Zeroes in Front If you wish the numeric data to retain one or more zeroes at the front, e.g. a telephone number, bank account number or employee number, select the data. Click Format, Cells in 2003 or Format Cells in 2007, Number, Custom. For an employee number format that always has 6 digits, under the word Type, enter 000000. An employee number entered as 1023 will then have the format 001023. An employee number entered as 345 will have the format 000345. This way the data will look like text but be a number. The custom format can be set up with as many digits as you want, and can also be set up with spaces in between the zeroes.