2. Show of hands. Who has...
- Calculated a proportion
- Used a function like SUM
- Used pivot tables
- Used a function like
VLOOKUP
Saturday, 10 May 14
6. - Make a copy, work on that
- Use CTRL+arrow keys to skip to
edges of data
- Clean first few rows to create single
heading row
- Remove grand total row
- Remove empty rows (Open Refine)
Speed: keyboard shortcuts for
checking the data
Saturday, 10 May 14
7. Numbers Strings Calculations
10 John Smith =10+20+30
20 Kate Brown =A2+A3+A4
30 Mike Moore =SUM(A2:A4)
N/A Kim Smith =COUNT(A:A)
50 =COUNTA(B:B)
Row 1
Column A Column B Column C
Row 3
Row 4
Row 5
Row 6
Row 2
Saturday, 10 May 14
8. Granular data has row for every
payment, person, crime etc.
Aggregate has rows for total crimes,
payments, etc.
Granular always better - can calculate
your own aggregates
Two types of datasets:
Aggregate and granular
Saturday, 10 May 14
9. Aggregate data:
- put the focus in Rows
- numbers (money, crimes) in Values
Granular: pivot tables
Saturday, 10 May 14
11. = indicates this is a formula
SUM is the function to be applied
( contains the ingredients for that formula
D2:D300 this is a range (array) of cells*
, separates each ingredient
) ends the list of ingredients
Using functions - and
arguments
Saturday, 10 May 14
12. =SUM(D:D) ignores any text/empty cells
=MAX(D:D)
=MIN(D:D)
=AVERAGE(D:D)
More speed: use column
ranges
Saturday, 10 May 14
14. =MAX(D:D)/SUM(D:D) - how much of
the total is accounted for by the biggest
value?
=SUM(D35:D64)/SUM(D:D) - what
proportion from one entity?
=SUM(D:D)/365 - how much per day?
(for annual data)
Combining functions to quickly
make numbers meaningful
Saturday, 10 May 14
15. Org spending £X per day
Company receives X% of spending
Org spent £X on Y
Stories you can report quickly
Saturday, 10 May 14
29. =TRIM(D2)
=SUBSTITUTE(D2,“ ”, “”)
(Target cell, what you want to substitute,
what you want to replace it with)
=SEARCH(“Wales”,A2)
Gives a position of the first match
Cleaning text:
TRIM, SEARCH, SUBSTITUTE
Saturday, 10 May 14
30. mr SMITH
=UPPER(D2) = MR SMITH
=LOWER(D2) = mr smith
=PROPER(D2) = Mr Smith
Cleaning text:
UPPER, LOWER, PROPER
Saturday, 10 May 14
31. =LEFT(E2,3) = first 3 characters in E2
=RIGHT(E2,3) = last 3 characters in E2
=MID(E2,10,3) = the 3 characters in E2
starting from position 10
Cleaning text:
LEFT, RIGHT, MID
Saturday, 10 May 14
32. =LEN(E2) = how many characters in E2
=LEFT(E2,LEN(E2)-3) = Length of E2 -
3. Grab that many characters. i.e.
- If E2 is 5 characters, it will grab the first
2 (5-3=2)
- If E2 is 7 characters it will grab the first
4 (7-3=4)
Combine with
LEN
Saturday, 10 May 14
33. =SEARCH(“ ”,E2) = which position is the
first space
=LEFT(E2,SEARCH(“ ”,E2)) = Grab all
characters up to (and including) that
space
Combine with
SEARCH
Saturday, 10 May 14
34. =SEARCH(“ ”,E2) = which position is the
first space
=LEFT(E2,SEARCH(“ ”,E2)) = Grab all
characters up to (and including) that
space
=TRIM(LEFT(E2,SEARCH(“ ”,E2)))
Combine with
SEARCH
Saturday, 10 May 14
35. =ISERROR(D2) = TRUE or FALSE
See also:
ISNUMBER, ISTEXT, ISNONTEXT,
ISLOGICAL, ISEVEN, ISODD
ISERR (all but N/A)
Finding errors:
ISERROR, ISNA, ISBLANK
Saturday, 10 May 14
41. =VLOOKUP(What you’re looking for,
what range contains a match & what you
want back, which column you want back,
nearest match?)
=VLOOKUP(D2,Sheet1!D:E,2,false)
Merging data:
VLOOKUP
Saturday, 10 May 14
42. =TEXT(D2, “dddd”)
=YEAR(D2)
=MONTH(D2) = 1
=TEXT(D2, “mmmm”) = ‘January’
=TEXT(D2, “mmm”) = ‘Jan’
If not formatted as date, use LEFT
Convert dates to years:
TEXT functions
Saturday, 10 May 14
