Well, have to say I’ve been off the grid (at least for this blog post) for the past while but my intention is certainly to begin blogging again – bringing you lots of tutorials and interesting tricks and tips from the world of Excel.

Recently I have been getting really interested in Powerpivot (the new add-in for Excel 2010) which allows you to work with massive amounts of data. This was sparked by some of my customers – one of whom found that 3 months data was already hitting the million row limit in Excel – and when I went researching options for her I discovered Powerpivot.

I taught my first class in it about a month ago and am already feeling really excited by the possibilities. How does some of the following appeal to you (particularly for those of you working with large lists)

  • No data limit – really in class I was able to use a 2.5 million row Access database plus a million row text file easily
  • No more vlookups – it’s all about the relationships now
  • Speed – yes, the speed is remarkable

I’ll probably be writing blog posts on that over the next few months.

On a more personal nature, I’ve recently discovered Breaking Bad (they have started running it from the beginning on TG4 and it’s unbelievably good..(sorry if you are already way ahead of me on series 5 – nope, don’t tell me anything!) . And saw Behind the Candlebra with Michael Douglas and Matt Damon – two truly extraordinary performances. Probably not one for boyfriends or husbands though 🙂 And have to say I felt sad about how he had to hide who he truly was – very grateful  that has changed in so many countries. My son has gone off for 3 weeks to do a summer camp so the house is quiet without him.

Excel Products for Sale

Here are products from some of my favourite Excel authors and bloggers. Please note these are affiliate links so I do earn a small commission from every sale.

MrExcel.com

Mr. Excel (aka Bill Jelen) is one of the Excel gurus. I love his stuff. He also has a slightly bonkers delivery (What! Excel! Fun!)  that I thoroughly enjoy. And of course anyone who calls his Excel publishing book company Holy Macro! gets my vote.

MyExcelOnline.com

Xtreme Pivot Tables course

This is a very comprehensive course on pivot tables. It includes videos and workbooks. There are over 200 hours of videos on it and it takes you from having no knowledge of pivot tables to being a power user. If you know everything in this course, you know an awful lot about pivot tables. John explains the concepts in bite size chunks so they are easy to follow and even provides a tutorial spreadsheet so you can track your progress. This would be money well spent. If you would like to become the go-to person in your organisation for pivot tables, this would be an excellent starting point.

He also has a useful Pivot Table webinar…

This is also a useful chart helper. 

Debra Dalgleish – Contextures.com

Master 30 Excel functions in 30 days –This is a rather brilliant e-book which covers 30 functions including Vlookup,Match, offset. It includes an Excel file, e-book and links to videos that shows you how to do it – all for the princely sum of $10. What I particularly like about it are her descriptions, explanations and what the limitation of each function is. Highly recommended. If you want to upgrade your Excel skills this is a very worthwhile investment.

Excel UserForms for Data Entry

The Excel UserForms for Data Entry ebook kit will take you through the steps to build a UserForm that stores data on a hidden worksheet. No programming skills are required — everything is explained in simple steps, with written instructions, screen shots, videos and workbooks.

PivotPowerPremiumRibbon

The PivotPower Premium add-in saves you time and effort, when working with Excel pivot tables. For example, you can quickly:
-save and apply default pivot table settings
-clear old items from an Excel pivot table
-change all the data fields from the Count function to the Sum function

Chandoo.org

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Click here to view more details on the VLOOKUP Combo Book
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