Forum Discussion
How should I write this Process?
I'm quite confident that whatever it is that you're trying to do IS possible.
The problem so far is that you haven't really done a very good job of describing in plain old English just what that task is. You're trying to use Excel-ese to describe, but as you noted, you're a beginner with Excel. It would actually be better if you left the translation to us, and simply used your best English.
A few questions might help, beginning with:
- WHAT is the start point? It appears as if you're starting with a list of nine people, although obviously that could just be a false inference. You've not revealed any names, just used generic "Person #" so it's also possible that the real task doesn't involve people at all......So please, what's the starting point, or raw Input? What are we beginning with?
- WHAT is your desired end result? I can assume, staying with the inference that it's a group of individuals, that the goal is the selection of one (or more?) of the starters, but you need to articulate clearly what the desired end result is. As it stands, you've assumed that, and just attempted to describe a "process," a description that gets muddled in part because you're trying to say it in Excel-ese.
- HOW, in English, as you would describe it to an intelligent middle-school student, are you thinking you'd get from the starting point to the finish point? Along the way, perhaps you could explain to that intelligent young person how Red and Blue comes into the scene, why they're associated with something called a "cutoff"...and so forth.
Again, don't try to put your descriptions in Excel- or Excel-related-terms; that's the task of people here in the forum. Your job is to describe what you'd be doing if you didn't have access to Excel. Maybe that's a good way for you to think about it: what would you do if you were forced to do this all on paper?
If you'd rather work on extending your Excel capabilities--though it may take longer, it's always a great way to really learn--you would do well to look over this page of Excel functions, grouped in to an intelligent set of categories, and accompanied by clear definitions and examples. But even to use it, I'd seriously recommend, for your own sake, working to describe the process in English.
I can answer the "WHAT" by reading the post: He wants a function that will produce x number of random numbers between 1 and 100, with each result listed something like "81, 28, 42"; it's not entirely important, he's more interested in seeing how the formula might be laid out.
As for the 'starting point' etc, I think his starting point is that he's got an Excel sheet on which he's listed 9 players, and he wants to generate some random numbers for each of them. It doesn't matter what the people are called. It's fine that they are just called Person1, etc. That's what we're beginning with.
It's clearly the very early, test-phase of something, to see if Excel can do it, and how he might get started. So I doubt you'll get the kind of answers you're looking for.
As for the "cutoffs" - that means a value above which (or below which) it will get ignored/annulled, etc. As he's said it's outside of the question he's asking, I recommend ignoring that part, at least for now.
