Forum Discussion
Looking ways to Automate Board Financials
- First, how did you create the Table and assign the Table Name? Did you use CTRL + T command?
I selected the whole data set, headings included, and used Insert....Table. The name was assigned by Excel and can be changed.
- Second, how did you choose the data source?
Right click with the cursor in the chart; then pick "Select Data...." from the menu that appears. At that point the image that I included with the last one shows that I just entered "=Table1" as the source data.
As to the rest of your questions, I'd have to do a lot of playing around with such steps as
(a) setting some start and finish dates for any reporting you want (as user-established variables) somewhere on one of your sheets
(b) the use of OFFSET and INDIRECT (or some such) to determine the dimensions of the subset of the full dataset that you want included.
In other words, I'm not sure how I'd resolve all of your concerns in order to make this fully automated. The restrictions you've articulated -- no freedom to change layouts, etc.--are probably things I'd want to challenge. Anyway, at this point I am interested in seeing what others come up with. I've used INDIRECT and OFFSET and the like on some of my own projects, but I'd need to "play" with them, which will take time. So I'm hoping some of the far more-expert experts here will chime in.
In the meantime, are you comfortable digging in yourself to see whether you could use functions such as those two I mentioned? Make a copy of your data that you can use without destroying anything... And then use sites like https://exceljet.net/ to explore both how to use those functions, but also follow their cross-references to other features. That's what I would do were I in your place.
Hi
Thank you so much for your help and responses. I came up with another solution. I tried to follow this approach however, I was unable to create a dynamic table. When I tried to create a table "CTRL + T", it changes my header names into Column 1, Column 2 and so on. Also, it doesn't add the new values/dates/fields into my From and To Date fields that I created to select my chart ranges. Please check this video and let me know where I am lacking
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHfWRb2yUrM
Thank you
I've watched that video all the way through now, and am looking forward to seeing your actual spreadsheet to see if I can identify what you might have missed. What she described is complicated in its details, so it's not hard to imagine having difficulties the first times you use it. But the results are valuable for the kind of situation you are facing.
mathetes
Thank you so much for helping out and keep showing the interest to solve this issue. Unfortunately, I am unable to share the actual sheet on which I am working on. That's too confidential data, however I tried to create the sample data for public but unluckily, the sample data is working perfectly the way I wanted to design LOL meaning it's complete automated. But when I work with actual excel worksheet with same logic, approach and functionality then I am not getting the same results meaning I couldn't integrate the Table selection with drop down list so whenever I add new values it doesn't pop up the newly encoded data/values into my drop down list. I am hustling with this situation only. I tried to work in many ways but I am stuck though it worked in the sample data sheet but not the actual one 😞I just came across a very helpful YouTube video, produced by Microsoft a year or two ago. In it, the use of new functions--I'm trusting you now have access to them--used in connection with Dynamic Arrays, could very well be even better for your purposes than the Pivot Table.
The full video is nearly an hour in duration, but it will save you far more than that amount of time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9I9DtFOVPIg
I haven't watched the video in its entirety yet but can see that it would be helpful. I am afraid I'd need to see your actual spreadsheet, though, to be able to tell you what you're lacking. Without that I'd just be speculating. Can you replicate your situation with the sample database you created earlier?