Forum Discussion
Random Selection
so as you know I originally suggested a pseudo-random formula that uses a seed and that way you could feed the week# or day# or such to the pseudo function and always get the same output, but changing the seed to the new week/day/other will produce a new random number/sequence. The problem is the 'must be occupied' part since that will also change over time so you would have to keep a logging of WHEN units become occupied and vacant.
The other alternative is to use the built in random generator based on current state of the rooms and then copy/past those results (paste values) into the table. Maybe the easiest is to have a column called [Inspection date] and another called [Inspection Update]. under inspection date will ultimately be the actual date of inspection. and I'm sure you have a column to check if occupied (maybe their name or whatever) but for this we will assume a column called [Occupied] that is true or false. Then=LET(r,RANDARRAY(ROWS( [InspectionDate] ))* [Occupied] *( [InspectionDate] =""), t,INDEX(SORT(r,,-1), 14), o,IF(r>=t,TRUE,""), IF( [InspectionDate] ="",o, [InspectionDate] ))so in line 1 it will create a random array or numbers but zero out the unoccupied and previously inspected rows
in line 2 it will find the Nth largest value, in this example the 14th
in line 3 it will blank out all but the top 14 and replace those with TRUE
and the final output (line 4) will be either the prior inspection date or TRUE if the inspection should be done.
being a RAND function the result will keep changing every time you edit anything on the sheet so when you are ready to committ for that week select that column and COPY then select the [InspectionDate] column and goto Paste->Paste Special->Values Only
Since all the prior dates are repeated it will just add the TRUE to the new locations and those TRUE can be replaced with actual inspection dates. Alternatively you could replace the TRUE in line 3 with WEEKNUM(TODAY()) and then each week you run it and it will just show which weeknum those rooms were selected.
Final caution is that even though rooms that were not occupied will get occupied and have the opportunity to get selected throughout the year this way, you can still have an issue at the end of the year if one or more of those remaining 14 rooms become unoccupied at that point of the year.
wait are the "NAME"s on the Room Inspections tab really supposed to be the "inspectors"? and you want to randomly assign rooms to them for the inspection?
i just looked at the sheet and those names are just lookup from the all sheet so i don't think that is it.
in response to the comment yes when you populate a date in W it is reflected into AA so that when you copy AA back ontop of W it is maintained. The TRUE in AA are supposed to be indicators / flags for which rows were randomly selected for inspection.
Maybe this should be performed on the ALL list and then you can pull from that list information you need for this tab and sort by the inspection date to show the order.
- I am thinking then, by the way you set this up, that I don't have to Randomly scatter my room numbers so the order they are in on the ALL Tab can remain. This will also allow me to change the xlookup commands to =cell references, I think. You are randomly selecting rooms by placing a date in a column for the selected room. I actually like this but did not see what you were doing until now. I wasn't on the same page as you on this. I was trying to select rooms, group them together for the intended month of the inspection. Doing it this way will still require me to group them together as I have to send a list of the rooms to be inspected each month for the up and coming month.
- I think we are getting close to the same page. As we now see, we could put this inspection information (actual date and tentative date) on the ALL tab. The you can pull the relevant columns and SORT by the inspection date if you want to see them in 'inspection order'. I do not understand the "intended month" and how that is rectified with the random selection and occupancy.
It appears your original attempt here was to randomize the rooms and then based on that order they would be inspected from top down. That is perfectly fine. But then I guess you didn't know what to do with rooms that weren't occupied at the time it was supposed to be inspected. Another alternative would have been to just bump that room to the bottom of the list and shift the rest up. Or mark it as NO/NI (not occupied/not inspected) for the date and then add that same room number to the bottom of the list.
The option I gave does not give an intended month outside of THIS month (i.e. TRUE meaning it should be inspected this month). It then dynamically keeps updating the random selection based on the current state of the rooms and completed inspections.- I am trying this method out and as I put dates in column J, the Inspection Date column, and hit enter or click off into another cell, the TRUE's are switching around. I click into a cell in column J to enter the date where the word TRUE shows up in column N and the word TRUE disappears and selects a different ROW. Its like trying to chase a mouse. Anyway to prevent this?
- On the Room Inspections Tab, The names in the B column and O Column are the room occupant names. Once this gets figured out, columns B thru M will be deleted. All the data on this Tab, for the most part is being XLOOKUP'd from the ALL Tab based on the room number. The Room numbers right now are static/without formula as they were selected randomly and then copied and pasted over it's self. And of course, the Room number in column "V" is made up of combining the Wing, column "S" with Room#, column "T". Being that the Inspection Date, column "W" is on the document when printed, this date will be the "Scheduled Inspection Date", we could say the "Tentative Inspection Date" as you show in column "AA" and the Date in Column "Z" is the date the inspection actually took place. The Month in column "Y" presents just a visual for knowing its to be done in what month and a way to do a quick count to ensure, in my case, that 14 rooms are being Randomly selected in that month. I am just trying to randomize a selection of rooms, 14 in my case, for each month, leaving out rooms that are unoccupied. As rooms become occupied, the hope is that room will get caught up in the schedule to get inspected. I think I just realized, you are using the list of rooms and randomly selecting them by placing "TRUE" in the "AA" column. If this is the case, what is the trigger that Randomly selects the next 14 and so on. Also, where the "TRUE's" are showing are scattered, which is good, but you see how column "Y" is not in sync with the intended month of the inspection. If there is a way to group based on the result of the Random selection or at least tie "TRUE" to the intended month that would probably be dos mooches/great.