Forum Discussion
Need to Generate Consolidated report from relatively large Excel database I inherited.
Well, lets see what we can do here. For context, since you mention your age as 70 and state that most of the members of the organization are older than that, I would fit right in: I am 80. Never formally trained in computers, but an avid user, especially of Excel.
So with that background done: you never actually ask a question in your post, although you do paint the picture pretty well of what's facing you. Since this is all very confidential information (private at any rate), I'm not going to ask to see copies of the data.
A question for you: is the final output of your efforts going to be a printed directory of some kind? If so, Excel makes a marvelous database source for Word's MailMerge function. The two are designed to work together, and you can format a nice, readable directory of members that way. Which is what I'd recommend (based on what you have described).
Another question: You mention multiple sheets that somehow need to be combined, so I'm wondering if they're all different in format themselves, perhaps containing the same data but arrayed differently, or if they're same data, same organization but broken apart by some independent variable like state of residence, type of membership, etc.
- If the latter--almost regardless, actually--I'd strongly recommend combining them into a singe worksheet as a single database table.......just use additional columns as needed to reflect the reasons they're currently in distinct sheets. For example, add a column for year of first membership if that's what is behind the separate sheets; or level of donation, if that's what's behind it.
With those as first responses, though, come back with your answers to my questions and we'll take it further.