@JenniferUnderwoodKSG
One idea, which is a theme you'll find from many experienced Excel users. I happen to be one who not only has worked a lot with Excel but also has experience as the manager of a huge HR database.
The idea is to stop keeping attendance records on separate sheets for each employee. It's not only unnecessary; it actually interferes with Excel's phenomenal abilities to process data. Instead, have a single (admittedly large) attendance spreadsheet for all employees. Same would be true, by the way, for other things you track that are distinctive by employee--e.g., salaries, benefits....
I'm going to assume that each of those myriad attendance sheets is laid out in the same way. To combine them all into a single data base--which is what I'd recommend--you'd have to add at least one column to the rows of attendance records, that being an employee ID of some kind--whatever you use. (You might also need to add some other columns depending on what else you have that only appears on the (redundant) individual files.)
Combining all into a single sheet would enable you at any time to extract from the consolidated database of ALL employees:
- the full record of any one individual,
- a range of attendance data on any one individual (last month, last quarter, YTD, for example)
- the current status of all active employees
- headcounts
- etc.
My guess is that it would also be easier to collect the data if you didn't have to go looking for each individual's sheet.
Is this advice to which you'd be open?
