Excel at 40 Week 1: Days 1–3
Celebrating 40 years of Excel in finance, analytics, and beyond On September 30, 1985, Excel launched on the Apple Macintosh. It replaced paper ledgers, VisiCalc, and Lotus 1-2-3 — and changed finance forever. From macros to Power Query, from PivotTables to Python, Excel has evolved into a powerhouse for financial modeling, auditing, and analytics. This 40-day series shares: ✅ 40 lessons from 40 years of Excel in finance ✅ Real-world use cases with Power BI and Microsoft Fabric ✅ Tips for mastering Excel’s most powerful formulas ✅ My journey as a finance analyst using Excel daily Day 1 — A Finance Legacy Begins 📅 From 1985 to 2025: A visual timeline of Excel’s evolution. Revisit the journey from the first release on the Macintosh to today’s AI-powered, cloud-connected version. Day 2 — Highlight Past Event Dates Automatically 🏅 Excel Tip: Highlight rows automatically when the date is 3 or 6 months old — no VBA required. Formulas used: 3 months → =AND(ISNUMBER($A2), $A2 < TODAY() - 90) 6 months → =AND(ISNUMBER($A2), $A2 < EDATE(TODAY(), -6)) ✅ Apply through Conditional Formatting to keep outdated entries visible without manual updates. 🔗 https://lnkd.in/dVS_DfdB Day 3 — The Evolution of Scale From 4 million cells in 1985 to over 17 billion today, Excel has grown into a data titan. This carousel highlights major milestones and its transformation into a programmable, AI-powered canvas. 💡 From finance models to fantasy football, Excel powers it all. 📌 Satya Nadella on Excel: “Excel formulas, the world’s most popular programming language, is now Turing-complete.” https://lnkd.in/dyex2ymK “Excel with Python is like GitHub with Copilot.” https://lnkd.in/dti5WfsQ 🔗 https://lnkd.in/dp58hDnP Follow the Series 📅 New lessons every week — follow along as we count down to all 40 lessons. #ExcelAt40 #MicrosoftExcel #ExcelTips #MicrosoftFabric #PowerBI #ExcelForFinance #FinancialModeling #AuditAutomationSignificant Testing for a cross tabulated output
https://drive.google.com/file/d/164jBE8C9wNGNnad3gHkaAYhOnYfDd-8n/view Hi all, I have a challenge in performing the significance testing the attached cross-tabulated output for a few questions. I want to test the significance based on Town and Gender variables. Please help
Excel Task list
Hi All, I am having an issue finding a way to organize my task list. I have a task list with multiple tasks that is color coded by task codes. For example if on position A1 I introduce the task code "C" then the task will appear in column "task 1" as Clean. Each tasks is color coded by priority, high priority turns red, medium turns the cell orange and low turns the cell yellow. However, beyond the color coding I want all the high priority cells (in red) to always go on column labeled "task 1" since it is the first task I want done. Right now, my issue is that depending on how the task code is entered, tasks will go to any column (i.e. Task 1, Task 2, Task 3, Task4 ,etc.) But I would like that all high priority go to one column (task 1), all medium go to another column (task 2) and all low priority go to task 3. How can I fix this issue? Thank you!Excel cell fill doesn't work.... !
Hi, I have all settings correct and still, randomly from time to time, for day or more, I cannot fill cells with data. It just taking first number from first cell and copy it ignoring numbers below, and only what I can see are formatting options (this where you change in ex. colour depends on data in the cell. Nothing seems to work, I have no updates pending, reset Excel or computer doesn't work. I use Excel daily and if this happen I have 1 or more days out of work possibility. What shall be fixed here? Help, please.
How to link data from one worksheet to another in a workbook?
Hi, I am wanting to find a way to how to format my file such that my excel sheets are interlink in a workbook. Sheet "Semester base dates - Column B = Column A", if on sheet "Tuition pattern" - Column I reflects sheet "Semester base date - Column B" eg sheet "Tuition Pattern - cell I15 = 11" it should link to sheet "Semester base date" - cell A41 "Because it is Semester 2 (cell B1); week 11 (I15)" on tuition pattern sheet - this should be automatically reflected on sheet "tuition pattern" column J (Cell J15) (42) Because sheet "semester based dates Cell A46" = 42 What I want to do is when I fill my data for column I - I want to find the corresponding week for automatic filling of column J - can I do that? *won't allow me to copy and paste my excel table to show example
Separating data in a single column
I have data exported from a ticketing/retails system which lumps all the items purchased by each customer in one column, with values separated by commas. There's potentially 100 different items they could purchase. Most lines just have two or three items, others have 20-30 if they are bringing school groups, booking workshops at set times, lunch room access, etc. I need to be able to analyse this data - so, for example, what secondary purchases did someone with ticket type 1 also purchase? I can (and have) split the individual items into several columns, but what I'd really like is each ticket type in its own column to make filtering data much more straightforward. I need to the process to be automatable, so I can import data every month and run the same analysis on it. I originally wanted to work with the full year's data, but with over 150k lines, that becomes unworkable when you add in the other data already in the spreadsheet. Any idea of how I can do this? It feels like it might be a PowerQuery challenge, but I've got very little knowledge of how that works. Copilot seems to be balking at everything at the moment.
