Wanted: How YOU use Excel!

[Greg Truby]

Folks, yours truly is gonna start giving Excel seminars around the country. In order to get folks to perk up in their seats, I would like to create examples that strike close to home with as many people as possible. I would be much obliged for anyone that could help me generate these. If you could give information along these lines - that'd be just swell:

• Your industry - for example
  • manufacturing
  • service
  • education
  • government
  • non-profit
  • tourism
  • so on and so forth
• Just a general description of where within the industry
  • Plastics Manufacturing, or
  • Electronics Manufacturing
  • Service: Restaurants
  • Service: Health Care
  • Govt: Dept. of Motor Vehicles
  • Govt: Ministry of Silly Walks
  • Education: Elementary School
  • Education: University
  • you get the picture
• How you use Excel
  • Creating pro forma invoices for export bids
  • Reconciling Customer Returns
  • Tracking Sales of Various Mixed Drinks
  • Scheduling for Nurse's Station
  • Minimum Wait Times for License Renewals
  • Applications for Grants to Create New Silly Walks
  • Template for Science Fair Projects
  • Room Assignments in Dormitories

Again, much obliged fer any help y'all kin lend in this direction.

 

[sanrv1f]

Hi Greg,

Let me try to explain something that I was doing for 3 years, the first job where I got the chance to work with excel was the General insurance industry. I was part of the finance team and responsible for preparing the monthly schedules for business results.

It was data, data and loads of data every day, there were three major parts of it. The Premium, Claims and the Commission, and each of them are from different systems. My job was to consolidate all data into one place, inter-relate them based on few fields and make a large data base. once it is ready, I had to slice the data based on various parameters, like Product categories, Office location, Business partners, etc,

In this job, I made many excel sheets that, when looking at them now, being examples of how to design bad excel sheets,

If this helps you in any way, I will post about my next job in the Telecom industry, if you need any sample files, PM me your mail-id or mail me (see my signature)

 

[Greg Truby]

Thank you, Sankar. But no, I do NOT want anyone's sample files. I'll just make stuff up that should sort of approach what you describe. I'll do it that way for a couple of reasons: #1 - I need to be teaching a specific concept, so I'll design the workbook to fit whatever concept I'm focused on in that part of the day and #2 - I would never, ever want to disclose any proprietary information. If I don't *have* it, then I cannot disclose it. However I do thank you for both the offer and for your example application of Excel.

 

[Norie]

Greg

I once used it to solve crossword-type puzzles - does that count.

Seriously though I've mainly used it for data analysis in finance/insurance.

One major project involved millions of records, which I manipulated in Access, but the main analysis, ie the number crunching, was done in Excel.

Oh, and I made some pretty graphs too for the nice men from the auditors.

 

[TinaP]

I'm the applications specialist in a bank. One of the basic things I've used to show the power of Excel is amortization tables. Another project (which could apply to any industry) was taking a pile of raw data and massaging it to provide a profit/loss comparison report for each of our branches.

Of course, a Sudoku solver would probably get people to sit up and notice.

 

[Brian from Maui]

Aloha Greg,

I've got a vacation tracker, projecting labor cost, weight and balance programs for 767 and 717 aircraft, automatic work scheduler, and some other office stuff.

Get your behind here and I'll give them to you!

NAH, just give me a shout if you're interested!

 

[meguilbert]

Hello Greg,

I use excel in poultry breeding. We use it to track and analyze QA data,trends at hatcheries and farms. All of which are used for problem solving and to improve our processes. We also use it to track training and create forms.

HTH,
Matt

 

[Norie]

Tina

There is a Sudoku solver out there - I think it was Andy Pope that did it.

But it wasn't perfect.

Mind you, it was good enough for me to stop wasting my time with my lame attempts to create one.

 

[TinaP]

Oh yes, I know about the Sudoku solvers. I just think it's a good way to showcase some of what Excel can do--especially for beginners.

 

[Norie]

Tina

I don't think it is really.

You could probably write code for that sort of thing in any computer language you like.

I don't thing such a thing really demonstrates anything about Excel, but it could probably be a good lesson in logic/programming.

And that sort of thing could be applied across the board.