Edited:
after using Solver which Saulo Suggested I have managed to get excel sorting them in to groups up to 8 groups of 3. though am approaching troubles when going further ideally at this time I need to be able to do 18 groups of 3. but even with the same settings obviously adjusting for the increase in groups excel seems to belly up on the process and fails, any suggestions to adapt to this?
I am trying to figure out an easy and as accurate as possible without going too crazy with the math and formulas as I am basic with my excel coding (coding in general) to calculate the ideal groups of 3 based on rank and strength for a video game.
I want to pair the strongest with the weakest and then fill the gaps evenly for the 3rd person. so, that each team’s overall strength is the same roughly.
factors I have is a designated leader(rank) and an overall power level(strength).
doing this manually isn't too hard but trying to automate it is. any thoughts or suggestions would be amazing!?
something like this but automated which is where I am getting stuck, as I want to be able to add more players and adjust strengths as they come along.
Hope this makes sense.
Jordan, you have a classic situation to use "Solver". First of all, you have to make "Solver available in your Excel. Select Home -> Option -> Supplements -> Solver. Then, the solver button´s will be at the "Data" menu.
Solver is about solving a problem with especific conditions, changing specific cell, with specifc purpose. In your case, your purpose is creat teams with the minimal strength diference. A condition of your problem is that teams should have the same number of players. See how I organized the sheet.
Sheet
When do you open solver, the first field is "Seat Goal". Our goal (or purpose) is reduce the diference between teams as minimal as possible. So we selected the cell with the diference between teams. Then we have to tell to excel that our purpose is that cell have the minimal value (chossing "min").
Then we have to tell excel wich cells they can change values to achieve our goal. In this case, Excel can change the teams of player, so we select the cells with the teams.
Last we have to tell excel whats condition (or restrictions) of this problem. The first restction is that the total of player of team 1 is tree. The total of players of team 2 is, both, 3. Then we have to tell to excel what are the limits (superior and inferior) of values of variable cells. In this case, we chose superior or equal to 1, AND (other restrction) inferior or equal to 2.
Ok. Now we have a problem with specif goal, changing the value of specifc cells, with specif restriction. Now solver can work. Then choose the method of soluction "Evolutionary", Honestly, I do know the diference between the methods, but my experience is that evolutionary method works better than the others.
I recomend reading the excel tutorial on solver. At first, all of us think that is too dificult, but believe that is simpler than it seems.
Related
Don't laugh, but, from time to time, my friends and I host a multiple-course KFC dinner, and I have a spreadsheet to optimise the order. This is to make sure we order the right combination of 'bucket'-type items (i.e. SKUs that contain multiple pieces, often of different types):
to minimise leftover items
to reduce the total cost
Here is the spreadsheet I currently use, and here's a screenshot:
To use it, you first specify the number of participants in A2, and what you want each person to have in E2:E6 (we're really only interested in the chicken, so 'sides' are treated as generic to simplify).
Here's the manual part, that I'd like to improve.
The next step is to look at the ideal totals for each item (F2:F6), and to try to set the right quantities (H12:H20) of the 'bucket'-type SKUs that I have recreated (A11:G20), so that the output totals (H21:M21) match the ideal totals (F2:F6).
The optimisation part is to get the deltas (H22:M22) as close to zero as possible, and to get the total cost (N21) as low as possible.
So, my question is: is there a way to do this better? I think Excel has some sort of Solver functionality, but I'm afraid I don't know how I'd go about even starting to use that, as my Excel skills are pretty rudimentary. Oh, and in case it makes a difference regarding functionality, I'm using Excel for Mac v16.37.
Any thoughts gratefully appreciated! :)
I can't take any credit for this, but am happy to say that GSerg left me a couple of comments that pointed me in the right direction, and I now have Solver set up to organise my chicken parties!
Here are the parameters for anyone who is curious:
I teach a budgeting course for my professional association. As part of that course, students are required to submit a draft budget as part of their marks. The budget template that I have to use is kindof set in stone. The association offers it's courses at various college locations and I can't just arbitrarily change it's contents.
That being said, marking this assignment is a pain in the neck! I'm looking for an easy way to be able to compare the values in a cell, and then mark it correct or incorrect, if it is within an expected range..
For example, students are required to estimate the expenses for the current year. If their estimate is within $200 +/- of what the answer key states, then I would mark their answer correct.
I am not a coder by trade, but rather an armchair coder who will search out and self teach what I need to solve my problem, so I'm not afraid of a bit of homework myself. I have not been able to find any solution so far. Right now, my students submit their assignment hardcopy, and I manually mark their spreadsheets. Tedious to say the least. Any searches I try to perform for academic marking of an Excel spreadsheet only return solutions to use Excel as a tracking tool for student marks, which is not what I'm looking for.
My college uses Desire2Learn as their online platform for content delivery, and students can submit their material electronically, I want an easy way to determine if they have completed the spreadsheet correctly.
Any help, or pointers in the right direction would be greatly appreciated!
There are probably several ways to tackle this problem but this might be something simple if the layout of the sheets doesn't change. You could create a worksheet with 3 sheets.
1. a sheet to copy their work into
2. "Master" sheet with the correct answers
3. "Grading" sheet that has formulas that calculate the difference (possibly within a range). For example IF(ABS(Sheet 1!B20 - Sheet 2!B20)>200,"Correct","Incorrect"). Calculates the absolute value of the difference between the same cell address on 2 different sheets then compares to the expected answer and returns Correct or Incorrect.
You would still have to copy their work into your master worksheet one at a time. Remember this only works if their worksheet layout doesn't change.
Post a rely along with a sample of the data if you need something more flexible.
I've done some Googling for each of my issues but haven't found exactly the results as I wanted. Things I need to be done doesn’t probably include any macros/VBA skills, just basic knowledge of Excel.
Now to my spreadsheet. I'm a Dota 2 player and I like statistics. I like it that much that I'd like to keep track of my achievements and results. Only problem is that the game tracker sucks and to get great information in web you have to pay for it, so I decided it's time for me to create my own spreadsheet to track my skills.
I don't know which place is the best to share my spreadsheet but I uploaded it to Estonian uploading host, link is here. I will also provide with pictures so you don't have to download anything.
This is what it looks like in general:
Problem number 1: The left table, or column has 1000 rows. In web design it's possible to make elements fixed depending on the scroll, I'd like to use similar feature here. If the table gets scrolled down, the right table (area with games, bonus and graph) will get scrolled down with it.
Problem number 2: Average MMR. I'd like to show average MMR after each entry depending on the first entries. Right now there's avg MMR for J4:J8. The calculation for J8 looks like this: =AVERAGE(C4:C8). For J7 it looks like this: =AVERAGE(C4:C7). I'd like to do this for all my 1000 rows, but I don't want to type it out. If I try to drag down from the corner, it will continue with C5:C8, C6:C9 etc (so it changes the starting point)
Problem number 3: Under longestGame there's currently Date and Hero. This should show the Date and Hero of which the longest game occurred. I tried to do this with LOOKUP function but it required table to be in ascending order, which I don't want. For current, 44,22, there should be Storm Spirit and 14.06.2015.
Problem number 4: Graph. I'd like to display three series on graph - MMR, average MMR and game length (time). The problem is, that MMR and average MMR will be in the numbers on 3000-7000 but the game length will only be probably in timeframe 20:00-120:00. Maybe it's possible to add two sets of values to the Y axis or maybe set Time series maximum 200:00 and minimum 0:00 and create graph according to this. I'm really stupid making graphs and I haven't figured out a clever way yet.
Problem number 5: Graph again. Right now I have to set the series for the graph. I've currently set it to C4:C54 (so 50 rows). I'd like it to move around a bit and by that I mean that if there happens to be C55-th game then the graph would start from C5:C55 and move along (so it'll count 50 last games).
I'm in a benevolent mood so rather than downvoting your question, because it is not really suitable for this forum I'm going to give you some hints and guidance. The numbers below correspond to the problems in your question.
Excel permits more than one window to be used on the same workbook -
so one window can show the data and one the summary.
Find out about absolute and relative cell addressing - its a valuable bit of knowledge for anyone serious about Excel and it will be of use in solving your problem.
Find out about the MATCH function. You can use this to find out which row of your table contains the longest game, shortest game, max MMR, min MMR by matching an element from the summary on the right (cols M onward) against the appropriate column table on the left. The find out about the INDEX function - this can be used to pull the values in the columns for Hero and Date which correspond to a specific row (such as the row containing the longest game, shortest game, etc). Search INDEX MATCH and find out why using these two functions in combination is often preferred to using the VLOOKUP function
Persevere - there are graph options available to do what you want and the only way to really learn is to go through the pain of trying them out, failing and working at it until you succeed.
Set up an area of worksheet to hold the 50*3 table of data for your graphs. Find out about the COUNT function and think how it might be of use in determining which rows of the data table map to the 50 rows of graph data. Then think about how to populate the graph data table using one of the functions mentioned above. Incidentally, C4:C54 is actually 51 rows, not 50.
Morning guys,
I'm hoping that one (or more) of you can help me.
I have been tasked with creating a dashboard which needs to display trends and have a dynamic frontsheet, preferably with drop-down or data forms so as to update a chart / graph.
The information itself is incredibly limited - the scope of the document is tracking a value (0-4) assigned to a staff member's ability to fulfill a task, e.g. 'Quotes - 4', 'Cancellation - 2' and so on. So the metrics are limited to:
Month (a worksheet for each month of the year and one front for the dashboard)
Team (Presently 6 teams, but this is likely to increase over time, so hopefully the solution facilitates relatively easy incorporation of new teams)
Employee (Self explanatory)
Task (Presently 25, but as above - subject to change)
Score (the 0-4 value referred to above)
So as you can see, it's a very simple dataset. The sheets are presently set out with six grids with data validation lists for determining Team and Score (dropdowns for easy data input), with the Task being pre-written and the employee entered manually by the user.
What I'm hoping to do is have a frontsheet with dynamic tables that update accordingly when a dropdown and/or data form is changed. The key focus is on getting the staff members up to 4s for all tasks, so ultimately, the charts will display trends for the individual teams (one chart for each team - 6 charts) on a month-on-month basis and also a dynamic table which can reflect specific information (e.g. employee performance on a specific month, or number of '3s' achieved by a specific team to date).
I've read a reasonable amount on this, but seem to have overwhelmed myself with the sheer amount of options. However, the options can be narrowed given that I'm working on a large corporate network that doesn't really facilitate downloads (so add-ins or anything extraneous to Excel 2007 'out-the-box' isn't an option) and preferably without the use of VBA (1. I'm quite a novice insofar as VBA, 2. Easy distribution and maintainence of the document might be marred by VBA?), though I appreciate that my requirements may dictate VBA to be essential.
Does anyone have any suggestions around how best to proceed creation of this dashboard?
Any and all help is appreciated and I apologise as a newbie if I've contravened any conventions around forum etiquette.
Thank you all for your time,
Rob
There are a couple of things that you need to consider in a task such as this:
a) what sort of output do you require?
b) how are you going to manage the data?
For a) I'd separate it further into the basics of what's required (time series charts of employee and/or team performances [how will team performance be measured? average, % achieving 4, or ?]) and then the bells and whistles of drop-downs. Focus on the basics, the other stuff first the whizzy stuff can come later. Getting b) right is vital - you are going to be extracting subsets of the data to build the charts you want to display. Get b) wrong and you'll just create a horrible task for yourself.
In your position I would consider re-organising the data into the form of a table. Excel's help defines what is meant by a table, but in essence it is a list of your observations where each observation simply comprises the score for a particular month/team/employee/task combination (so each observation comprises 5 values). The observations are arranged as successive rows of the table with the first row being the header row which will contain suitable labels such as "Month", "Team", "Employee", "Task", "Score". The real advantage of using a table such as this is that Excel provides a heap of in-built facilities for manipulating them - look up the help for Sort and Filter on the Data tab. In your case there is an even more compelling reason for using a table - you can use the Pivot Table and Pivot Chart facilities for analysing and displaying the data. If you have not used these before some time and effort spent learning about them will pay dividends. Once your data is organised and you know how to use Pivot Tables and Charts you should be able to prototype sum output very quickly.
If you do decide to organise your data as a table you can still keep a nice friendly looking grid of 6 team "tables" (different from Excel's use of the word) as a data entry facility to enter each month's scores by employee and task. You will need to find a way of getting each month's data from the data entry "tables" to the main data table. (Easiest way would be to use a bit of spare worksheet under the data entry tables to reproduce the entered data as a series of observation rows and then use Paste Special Values to append these rows to the end of the main table of observations. You can use VBA to automate the copy/paste operation if you want, you just need to figure out a way of identifying how may observations are currently in the main table and precisely where you want the paste to end up - COUNT() or COUNTA() is a useful friend here). Main problem to avoid (whether automated or not) is to avoid appending same entered data more than once to main data table.
Have a look at http://www.mediafire.com/download/x64swkp689k10a1/DataEntrytoTable.xlsx for a simple example of some of the above thoughts
Let's (for discussion purposes) say that I have x and y data in 2 columns. They're some measured data which, several times a day, a few of them are added (usually 4 times a day).
Now, I wish to plot y=f(x) (linear scale), but the problem is since data is constantly added to determine the number of points which will go in the plot. Always creating a new plot and then formatting it and all, is troublesome for ... reasons.
Is there a way to do this using excel's build in functions ? Should I use vba ? I tried googling, but I don't know what to search for. I'd appreciate any help on this, even if its just a point in the right direction.
Is there a way to tell excel, use all points in this column until you hit an empty cell ?
You can do this without any VBA. Jon Peltier has an example by Debra Dalgleish on his website:
http://peltiertech.com/Excel/Charts/DynamicColumnChart1.html
It can be pretty frustrating to Google anything related to Excel because there is so much junk out there, but I've found that if there's something "obvious" that you know shouldn't be so hard, one of the various "MVP" sites will have covered it.