Adding Columns to Excel As List From Other Sheet Grows - excel

Question

Background
I'm creating a grade book in Excel for my wife. I have sheets for the overall grade, classwork, exams, and participation.
The three sections of work (classwork, exams, and participation) each have a variable number of items, and each item has a different number of points possible. Each section has a weight in the overall grade.
I have this up and running with a fixed number of items per section, but I'd like to create a template that can be updated from class to class and year to year.
Here's the problem:
On the classwork sheet, I'd like to be able to enter new assignments and their point value and have that automatically update the master grade sheet on my first sheet tab. Is there any way to add columns in a section of one worksheet (the master grade sheet) when new rows are added to another worksheet (the list of assignments)?

Answer 1

It is possible to achieve this without using VBA. The reason you will have difficulty acheiving this, however, is that you've violated normal form in the table you've already built. It appears the pertinent data you're looking for is each student's score on each assignment. If this if correct, the level of granularity you will want is on the Assignment, not on the Student.
There are some fairly quick ways to modify your existing work to account for this. I've written out some sample data below. Take a look and see if it helps.
Sample Original Table
+---------+------+------------+------------+
| Student | Quiz | Thumbnails | Watercolor |
+---------+------+------------+------------+
| Paul | 3 | 10 | 90 |
| Frank | 4 | 10 | 95 |
| Mary | 5 | 10 | 70 |
| Ellen | | 10 | 85 |
| Sue | 6 | 10 | 92 |
| Anton | 5 | 10 | 87 |
+---------+------+------------+------------+
Image of the data is below ( note I have highlighted the blank value ).
Sample Normal Table
+---------+-------------+-----------+-------+
| Student | Assignment | New_Score | Score |
+---------+-------------+-----------+-------+
| Paul | Quiz | | 3 |
| Frank | Quiz | | 4 |
| Mary | Quiz | | 5 |
| Ellen | Quiz | | 0 |
| Sue | Quiz | | 6 |
| Anton | Quiz | | 5 |
| Paul | Thumbnails | | 10 |
| Frank | Thumbnails | | 10 |
| Mary | Thumbnails | | 10 |
| Ellen | Thumbnails | | 10 |
| Sue | Thumbnails | | 10 |
| Anton | Thumbnails | | 10 |
| Paul | Watercolor | | 90 |
| Frank | Watercolor | | 95 |
| Mary | Watercolor | | 70 |
| Ellen | Watercolor | | 85 |
| Sue | Watercolor | | 92 |
| Anton | Watercolor | | 87 |
| Mary | ExtraCredit | 10 | 10 |
| Ellen | ExtraCredit | 8 | 8 |
| Sue | ExtraCredit | 9 | 9 |
| Anton | ExtraCredit | 10 | 10 |
+---------+-------------+-----------+-------+
Image of the data is below. The score column reaches back to your old table and grabs the score you've already entered for the students, so you won't have to do this all manually. The formula for this is =INDEX(non_normal,MATCH([#Student],non_normal[Student],0),MATCH([#Assignment],non_normal[#Headers],0)).
This assumes you've formatted the old data into an Excel DataTable ( ctrl+t ) and named it non_normal ( alt+j+t+i ). Note the unsubmitted assignment for Ellen comes through with a score of zero using this method. I've added a column named New_Score so that you are able to add new student-assignment submission combinations to the table without having to modify your old non_normal table ( which was the trouble in the OP ). With this column added, the formula in the Score column can be changed to =IF(NOT(ISBLANK([#[New_Score]])),[#[New_Score]],INDEX(non_normal,MATCH([#Student],non_normal[Student],0),MATCH([#Assignment],non_normal[#Headers],0))) which will take the New_Score value if available and the original score if not.
The orange cells are new student-assignment submission combinations. Note you do not need to add a row for every student, just add a row whenever a student submits an assignment.
Sample Assignments Table
+-------------+-----------------+
| Assignment | Points_Possible |
+-------------+-----------------+
| Quiz | 6 |
| Thumbnails | 10 |
| Wartercolor | 100 |
| ExtraCredit | |
+-------------+-----------------+
I've added the ExtraCredit assignment with a possible max score of zero/blank ( since not completing extra credit shouldn't count against a student )
Payoff - Back to the Original Table
+--------------+---------------+------------+------------+-------------+-------------+--------+
| Sum of Score | Column Labels | | | | | |
+--------------+---------------+------------+------------+-------------+-------------+--------+
| Row Labels | Quiz | Thumbnails | Watercolor | ExtraCredit | Grand Total | |
+--------------+---------------+------------+------------+-------------+-------------+--------+
| Anton | 5 | 10 | 87 | 10 | 112 | 96.6% |
| Ellen | 0 | 10 | 85 | 8 | 103 | 88.8% |
| Frank | 4 | 10 | 95 | | 109 | 94.0% |
| Mary | 5 | 10 | 70 | 10 | 95 | 81.9% |
| Paul | 3 | 10 | 90 | | 103 | 88.8% |
| Sue | 6 | 10 | 92 | 9 | 117 | 100.9% |
+--------------+---------------+------------+------------+-------------+-------------+--------+
Using the image below, you pivot your newly normalized data into a Pivot Table. ( alt+n+v ). Now, simply adding a new assignment to the normal_assignment DataTable will cause that assignment to appear in a new column when you refresh the Pivot Table ( alt+a+r+a ).
The % score on the right of the Pivot Table is calculated using the following formula ( with the sample Pivot Table starting in cell $M$2 ): =GETPIVOTDATA("Score",$M$2,"Student",M4)/SUM(assignment[Points_Possible])
I've uploaded the raw sample file for this to my public repo if you'd like to pull it and take a peek at the source. Credit to sensefulsolutions for text-to-table conversion.
Hope this is what you need!