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The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It

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Re: The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It

#131

Post by foobarrio »

guelo wrote: post #72

People say "use a real database", fine, but where is the visual data entry? Where are the easy adhoc reports? Where are the forms? I guess if you're on Windows you can use Microsoft Access, but that's the only accesible tool I know of that doesn't require a team of programmers or an enterprise license for some Oracle/SAP type monstrosity.

This was my reaction to Flash. It's not a "real" programming environment is what everyone told me. Yea but it was a great authoring tool for non hard-core programmers. I helped a designer write a few simple puzzle games in Flash and it was overall a productive experience. Had I attempted to do that in html/JS I'm not sure it would have gone so smoothly. I haven't tried to write web games in the last 10 years so maybe there's some collection of html/JS tools that lets me develop in a similarly. I'm willing to bet though they're 10x harder to set up and require command-line knowledge (fine for me, not so much my designer friend).

Re: The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It

#132

Post by kalalala024 »

octo6 wrote: post #101
severine wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it english only?

yes, currently all English. But the expert opens a shared sheet that you work together in, so you can collaborate in Google sheet or Excel. Hope that makes up for English only

Apple puts the user in charge how an mobile OS should look like or should behave and this is the biggest differentiating factor between iOS vs other platforms. The user in charge? Interesting. I have both an iPhone and an Android handset. It has been this way for years (work is the reason). I believe I will never be able to fully accept the iPhone.

It seems like it wants to make a lot of (often stupid) decisions for me. https://www.reddit.com/r/ufc229livefights/ When I want to connect my phone via cable to transfer some files it is always a hassle. I can't sideload apps that somehow goes against Apple's will. As an example, NewPipe is a blessing on Android if you enjoy YouTube (not available via Google Play). The fact that full phone backups are done via an video/audio player (iTunes) makes zero sense.

I feel trapped and irritated when I use the iPhone. When I use the Android phone I feel like the OS trusts me to make my own decisions.

I should perhaps mention that I chose to run Android without a Google account or Gapps. I've gone from Cyanogen via Copperhead to Lineage. Ironically, Android without Google is the best phone experience I've ever had.

Re: The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It

#133

Post by Nadya »

octo6 wrote: post #63

Shameless plug - we actually founded a service [1] that provides Excel experts on-demand, within 30 to 60 seconds. So if you're tired of being the "Excel expert" at work feel free to pass them on to us. Also happy to answer any questions. Tidbit: Most popular questions tend to be formulas, vlookups, conditional formatting, pivots. [1] https://www.excelchat.co

Word of advice - slow down your sliders. I read at an absurdly fast pace and I barely finish the "Our Experts" excerpts before it scrolls. I know, from testing, that I can mouse over them to pause them but that isn't intuitive to people who don't build these sorts of things as their day job.

That being said - bookmarked. I've needed this in the past and while I may not need it right now I probably will in the future.

Re: The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It

#134

Post by michalxnet »

If you like to get better in Excel learn some nifty tricks with tables then watch

You Suck at Excel with Joel Spolsky

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nbkaYsR94c

Replace vlookup() with index() + match() combination.

https://chandoo.org/wp/vlookup-match-and-offset-explained-in...

Re: The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It

#135

Post by intended »

wwweston wrote: post #76
Loughla wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a career educator, and ruling out learning disabilities that are not appropriately accommodated, I believe that generally means you're not doing a good job of explaining in a way the other person is capable of grasping. Blame goes both ways. And the original point still stands. It is productive to teach someone to improve their own processes.

This is a reasonable approach for someone whose primary role is educating others. It rapidly recedes from the realm of reasonable considerations once we're talking about someone providing informal Excel support to colleagues as an extracurricular activity.

There’s a clear trade off in terms of time and annoyance, and getting good at teaching or communicating with different people.

Being able to share mastery is a key part of being a master at a subject, which is a political and image advantage.

I used my excel ability to learn how to best explain vlookup and got good at it.

I did get taken advantage of early on, but I learnt how to deal with those specific types of users, and not do their work for them.

In contrast to those people, there are others who genuinely respect you for your help, and then use your training to make their life and yours better.

Not to mention, many excel problems are not that hard. If you know what you are doing, it’s an easy win/goodwill for you, and a major problem for someone else solved.

Re: The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It

#136

Post by function_seven »

jstanley wrote: post #54
PascLeRasc wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There needs to be an Excel "pro mode" where the mouse is disabled and you have to do all navigation by keyboard. People would become so much more efficient that way.

If "pro mode" is optional, it would be no more effective than the existing "pro mode" of simply taking your hand off the mouse.

I'd use it.

If there was a pro mode buried in a sub-dialog of the options panel, I would turn it on and see if I could make it for 10 minutes. Then 15, then 20 and so on. Instead of reaching for the mouse when I wanted to give up, I'd have to click on [File] > [Options] > [Advanced] and clear the "Enable pro mode" checkbox.

Wait... no. I'd have to enter [ALT], F, T, ↓, ↓, ↓, ↓, ↓, [ALT]+R (to get to Pr̲o Mode), then [SPACEBAR] :)

Re: The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It

#137

Post by gerdesj »

css wrote: post #29
gknoy wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This doesn't scale well with the number of people who ask for help, unless you can organize a class - which is hard to do in a way that helps people when they need help. I love talking about git workflow, and am happy to spend a half hour diagramming how your repo relates to origin, what branches mean, how pull requests and merges work, and what rebasing does. For people who don't yet grok git (or maybe just distribu…

At least with Git there are _tons_ of ways to learn more. With Excel there are next to none because of the lack of developer community. There are few useful resources where someone can go to understand how they can best leverage their toolset. Excel is also notoriously opaque when it comes to debugging, so there often are not useful questions to ask Google if you don't already know or understand what you are looking…

Actually there are some bloody good books on the subject. The help files and online from MS help are not too bad.

Debugging: "excel debug a spreadsheet" - quite a few decent returns on page one and two. Related searches in Google gives some more hints.

Re: The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It

#138

Post by sblawrie »

octo6 wrote: post #63

Shameless plug - we actually founded a service [1] that provides Excel experts on-demand, within 30 to 60 seconds. So if you're tired of being the "Excel expert" at work feel free to pass them on to us. Also happy to answer any questions. Tidbit: Most popular questions tend to be formulas, vlookups, conditional formatting, pivots. [1] https://www.excelchat.co

Cool - bookmarked!

Re: The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It

#139

Post by intended »

function_seven wrote: post #95
kchoudhu wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get people who have trouble with Pivot tables. Literally drag and drop things until you get what you need.

If you're doing a simple Pivot, sure. But here are the things I run into constantly. 1. When I group by days (i.e. group by 7 day chunks), why does Excel refuse to sort chronologically? 2. How do I make my Grand Total column add up all the subtotals when those subtotals are averages of the underlying records? (It will only do an overall average) 3. Why can't I collapse just this row without collapsing the counterpart…

This guy excel troubleshoots.

God so many of those are infuriating the first time you encounter them.

On the flip side once you get the hang of it, you know right quick how you need your data set up.

Re: The First Rule of Microsoft Excel: Don’t Tell Anyone You’re Good at It

#140

Post by maybecorrect »

I have a joke I tell about Excel:

Excel is amazing, because it's the wrong tool for everything! Which is really impressive, since there aren't many tools you can do everything with!

I realize it's not a very funny joke, but I do think it's true.

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