Contextures News 20150127

Quickly Combine Data + more Excel tips

January 27, 2015

In this week's Excel news, you'll see how to quickly combine data from 2 sheets, and much more.., and more, in this week's Excel news. Visit my Excel website for more tips, tutorials and videos, and check the index for past issues of this newsletter.

Note: For some products mentioned below, I earn a commission on sales. That helps support the free tutorials on my site.

• Combine Data on Two Worksheets
• Pivot Table From Data on 2 Sheets
• More Excel Tips
• Excel Announcements
• Video: Add Bullets in Cell or Textbox
• Weekly Photo
• Featured Excel Product

Combine Data on Two Worksheets

With Microsoft's Power Query add-in, you can quickly combine data that is on two different worksheets. Then, if either sheet is updated, you can refresh the combined data, to show the latest numbers.

Click here to see the details, and watch the video: Combine Data on Two Worksheets

Pivot Table From Data on Multiple Sheets

After using the above technique to combine data from different sheets, you can create a pivot table from the results. This is much quicker and easier than the older methods of creating a pivot table from multiple consolidation areas

See the details in my blog post, and download the sample file: Pivot Table from Data on Two Sheets

More Excel Tips

Here are a few of the Excel articles that I read recently, that you might find useful:

• Mary Ann Richardson shows how to use the WORKDAY function to calculate a delivery date..

• Oz du Soleil is tired of people comparing R and Excel, and bashing our favourite spreadsheet.

• XOR LX shows how to sort a list alphabetically, by using formulas.

• Jordan Goldmeier thinks we make our Excel workbooks more complex than they need to be.

• In his latest podcast, Chandoo figures out how to write business logic and rules in Excel formulas.

• Ken Puls explains an easy way to reference other Power Query queries, when working on a new query.

• For a humorous peek at what other people are saying about spreadsheets, read the latest collection of Excel tweets, on my Excel Theatre blog.

Excel Announcements

Here are some upcoming events, courses, recently published books, and other new items, related to Excel:

• Excel Dashboard Course: Mynda Treacy has opened registration for her acclaimed Excel Dashboard course, until January 29th. See details in the Featured Excel Product section, below.

• PASS BA Marathon: Feb. 3, 2015 -- Sign up now, for this free online preview of the upcoming Business Analytics Conference. There will be 6 live webinars, including "Productivity Revolution in Excel", led by Chandoo (Purna Duggirala) and Avi Singh.

• Amsterdam Excel Summit: Mark your calendar for April 13-15, so you can attend this amazing Excel event. Last year's summit was an outstanding success, and registration is now open, for this year's event.

Video: Add Bullets in Cell or Textbox

If you need to add a bullet in a cell, you can use a keyboard shortcut -- Alt + 0149 (on the number keypad). If you're using a Text Box on a worksheet, there is a built-in bullet feature that makes it easy to add bullets in a list.

Click here to watch the short video that show how it works: Add Bullets in Cell or Textbox.

Office Decor

Is your office decor strictly business, with just your work tools and books? The shelf above my laptop was filled with boring black binders, so I hid those in the storage cupboard, and put some favourite things on the shelf instead.

I like penguins, so these little guys are adding some sparkle to my work space now. I'm sure it's improving morale, and increasing productivity, here at Contextures!

Featured Excel Product

The start of a new year is a great time to add some new tricks to your Excel repertoire. Stay inside, where it's cozy and warm, and follow an online course at your own pace.

Excel dashboard skills are certainly in demand in many companies, and Mynda Treacy from My Online training Hub is temporarily opening registration for her acclaimed Excel Dashboard Course. I've been through this course, and highly recommend it. You can read my detailed review here.

Mynda's dashboard course is a great investment, and sign up now, because registration closes on January 29th.

The course is video based, delivered online and is available 24/7. You'll receive comprehensive workbooks and sample dashboards to keep, and there's even an option to download the videos.

That's it for this week! If you have any comments or questions, send me an email.

Debra Dalgleish
ddalgleish @contextures.com

P.S. You can choose the full Contextures news package (news and occasional special announcements), or basic news package (news only). Click either link to change your option.