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Category Archives: Doug Midkiff ’12
Excel Tip of the Week: Data Tables
Today’s topic is how to create a data table.
One of the things they teach us early in business school is to think broadly about our decisions. We are taught to think about best-case scenarios, worst-case scenarios, and everything in between. Excel can be very useful in exploring a number of different situations from a quantitative standpoint, and data tables are one of the main tools you can use to quickly and easily explore such scenarios.
Data tables allow you to see what the outcome would be if you changed one (or two) of your input variables. This means that instead of manually changing a cell one number at a time to see what would happen, you can list a large range of possible values for your input variable(s) and Excel will calculate the result for you.
Here is an example:
- Download the example spreadsheet here
- Make sure you are on the sheet titled “One Variable Data Table”
- Using the 8% discount rate, we can see that if service was expanded the NPV for 5 years would be $1,147 209. However, we are not sure if 8% is correct. We would like to see what the NPV would be if the discount rate was as low as 6%, as high as 10%, and everything in between.
Posted in Doug Midkiff '12, Excel Tip of the Week
Tagged data table, excel, sensitivity analysis
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Owen. Wired.
When you get tired of going to the Starbucks across the street, OwenBloggers has you covered.
Dose Coffee & Tea
Website: dosecoffeeandtea.com
Address: 3431 Murphy Road, Nashville, TN 37203
Hours: M-F 6a-7p; Sat 7a-7p; Sun 8a-7p
Seating: Very popular place that fills up quite often, but you can find a seat most days. If not, ask to share a booth or table with someone!
Selected Prices: Medium Coffee: $2.00, Medium Latte: $3.50, Cup of Tea: $2.25
Outlet availability: Ample thanks to several power strips throughout.
Wifi: Yes: Open network, no password required. Always a good connection.
Driving Distance from Owen: 1.8 miles
Parking (Car): Yes, but limited.
Parking (Bike): No.
Food: Cookies, Bagels, Breakfast Sandwiches, Small lunch menu, Treats, etc.
Scene: Mostly a mix of students and professionals. You’ll see lots of laptops open or business meetings being conducted at Dose.
Other Notes: In my opinion, the strongest coffee in Nashville. Great selection of tea. Best smelling coffee shop. Next door to Grand Cru Wine and Spirits who hosts wine tastings in Dose occasionally. I would go here way more if they were open past 7pm. As it stands, it splits time with Crema as my morning/afternoon coffee shop.
Posted in Doug Midkiff '12, Graduate Life, Nashville
Tagged coffee, cool places, Dose, study
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Excel Tip of the Week: Evaluate Formulas
Today’s topic is evaluating formulas.
Last week I covered the Show formula feature, and this week I’ll be covering a feature that helps even more with troubleshooting and understanding formulas.
Formulas in Excel can quickly spin out of control. Take for example this formula that I recently wrote:
IF($AF$37<>P17,0,IF(P56>0,P70*-$N$14,IF(P75<hurdle1,-P72,(FV(hurdle1,P17,,NPV(hurdle1,$N$74:O74)+$M$74)-(P46+(-P58)+(-P69))+($N$14*(P70-(FV(hurdle1,P17,,NPV(hurdle1,$N$74:O74)+$M$74)-(P46+(-P58)+(-P69)))/$N$9))))))
What a mess. I actually ended up finding a simpler solution, so I was able to do away with the above formula. However, before I was able to arrive at a better solution I was stuck working with a very complex formula. This is where Evaluate Formula really came in handy.
Even if you don’t think you’ll ever write something super complex in Excel, it is likely you will have to work in a spreadsheet with someone else’s tricky formulas. When that happens you’ll be glad you have Evaluate Formula in your Excel toolkit.
What the Evaluate Formula feature does is allow you to evaluate each part of a formula individually and see how Excel is calculating a specific piece of the formula. As usual, the best way to learn this is via an example: (Note to Mac users, this feature is not available in your version of Excel.)
Posted in Doug Midkiff '12, Excel Tip of the Week
Tagged evaluate formula, excel, formula
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Excel Tip of the Week: Show Formulas
Today’s topic is showing formulas.
I’ll be honest, this tip isn’t SUPER useful. The biggest reason to know this tip is because at some point you (or maybe a friend who is going to ask you for help) will accidentally engage this feature. This can be scary if you don’t know what is happening because it changes the entire look of your spreadsheet. However, armed with the proper knowledge you can calmly disengage this feature and go back to making awesome spreadsheets.
Showing formulas is simply what it sounds like. Once you engage this feature, Excel will display the formulas within the cells instead of the formula results. For example, this:
Turns into this:
Notice how the “Total Sales” column has changed from numbers to formulas. Further, some of the other cells have lost their formatting. I didn’t show it here, but Excel also widens all the columns.
To turn this feature on/off go to the “Formulas” menu, then from the “Formula Auditing” section click on “Show Formulas” the keyboard shortcut is: Ctrl + ` (the key to the left of the 1). This shortcut works on both PC and Mac.