Excel automation is not just VBA, Office Scripts, or Power Automate.

Simple Excel formulas can provide the same effortless experience for the end user.

In today's Between the Sheets, we’re exploring:

• Excel formulas to track progress
• Improved tables in Word Online
• AI-powered search engines

📈 Tracking Progress in Excel

Last week, we released a batch of Excel Practice Exercises to let you hone your Excel skills.

Some were curious about the techniques we used to let you track your progress automatically.

Progress is tracked in three different ways:

1. Single (exercise) tracking
2. Overall (exercise) tracking
3. Progress bar

I've put "exercise" in brackets because you can apply the same ideas to project tracking.

Here's a little peek behind the curtain. 🤫

In the exercise files, you can check off tasks as you finish them.

We used the "old" checkboxes, because the cool new ones aren't widely available yet (and will not be available in standalone versions, like Office 2021 or older).

The old form control checkboxes need a bit more work. But we've got you covered with step-by-step instructions in this article.

The core principle is the same. Checked and unchecked state corresponds to TRUE and FALSE values.

Once you have TRUE/FALSE values assigned to cells, you can use it in formulas.

That's it - that's the secret.

Here's how you can use it to track progress:

• Mark Tasks as Done: Use checkboxes to tick off completed tasks. Checked boxes show TRUE and unchecked boxes show FALSE.
• Count Completed Tasks: This formula counts the checked boxes and compares them to the total:

="Completed " & COUNTIFS(A5:A9, TRUE) & "/" & COUNTA(A5:A9)

• Track Exercise Status: To track the overall status, we use a combination of IF and COUNTIFS functions.
• Visual Cues: Add conditional formatting for a quick visual overview of your progress.

• Create the Progress Bar: Use the REPT function to create a progress bar proportional to the number of completed tasks.

The REPT function repeats a character or symbol a specified number of times.

I've used this technique before to create McKinsey-style lollipop charts. But it's also a handy way to show progress.

Seeing the progress right in front of your eyes can be quite satisfying. 😊

By the way, did you hear about our summer challenge?

If you complete all 3 exercise packs (30 exercises in total) and

• send them to info@xelplus.com
• with the subject line Summer Excel Fun
• by 31st August, 2024

you get a chance to win my upcoming Pivot Table Masterclass (scheduled release in September).

We will choose 10 lucky participants in a random draw. You have the whole of August to participate.

🤓 Geeky News

💻 Improved File Explorer and Taskbar in Windows 11

A new optional update for Windows 11 is out. And it includes some welcome improvements to the File Explorer and taskbar.

If you decide to install it, you'll get the ability to:

• Duplicate the selected tab in File Explorer (long-requested).
• Drag pinned apps from the Start menu to the taskbar.
• Activate the taskbar with a shortcut (Win+T) and navigate to any open or pinned app by typing its first letter.
• Kill hanging processes ("end task") without additional stating-the-obvious popups about the app "not responding".

BTW, did you know you can do it directly from the taskbar? No Task Manager needed.

Go to Settings > Systems > For Developers and enable End Task.

📄 Better tables in Word for the web

Tables in Word are a pain to work with.

But they're about to get better, at least in Word for the web. No word on the desktop version as yet.

You can now use visual cues to easily insert and move rows and columns.

Position the cursor where you want to add a new row or column. Wait for a + icon to appear and click on it.

To move, hover the cursor over the column or row until you see a group of four dots. Select the four dots and drag and drop the column/row where you want it.

This is similar to the recent updates to the grid in Excel Online.

This behavior is currently available to Office Insiders. It should be available to all users in September 2024.

🤖 AI-enhanced web search with Bing and SearchGPT

Bing was closely connected to Microsoft's leap into AI from the start. Before "Copilot", there was "Bing AI".

Now Bing AI is back with generative search. It now offers AI-generated answers alongside regular search results.

It's currently available to a small group of early adopters.

Meanwhile, OpenAI launches a prototype search engine, SearchGPT. It will also organize and summarize the search results using generative AI.

OpenAI's large language models also power Microsoft's AI solutions. It will be interesting to see how the competition between them shakes up.

Both will also compete with Google, whose launch of AI Overviews revealed some limitations of generative search.

👏 Power Stories

I love hearing how you implement the knowledge from my courses into your daily life.

So it was fantastic to hear from Maria, who completed Master Excel Power Query and immediately put it to work.

I'm glad that the queries you've built are saving you time and effort.

And congratulations on your new role as Director of Finance!

Excel skills by themselves are not enough to guarantee a promotion. But they definitely help. 😊

Worth every penny; it is a truly practical course where, from lesson one, you could apply the knowledge to the job. I have already created: 1) a financial reporting tool from Trial Balance to full Financial Statements, MD&A, Tax Working papers, and monthly reporting; 2) Sales Commission Model that includes several levels and manual inputs; 3) many, many day-to-date queries to extract data. Sometimes I just need to refresh; it's so easy that months pass and then I realize how much work was saved.

Maria Granados

Got a success story about using your XelPlus skills? Share the details, and inspire other students 😇

See you next week,

Leila

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