Dropdown boxes within Excel can make it very easy for people to select options or enter data. They remove the problems that you can encounter when people do not have restrictions. For example, if one person enters the word "car" and another person uses "automobile", it is very difficult to do any meaningful analysis until all the entries are consistant.

In this example, we show how dropdown boxes can be used to select food types. The second dropdown box give some options specific to the selection in the first dropdown box. The example could be expanded to payroll / HR information, to show calculations based on specific criteria, or a data input form.

The possibilities are numerous and you just need some applied thinking to get the right solution.

Excel formulas are very powerful and they can take a lot of the hard work out of manipulating data or performing calculations.

In this example, we show some common formulas, but there are many, many more. Being able to find one piece of text within another is incredibly useful. If we can find the "+" in the text "Steven's Phone Number is +44 (0) 845 000 000" will enable us to select only the phone number. This, along with isolating and choosing payroll numbers, cost code numbers, location details, etc, are so much easier with a knowledge of Excel formulas.

If you want Coded Solutions to create a solution for you or if you want some training so you can use formulas like this yourself, please contact us. We will be happy to help.

Macros are one of Excel's most powerful features. They take the hard work out of spreadsheets but many people are not aware they exist or, if they do, do not have the programming experience to implement them.

In this example, we look at too very basic macros. The first is a macro to remove the first letter (or symbol) from a cell. This is very useful if you are working with financials or currency. Sometimes pasted information hard codes the currency symbol (£ for example) as part of the number. This means that Excel cannot even perform simple calculations because, as far as Excel is concerned, it is looking at a word and not a number. Removing the symbol allows Excel to see a number again.

The second macro solves another common problem, joining names (or other information). Here, we take the first name in one column, the last name in another column and combine them. We have show the name in the format "Lastname, Firstname" as you would see in a register.

These are both very simple examples but they do show how Excel can be used to automate some very mundane tasks. If you are not sure whether Excel can automate your tasks, give Coded Solutions a call; we'll be pleased to help.