creative use of Excel

[baitmaster]

A quick survey if you don't mind, I'm interested to hear how Excel can be exploited to do things it was never intended to do, so what's the most "creative" thing you've ever done with it? Some examples to start:

- I've used it to scrape the web for data, loading and reloading a mileage data website in order to get results for tens of thousands of journeys (postcode to postcode) as both straight line and driving distance, including journey times

- Used it to create a job allocation tool, that would calculate the levels of staff needed for any new job within the following 6 months, 24/7, then identify the right combination of staff (using grades, gender, qualifications etc., availability and some randomness to ensure fairness) and assign work to those identified

- A full payroll data capture and calculation system for 1,000 staff on 50 different sets of T&Cs, on an annualised hours basis for 2 years, including all allowances e.g. unfavourable hours allowances

Thanks for your time

 

[diddi]

web scraping for genealogy projects

analysis of medical treatment in breeding horses to improve AI success

and other projects

 

[Smitty]

The two most odd/creative I've done are:

Interactive scheduling project that creates a physical map based on dates/times ships berthed at a fuel transfer station in the Port of Los Angeles. It notifies of berth conflicts, inflow/outflow amounts, fuel type, vessel name, etc., all based on input into a table.

Interactive mapping for the San Jose Water District that lets field techs enter water/spillway levels at their holding ponds/reservoirs. It used .jpg maps with ActiveX control overlays for input then feed to a cumulative daily list, and on open would display the prior day's data. It also linked to their website to download daily water measurements from the engineering department.

But I've also done things with User Forms where people wanted Excel to work like Access (and not know they were in Excel, so complete dictator apps):

Product Creation/Pricing/Packaging tool for a cosmetics company

Advertising Order Entry System for a major publication

diddi - I like the AI one. I still have my AI certificate from the American Breeders Service AI Management School (cows though)...

 

[tybaltlives]

Heh. I use excel for "creative" applications all the time. Examples:

1) digitizing tool (made all the cells as small as possible and then brought in a picture of a chart as a background image). Click on a cell to digitize a point - was reasonably accurate.

2) Gantt chart creater (used conditional formatting to shade in cells between the start and end dates of a project phase)

3) Heat map maker (its a lean tools thing)

4) lots of database type applications - our company restricts the use of Access

5) R type statistical tools - I set up a multiple regression tool in excel (using arrays) where the user can select dependent and independent variables by clicking check boxes and the regression output automatically appears. It enables the user to easily determine the best regression fit.