| Non-motoring > Work Dilema | Computing Issues |
| Thread Author: zippy | Replies: 62 |
|
New Thu 7 Feb 19 00:51
Work Dilema - zippy
|
|
A senior director has given me a quote to check over from an IT subcontractor to make a small system change that he wants. The subcontractor provides software that provides reports only. Some are real time, some are on demand and some are monthly. All the data comes from our system. They provide exactly the same software to many other lending institutions. One on demand report is a simple list with all our customers and then two figures, a rating for this month and a rating for last month between 0 and 100. The report is CSV based. The senior director asked for the difference between the two figures to be calculated so that the report can be sorted by the biggest change. The software company has quoted £8k+VAT! The quote is six pages long and is full of waffle but effectively includes one sentence confirming the calculation: Difference = A-B. The same result can be had from importing the CSV in to Excel and adding the following formula in column d =a2-b2 and copying down the list then sorting the results. Now, how do I go about telling the director that there is a really easy way to save £8k without making him look silly (which is something I want to avoid for obvious reasons)? |
|
New Thu 7 Feb 19 07:13
Work Dilema - sooty123
|
|
> Now, how do I go about telling the director that there is a really easy >> way to save £8k without making him look silly (which is something I want to >> avoid for obvious reasons)? By telling him this, The same result can be had from importing the CSV in to Excel and adding the following formula in column d =a2-b2 and copying down the list then sorting the results. Just tell him plain and simple. No need to gloat nor go all around the houses with some convoluted explanation. I take it you've had issues with this individual or that he is some way difficult? Or is he likely to have cloth ears about it, if so just let him crack on. |
|
New Thu 7 Feb 19 08:00
Work Dilema - Zero
|
|
You tell the software company it's a simple Excell change, that any A level student could do it and 8k is outrageous and when they try and argue say " it makes me wonder if any of your software is needed at all" When they come back with a revised quote of 5k, knock them down to 4k, and then tell the MD the quote was 8 and you negotiated it down to 4 Last edited by: Zero on Thu 7 Feb 19 at 08:01
|
|
New Thu 7 Feb 19 08:32
Work Dilema - smokie
|
|
Sounds like they don't really want the work so they may not be flexible on price. And to be fair if they are having to change code and provide you with a tested and warrantied app then it would take them more than the 5 minutes which your solution would take. But £8k sounds excessive!! I like both solutions above. |
|
New Thu 7 Feb 19 11:18
Work Dilema - Lygonos
|
|
£200 for the coding. £7800 for the legal costs when the financial institution's IT system inevitably goes to shyte. |
|
New Thu 7 Feb 19 13:48
Work Dilema - DP
|
|
>> When they come back with a revised quote of 5k, knock them down to 4k, >> and then tell the MD the quote was 8 and you negotiated it down to >> 4 This. Positioning is everything in the corporate world. There's an opportunity here to avoid the director losing face, and to make yourself look good. Grab it. |
|
New Thu 7 Feb 19 12:44
Work Dilema - Pezzer
|
| Assume there is no connection between the Director and IT Co ? |
|
New Thu 7 Feb 19 14:03
Work Dilema - No FM2R
|
|
Why would it make him look bad? Do what he asked; look over the quote and get back to the Director telling him that the quote is ok but you think it is overpriced. Why do you think he asked you to look at it? |
|
New Thu 7 Feb 19 14:17
Work Dilema - Bromptonaut
|
|
Been in similar circumstance. Not involving outside contractor but boss seemed to think something to do with conference delegate lists needing a deal of complexity to solve. A simple question, in tone of genuine (or at least apparent) curiosity, along lines of 'I wonder if we could handle it in Excel' elicited a response try it and let him know how it went. It was fine. Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Thu 7 Feb 19 at 14:18
|
|
New Thu 7 Feb 19 14:45
Work Dilema - No FM2R
|
| By the way, I wouldn't accept manual creation of the report either, that's a bad solution. |
|
New Thu 7 Feb 19 21:22
Work Dilema - zippy
|
|
>> By the way, I wouldn't accept manual creation of the report either, that's a bad >> solution. >> I sort of agree. In normal circumstances, as there is less chance to forget to make the changes etc. However, there has to be a cost benefit and in this instance, fag packet calculations suggest it could be done manually and still be significantly cheaper than the expected life of the current system (estimated 6 years or so years). |
|
New Thu 7 Feb 19 21:27
Work Dilema - No FM2R
|
|
People leave, people get sick, risk of error,. requirements change etc etc. Manual solutions are never the right one. |
|
New Thu 7 Feb 19 18:12
Work Dilema - car4play
|
|
.. plot twist: the director has no intention of paying the 8K, already has the spreadsheet with the calculation and he is just checking to see if you as the in-house IT professional have the noddle to work it out without him and so are worth still employing. Just saying.... ;-) |
|
New Thu 7 Feb 19 20:24
Work Dilema - No FM2R
|
|
Or somebody else points it out to the Director with a similar result. As I said, just play it straight. |
|
New Thu 7 Feb 19 21:27
Work Dilema - zippy
|
|
>> .. plot twist: the director has no intention of paying the 8K, already has the >> spreadsheet with the calculation and he is just checking to see if you as the >> in-house IT professional have the noddle to work it out without him and so are >> worth still employing. >> >> Just saying.... ;-) >> Ah, but I'm not an IT Bod :-), I am the department's nominated representative to IT though which is a PITA. Last year I was asked to look over a winning tender document for a subcontracted operation within our department and noticed that the winner just didn't understand what they were required to do and on discussing it with them, discovered that they didn't have the capability either. (I loathe reading contracts.) Anyway, because of my discovery, the director thought I should look over this one. |
|
New Thu 7 Feb 19 23:09
Work Dilema - Kevin
|
|
How do you view the current reports? Is it a Windows application that queries your server and then displays the report prettily? If so, £8K sounds expensive but not too ridiculous. If your IT subcontractor is anywhere near professional they will need to go through a Change Request procedure, implement the code changes, test and document the changes and then add them to the official "Release" code base. I doubt that they will want to maintain a seperate code base just for your company. That means that all your competitors will probably get the change at your expense if they can be bothered to update their code. Do you want that to happen? So, a minimum of two or three days coding and testing (depending on language used) at ~£1k per day plus admin costs and a decent profit margin and you're looking at quite a few thousand. If it's just a line by line display/print of a csv file they're taking the proverbial. |
|
New Thu 7 Feb 19 23:31
Work Dilema - smokie
|
| That's the general direction I was going in in my earlier post but I still couldn't make it reach £8k, by quite a wide margin!! |
|
New Thu 7 Feb 19 23:57
Work Dilema - Kevin
|
|
Can't you give zippy a quote smokie? You've got the hang of manipulating csv files with perl now. Read the csv, add the extra monthly change field, sort it by the new field and then output it in html so they can view it in a browser? ;-) |
|
New Fri 8 Feb 19 08:00
Work Dilema - smokie
|
|
Yeah well... there was a time when I would have been doing the quotes for small stuff exactly like this but I couldn't have justified £8k even back then, unless there is something we don't know!! Must admit on the very few occasions when I was "over-quoting" for a small job I was worried about how I'd justify it if the customer challenged me on it, especially as all my customers were long term and I wouldn't have wanted to lose their confidence. I cam remember putting quotes together which charged me out at £1k + a day for the Y2k problems which seemed an obscene amount, even for a senior tech, and especially given I was a permie and only paid peanuts, relatively! As you mention the Perl stuff... I will put an update on the other post... |
|
New Fri 8 Feb 19 11:53
Work Dilema - zippy
|
|
>>£1k a day I am in the wrong job. Mind you I know a couple of people that made a fortune updating old COBOL programs for Y2K. I have involved our local IT representative. He says we rent the software on top of a monthly fee per user and the rental fee includes reasonable change requests, especially as they go out to all users. He doesn't recognise the person who put the quote together and thinks they may be someone brought in by the supplier's new owners. He will be having a word with them. I have had a coffee with the director and he is happy to wait a little. I have also shown him how to do what he wants in Excel and have arranged an Excel for beginners course for him and his PA! |
|
New Fri 8 Feb 19 13:28
Work Dilema - movilogo
|
|
£1k/per person day is not an excessive rate when considering business to business charge (i.e. not an inividual contractor charging business). Most well known IT firms (not typical outsourcing firms) charge £1k-£2k/day basis for consulting work. Top level management consulting firms like McKinsey, BCG, Bain etc. charge in the region of £8-£10k/day for their senior consultants. Of courses, employees get only a fraction of that money. |
|
New Fri 8 Feb 19 13:54
Work Dilema - Bromptonaut
|
|
>> £1k/per person day is not an excessive rate when considering business to business charge (i.e. >> not an inividual contractor charging business). Government department I was working for in 1999/2002 was paying £1k/day to various interims and contractors. Chap I worked with was supplied by what was then SEMA, very good Project Manager who quickly grasped technical aspects of the work. Others, either from other companies or 'solo fliers' were utterly useless. |
|
New Fri 8 Feb 19 14:05
Work Dilema - No FM2R
|
|
>>and have arranged an Excel for beginners course for him a What a complete and utter waste of time and money, and the director should be 'spoken to' for agreeing to it. Looking at the direct, indirect and opportunity cost of that director and his PA on an Excel course and then doing the report in future themselves makes that approach inappropriate. Expensive, unreliable, a recognisable risk, inflexible etc. etc. I'd question how much your time, the director's time and the IT Bod's time has cost so far, never mind taking it further. |
|
New Fri 8 Feb 19 14:37
Work Dilema - No FM2R
|
| I'd rephrase that in a less stroppy tone if I could, apologies. |
|
New Fri 8 Feb 19 18:42
Work Dilema - Manatee
|
|
Quite right though, if it is necessary for a period for it to be done manually to provide the 'client' with the numbers he wants, it should be given to an oompa loompa to do. The spreadsheet process can be automated anyway, and he/she isn't going to be able to do that after an intro course. How much testing can it need for an internal report, that doesn't require any more data? |
|
New Fri 8 Feb 19 19:47
Work Dilema - zippy
|
|
>> >>and have arranged an Excel for beginners course for him a >> >> What a complete and utter waste of time and money, and the director should be >> 'spoken to' for agreeing to it. >> I disagree. He can't always call someone when he wants a column of figures added up or wants to view some confidential stats like department bonuses then do some calculations on them. |
|
New Fri 8 Feb 19 19:56
Work Dilema - No FM2R
|
|
Of course he can. Are you saying he calculates all the bonuses personally? Last edited by: No FM2R on Fri 8 Feb 19 at 19:57
|
|
New Fri 8 Feb 19 20:06
Work Dilema - No FM2R
|
|
And in any case in this instance you are talking about a stock report which presumably is needed periodically. That seems a most unwise decision to me. Consider the full cost of that Director including his opportunity cost. How can doing an intro Excel course and then doing his own report be anything like a wise decision? |
|
New Fri 8 Feb 19 20:12
Work Dilema - smokie
|
|
That reminds me of when I worked at the Coal Board HQ in the 80s and was involved with the introduction of a Wang Office Automation system (as programmer). Nearly everyone was given a screen and keyboard but no typjng lessons. Even at the time I wondered how efficient it really was having highly paid directors doing their own typing. (And as IT progressed they ultimately did away with the typing pools, much to the disappointment of me and my buddies...) |
|
New Fri 8 Feb 19 20:18
Work Dilema - No FM2R
|
|
>> Even at the time I wondered how efficient it really was having highly paid directors doing their own typing. There are a number of issues; Whether or not it is a good use of their time. Whether or not they are any good at it or make mistakes. Whether or not there is a better use of their time. Essentially if you can justify that director doing that work, then clearly the company needs one less directors than it has. |
|
New Fri 8 Feb 19 20:36
Work Dilema - Kevin
|
|
Change requests can take anything from weeks to months depending on how mant devs the supplier has and their workload. The devs are typically working on new product or bug fixes so change requests tend to get rolled up for intermediate releases. Giving the user an Excel template to allow them to get what they want while the supplier implements the change request is a good stopgap but as Mark says I can't see any value in giving senior management Excel training. They're unlikely to use it ever again and if they do use it you will definitely regret it. Excel training for middle managers is a complete no-no! |
|
New Fri 8 Feb 19 21:07
Work Dilema - CGNorwich
|
| My knowledge of Excel and ability to use a pivot table when most of my colleagues had no idea how to use it kept me in a well paid job for many years. In the kingdom of the blind the one eyed man is king. |
|
New Fri 8 Feb 19 21:29
Work Dilema - sooty123
|
|
>> My knowledge of Excel and ability to use a pivot table when most of my >> colleagues had no idea how to use it kept me in a well paid job >> for many years. In the kingdom of the blind the one eyed man is king. They used to do the microsoft excel and word courses, beginner/intermediate /advanced at work for free. But I saw if you knew much about either of them you ended up being a dogsbody for all manner of rubbish jobs for the bosses. Sometimes ignorance is bliss or at least do them and don't tell anyone. ;-) |
|
New Fri 8 Feb 19 21:10
Work Dilema - zippy
|
|
>>Excel training for middle managers is a complete no-no! I don't think we would survive without Excel and jotting figures down on paper just wouldn't work. There just isn't enough IT support in the business (or has been in any business that I have worked in). Off the shelf packages to do a particular job cost to much or don't do the job quite as required then need customising at more expense and bespoke solutions take to long to implement. By the time a request has run through all of the committees, got the budget go ahead, found resources etc, its probably too late. As an example, a software supplier has been showing us a system that has a standard loan analysis report, all saved to a database and shared between the report creators, readers and authorisation chain. We currently use Excel workbooks and word documents for this and email the reports around and keep read receipts and a macro in the workbook detects when it has been opened and reports that. If we need to make a change, like add a section on the impact of Brexit (taking no sides here) to a client then we can do that within hours and a cost of a days pay. I asked the software supplier and they thought about it and reported that it could take months to fit it in and cost thousands. I appreciate the data from an Excel workbook can't be categorised, reported on globally etc. like a database can but it suits and is cost effective. |
|
New Fri 8 Feb 19 21:16
Work Dilema - No FM2R
|
|
>>By the time a request has run through all of the committees, got the budget go ahead, found >> resources etc, its probably too late. Another area of your company which needs fixing. Obviously I don't know your company, but your processes are enough to make me weep. Surely that is not a sufficient level of auditable control? Never mind what the lack of efficiency and flexibility is costing you. |
|
New Fri 8 Feb 19 21:33
Work Dilema - zippy
|
|
>> Obviously I don't know your company, but your processes are enough to make me >>weep. Surely that is not a sufficient level of auditable control? One of the top 20 banks in the world and one of the biggest in the UK. All the financial institutions that I have worked in have been broadly the same with regards IT resources - there is never enough! |
|
New Fri 8 Feb 19 21:42
Work Dilema - No FM2R
|
|
>>One of the top 20 banks in the world and one of the biggest in the UK. Actually with a long memory I think I do know who they are, but I've never worked within them. Still makes me weep. |
|
New Fri 8 Feb 19 23:05
Work Dilema - Manatee
|
|
Strange animals, banks. Do they still lead the world in legacy systems? I worked for one once, as a sprog. Arguing about my annual appraisal indirectly caused me to leave after about 5 years. A story for another day. Later in my work I dealt with several. My opinion of them in general fell consistently as my experience of them increased. There were a couple of exceptions, but mostly their standard attitude to their customers seemed to be that if a client wants something, it must be good for the client and therefore bad for the bank so most of their effort went into finding reasons not to do it. A good friend of mine saw his career out with the big domestic bank I worked for. He had become a sub-manager in a big city (not City) branch when the world changed, and branches became useless shops. Separate lending centres were established and he went into one as a manager with something over 100 clients plus new business to look after. The bank, in a stroke of genius, decided that 40 year-old managers who had previously dictated client meeting notes and decisions for 'typing' in a pool of people who could type, before getting on to the next client, would be issued with laptops to do their own. The result was that this poor devil and his other experienced colleagues spent most of their evenings and weekends getting their interview notes up to date, hated their employer, and either retired early or engineered their own redundancies as soon as they could. The familiar big familiar banks are now mostly an utter nightmare for small businesses in particular to deal with. |
|
New Sat 9 Feb 19 01:42
Work Dilema - zippy
|
|
>>Strange animals, banks. Do they still lead the world in legacy systems? Worked on a project where the mainframe supplier just couldn't supply the parts anymore. We had to re-write the software to run on Windows servers. One major high street bank I still deal with (not us) has an mini computer running a 1987 program for the entire product function. Emulated green screens to users and that business unit's customer facing website is unchanged from 1996. The entire client daily movement and balance report is sent to India by FAX - I kid ye not. The back office system in my division is still running on emulated green screens written in the mid 1990's, though it is to be upgraded soon. The list of systems it needs to interface with is truly frightening. I hope we don't forget anything! Some of our systems are ancient and our customers have better interfaces than we do. We upgraded to Windows 7 painfully 2 years ago from XT I recall. Some facilities have been upgraded for modern times or a sign of the times - on visiting one IT centre recently I was surprised to see new concrete barriers on a motorised frame in front of the loading bay doors, big enough to stop a fully laden HGV doing 60MPH! Re managers and workload, been there. Left my last place because it was getting silly. More reporting on what you were doing, than getting on with the job. My bread and butter is the SME+ business sector, anything from £50k turnover to £3bn. We look after them. Last edited by: zippy on Sat 9 Feb 19 at 01:43
|
|
New Sat 9 Feb 19 09:29
Work Dilema - smokie
|
|
My last contract was with a major bank, managing the preparation, readiness and deployment of new hardware and Windows 10 with associated software across Africa. Their front office PCs (i.e. customer tills) were using a custom product which talked specifically and solely to an ancient video mode, support for which no longer existed in the new hardware/firmware/adapters (EGA I think, anyone remember that?). I couldn't say how old it was, but "extremely" would suffice. We looked at adding different video cards to the PCs but this was ruled out for a reason I can't recall. It was a major issue to get the software corrected as the people who knew the product had long since left the supplier, and there was little in the way of documentation. But proper replacement would have been a massive undertaking so in the end they managed to patch the existing stuff up, and almost by trial and error they got the back end working with it. They were talking about kicking off a project to replace the product but not under my management, thankfully!! |
|
New Fri 8 Feb 19 21:23
Work Dilema - sooty123
|
|
By the time a request has run through all of the committees, got the budget >> go ahead, found resources etc, its probably too late. You don't work for the civil service do you? ;-) |
|
New Fri 8 Feb 19 22:24
Work Dilema - Kevin
|
|
Oh, I'm not saying that Excel isn't a useful tool. I'm just questioning whether senior management should be spending their time messing with Excel when an IT bod could do it better, quicker, cheaper and more securely. Even more questionable is that if everyone is doing their own thing with spreadsheets how do you know that they haven't made a mistake and the data in their fancy presentation to C-Suite is accurate? You have absolutely no control of that and it could have serious consequences. As for middle management, in my experience once a middle manager get the Excel bug many of them will use it to justify their position and micromanage. |
|
New Tue 12 Feb 19 18:52
Work Dilema - sherlock47
|
|
If you insist on educating the director in question you can also show him how to save money! The Complete Microsoft Excel Course Now £20 from £598 ? CPD Certified ? 5*Rate on Trustpilot ? Discount Code = EXCELLENT - Whether you are a complete Excel beginner or you have limited knowledge and you're looking to improve your skills, this ONLINE course will benefit you. Click on the link below for more information ? newskillsacademy.co.uk/…/complete-microsoft-excel…/… - Study from your mobile, laptop or tablet at a time and pace that suits you. This has been popping up on my PC ever since you posted! |
|
New Fri 8 Feb 19 21:40
Work Dilema - Bromptonaut
|
|
>> Nearly everyone was given a screen and keyboard but no typjng lessons. Even at the >> time I wondered how efficient it really was having highly paid directors doing their own >> typing. We had same issue from around 1999 onwards. Up until then senior staff had secretaries, the rest of us sent either copy or audio typing to the typing pool and waited up to 3 days for it to come back via the messenger service. Longer if you needed corrections. Around turn of century those who wanted them, swiftly followed by everybody else, got desktops. For a short while we got our audio typing back by e-mail and did our own corrections but by 2002 we were expected to do our own typing. I've never had any typing lessons. Tried at school c1974 but as a male I was ineligible; teaching a boy to touch type took up space that could be used by girls for whom it was a skill they might need professionally. Best we could do later was 'Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing'. Even now as somebody who's time is valued as an adviser but with work rate compromised by being slow at writing up my requests for typing training meet deaf ears. |
|
New Fri 8 Feb 19 22:03
Work Dilema - zippy
|
|
I agree with the typing. When we completed reports on paper, we did 3 a week and one write up day. We dictated the conclusions on to a micro tape recorder and sent it to the department secretary. She would produce a beautiful report with grammar corrected and sense made where there was none previously. She would also manage our diaries and hotel bookings (she always went out of her way to find good ones). We now struggle to complete two reports as week - sometimes 1 as we need to do all of the admin ourselves. Losing the secretary saves £20k to £30k pa (salary only). The lost 2 reports per month, easily 2 reports x 6 staff per secretary x £3k per report x 10.5 months= £378k over a team of six per year. Last edited by: zippy on Fri 8 Feb 19 at 22:07
|
|
New Fri 8 Feb 19 22:17
Work Dilema - No FM2R
|
|
I feel for you Zippy, you have no idea how very very common that approach is. |
|
New Fri 8 Feb 19 22:31
Work Dilema - zippy
|
|
And she was lovely - lovely attitude, nothing was too much, as I mentioned with the hotels, she would go out of her way to get really good hotels and if it was out of budget she would do her best to get them to sell a room that would otherwise go empty within budget. With trips, she knew where we lived and would plan trips with a travelling day on a Monday, furthest on a Tuesday and nearest home on a Thursday, we didn't have to tell her. She also made sure as far as possible that we didn't cross paths with our colleagues - e.g. I didn't go to Glasgow if there was someone nearer unless they were going further north and a backfill was needed. When she went I was arriving at Glasgow (Prestwick) and bumped in to a Scottish colleague waiting for my plane to take him to Gatwick, from where I set off from - without the secretary no-one cared about allocations - one of the reasons I left that firm. Team meetings were arranged near birthdays so we could celebrate together - silly things really but it added a little bit of sparkle to the daily chores. Ah the good old days! |
|
New Fri 8 Feb 19 22:20
Work Dilema - CGNorwich
|
|
When I started work at 16 I had use of a shorthand typist. This then changed onto a phone based dictation system. Next I had a dictaphone which scratched a recording on a blue plastic tape, after that it was a micro cassette recorder. The next job I had to write reports long hand and send them to the typing pool. Then came computers and teaching ourselves to type in a rudimentary sort of way. Funny thing progress. |
|
New Sat 9 Feb 19 15:21
Work Dilema - No FM2R
|
|
>>Losing the secretary saves £20k to £30k pa (salary only). The lost 2 reports per month, easily 2 reports x 6 staff per secretary x £3k per report x 10.5 months= £378k over a team of six per year. But the person who made that decision is responsible for costs, not revenue. And when the revenue then falls, they will try to cut costs further. And so on. I know I have made quite a few pennies from it over the year, but I do find it fundamentally annoying and frustrating. |
|
New Sat 9 Feb 19 16:35
Work Dilema - Manatee
|
| Surely everybody knows that the best way to make more profit is to get the costs going down faster than the sales? |
|
New Sat 9 Feb 19 16:36
Work Dilema - No FM2R
|
|
It seems like it. If you have reached the point that you manage your profit through cost control I can tell you exactly where your business is going. It still has a direction,, its just not up. Last edited by: No FM2R on Sat 9 Feb 19 at 16:38
|
|
New Sun 10 Feb 19 09:52
Work Dilema - MD
|
| Speculate to accumulate? |
|
New Sun 10 Feb 19 10:01
Work Dilema - MD
|
|
To Mark and others. I have a niggling Excel issue that ideally I need to sort NOW. I have to condense width wise, a daily work sheet so that I can print it for a client. I have a date column. A work done/material supplied column. Start time. Finish time. Rate, Nett, Vat and total. Really at this stage I only need the date. Work done/materials supplied and the end column (total) If they need additional info' then they can cherry pick and ask me. I have tried deleting all unwanted columns, but my issue is the total column is a sum of the two preceding columns, i.e. =sum(H2:I2) To what do I change the formula to reflect the value that exists as I don't want to have to manually type hundreds of figures. Thanks in advance. MD. |
|
New Sun 10 Feb 19 12:37
Work Dilema - zippy
|
|
Try hiding the unwanted columns. Right click on the column header and select hide. If you actually want to delete the columns, copy the sum column (the one with the formulas), right click, paste special, values. |
|
New Sun 10 Feb 19 13:34
Work Dilema - No FM2R
|
|
As Zippy said; If you right-click on the letter at the top of the column, then a menu will appear. One of the options is "Hide". After you've printed it think before saving it though. You might not want it to stay that way. |
|
New Sun 10 Feb 19 13:38
Work Dilema - No FM2R
|
|
>>I have tried deleting all unwanted columns, but my issue is the total column is a sum of the two preceding columns, i.e. =sum(H2:I2) To what do I change the formula to reflect the value that exists as I don't want to have to manually type hundreds of figures To specifically answer this, then do the following; Select the column of figures that you wish to retain. (the one that is a calculation). Then select "copy" Then instead of simply paste as you usually would, choose "paste special" and choose to paste values only. You can simply paste it on top of the area you originally selected. If you really get stuck then email the spreadsheet to me, tell me what columns you want to lose and I'll email it back to you just as soon as the rugby finishes. Email address in my profile. |
|
New Sun 10 Feb 19 13:41
Work Dilema - MD
|
| Thank you Zippy and Mark. Phew!!! |
|
New Sun 10 Feb 19 20:48
Work Dilema - tyrednemotional
|
|
I think if I'm understanding correctly I'd simply reorder the columns such that the total was the last column of those you wish to print, set the nonnnprinted columns after those, and keep all the calculations/formulae as is. Then set the "printable area"to the first set of columns up to and including the total, and print. It may seem a little odd having the total before the calculation, but it does make it easy. (Though actually, I think I'd create a workbook with two worksheets - the first as you have it now for the full workings, and the second neatly formatted for printing for the customer, with a subset of the data copied/referenced through from the first worksheet. If you don't know how to reference across worksheets, you probably wouldn't think of it, but it is ever so easy, and just like working in a single worksheet, the values in the second are updated in real-time in line with changes on the first. This allows you to lay out the input (private) bit exactly as you like for your workings (probably as now), and the printed (public) bit exactly as you like for the customer (and with less data/columns) and simply print the second worksheet. Once it's set up, and believe me, referencing across sheets is easy, only the base data to enter on sheet 1, then print sheet 2) |
|
New Mon 11 Feb 19 11:20
Work Dilema - Roger.
|
| I'm so glad I'm retired! |
|
New Mon 11 Feb 19 19:30
Work Dilema - MD
|
|
I appreciate your time, but the former is most effective. MD |
|
New Fri 15 Feb 19 11:09
Work Dilema - MD
|
|
Another Excel question. I want to print out several sheets and there are quite a few words in each cell. On the screen it all fits, but when I go to print you can see where it will be compressed, say half of the bottom line of text is half missing vertically. Not in all cases, but some. What would be the ideal/correct formats for those cells so that it all sows correctly when printed. Thanks in advance. P.S. The formatting currently is (Number) General. (Alignment) Justify Centre. |
|
New Fri 15 Feb 19 12:00
Work Dilema - RichardW
|
| Unfortunately Excel seems to run WYSINWYG (i.e what you see is NOT what you get!). You just need to increase the size of the cells, either height or width depending on the format of the sheet, to give a bit more room and then it will print OK. |
|
New Fri 15 Feb 19 14:14
Work Dilemma - CGNorwich
|
| That’s better. |
Forum Version 3.0 - By Khoosys
Car4play Forum
