Brainfart: Excel question

[Freefaller]

Hi all,

Just having a complete brainfart today and cannot think of how to do something - this is not work related, this is for some personal curiosity.

Let's say I have 10 separate data sets over a period of 5 years (i.e. 2 per year) - but that measure the same things, i.e. red, green, late, early, night, day (there's about 40 of these), but their values vary over the 10 pages I have, each page is 6 months apart measuring the same things, but different results.

I'd like to compare all 10 data sets and how things have changed over time / trending.

My first thought was to have 10 sheets within excel with the same details just changing the values accordingly - but that doesn't seem that sophisticated. I also thought about just having a column with the dates and their corresponding values next to it. The 40 rows will never change and I'll just add columns as I get more data. I'm sure there must be a simpler way of doing it.

I know I'm going to kick myself when someone suggests a solution

 

[Freefaller]

If it's only updated once every 6 months then what you've described is probably the best value for effort. There's no point in spending loads of time doing something more fancy from the sounds of things.

Yeah maybe you're right. I was probably overthinking things as usual!

 

[Freefaller]

You are not a solicitor are you

Definitely not. I work for a living.

 

[Freefaller]

I would put all your data into one tab with a column for "date" that is specific to each 6 month block of data. Each new 6 month block of data can go into the same table each time. Then it's a single data set to run analysis off, like pivot tabes etc

That's a sensible suggestion - thank you!