J
Jeff Gerke
Greetings!
I have a worksheet with over 200 rows and roughly 24 cells per row.
Is there a way for Excel to automatically search through that data set and
find all records/rows that have cells whose values correspond to a set
sequence?
Here's my specific need. I work at a book publisher. We have lifetime sales
data (by month) for over 200 books we've previously published. Now, when I
look at the first months of a NEW book's sales performance, I sometimes begin
to detect a pattern: like steady growth over a 3-month span or 4 months of
decline or maybe 1 month up, 2 months down, 2 months up, etc. What I'd like
to do is have Excel look through those 200 past records and find books that
performed according to the same pattern as the new book I'm examining.
Let's say I've got a book that's been out 6 months. The first month it sold
15,000 units. The second month it sold an additional 4,000 units. But after
that, the subsequent 4 months we had negative sales (returns). I'd like Excel
to search through those 200 older books and find the ones that performed
according to the same pattern: 2 months up, next 4 months down.
The goal, of course, is to then see what THOSE books did in the months AFTER
the pattern I'm seeing in the new book now. So if every book that had 4
months of subsequent losses finished with 6-18 months of additional losses,
I'd like to be able to have that data in front of me at the click of a
button. And if many of those books that followed that same sales pattern
actually have a turnaround at month 9, I'd like to see that, too.
Does Excel have any kind of function that could help me do what I'm wanting?
I guess I'm essentially data mining, but trying to do so with Excel.
Any ideas?
Thank you!
Jeff
I have a worksheet with over 200 rows and roughly 24 cells per row.
Is there a way for Excel to automatically search through that data set and
find all records/rows that have cells whose values correspond to a set
sequence?
Here's my specific need. I work at a book publisher. We have lifetime sales
data (by month) for over 200 books we've previously published. Now, when I
look at the first months of a NEW book's sales performance, I sometimes begin
to detect a pattern: like steady growth over a 3-month span or 4 months of
decline or maybe 1 month up, 2 months down, 2 months up, etc. What I'd like
to do is have Excel look through those 200 past records and find books that
performed according to the same pattern as the new book I'm examining.
Let's say I've got a book that's been out 6 months. The first month it sold
15,000 units. The second month it sold an additional 4,000 units. But after
that, the subsequent 4 months we had negative sales (returns). I'd like Excel
to search through those 200 older books and find the ones that performed
according to the same pattern: 2 months up, next 4 months down.
The goal, of course, is to then see what THOSE books did in the months AFTER
the pattern I'm seeing in the new book now. So if every book that had 4
months of subsequent losses finished with 6-18 months of additional losses,
I'd like to be able to have that data in front of me at the click of a
button. And if many of those books that followed that same sales pattern
actually have a turnaround at month 9, I'd like to see that, too.
Does Excel have any kind of function that could help me do what I'm wanting?
I guess I'm essentially data mining, but trying to do so with Excel.
Any ideas?
Thank you!
Jeff