Click on the Data tab and then select From Text (or Get External Data) depending on version.
Select a .csv file to import
If you need Data, most reports in Argos have an option to export your results as a .csv file, so pick a report with Banner ID to follow along with this guide
Delimited or fixed width
I can see that the first row contains titles so let’s check My data has headers
The data is delimited but let’s look at fixed, click Next
Please note this document isn’t fixed width, but I just wanted to reference in case anyone has a fixed width file to import
Drag first line over to the end of the data in your first column
Click in the text box at the end of each new column to create additional data breaks
Looking at the data I see that it’s delimited by a Comma, so let’s go ahead and check the Comma box and you can see your data is now aligned
To the right you see a box called Text qualifier with a double quote
If you click the back button you can see some data is encapsulated in double quotes.
This is a common practice when receiving data because sometimes the fields will have a comma in the data and that will throw off our delimiter
Next and Next
By default everything is General which if we leave for everything the computer will try to determine what type of columns they are.
Problem is that if we leave ID as general the computer will think it’s a number and remove the leading zeros.
Let’s click on the second column and change that to text which will keep the data exactly as it is
Let’s go ahead and change Zip and Cell to text files also
We don’t have any dates in this example, but if we did we could highlight the column and show how we want the date to display.
We can also skip columns in this section.
Why would we want to skip a column? Because many times when you get data that you’re going to import, the person sending data will just give you everything and you might not need it.
Let’s scroll all the way over to the right and you can see a field called Transfer and maybe we don’t care if they’re transfer students so let’s highlight that column and select Do not import column.
You will see the column change to Skip Column and this data will not be imported into Excel.
Finally we click finish and a message box pops up asking us where we want to put this new data
Let’s go ahead and insert it into the existing worksheet since it’s blank, or you could create a new worksheet if you want and click OK
Rename Sheet1 to Athletics by right clicking tab and selecting rename or double click on Sheet1 tab
Highlight the ID column (column C) and hit Ctrl+C, to copy the data, and then place your cursor in cell A1 and hit Ctrl+V to paste the data in
VLookup
Click the + sign on the bottom to create a new page
In the first column type BannerID: and tab
Right click field B1, click Format Cells, highlight text and hit OK. Enter a BannerID (ex. 00309993) and tab
Type Sport: and tab
Type an equals sign to indicate you are inserting a formula and then type VLOOKUP(
Now the formula wants to know where it’s getting the information it’s looking up so type in B1,
Now that it knows what value to look for it wants to know where it’s looking for this value.
Since this data is not on this sheet we need to first indicate where it is and what rows to look in
Type in Athletics!A1:AC552,
This goes to the Athletics page that we created from our import data step above and searches all the data we entered in from Cell A1 to AC552
Once it finds the value you indicated you wanted found it wants to know what you want to know about this value.
Let’s say we want to know what sport they play
Type in 2, since sport is the First column
Finally enter False and close the Paren “)”. This means you want an exact match. If you type in True and it can’t find the value it returns the next closest thing
We’ve all seen the benefits of copying a formula down without having to enter the code each time
On a new sheet insert columns with numeric values
In column 3 insert the below statement:
=A1+B1
It should show 110
Copy down by selecting the little box in the bottom right hand (turns into plus sign) and drag down to show how values being added know automatically what to add
=A2+B2
We don’t always want our values automatically updated so let’s switch back to Sheet2
Highlight column C2, below Sport:, and type in Class:
Select your VLOOKUP in cell D1, and notice the little filled in square in the bottom right corner
If you hover over this square it turns into a plus sign and you can pull it down into cell D2
Now we have that pesky #N/A because as we just learned the values all update because Excel is thinking its helping you
Select #N/A in column D2 and change your values to B1 and A1:AC552, and change the 2 to be 15 before false. Now it should show the class of the BannerID you entered.
=VLOOKUP(B1,Athletics!A1:AC552,15,FALSE)
To solve this problem we can insert a $ before the columns and values we don’t want to change
Highlight data in D2 and in the formula bar put a $ before columns and before the numbers so it looks like this:
=VLOOKUP($B$1,Athletics!$A$1:$AC$552,15,FALSE)
Now when we copy down it keeps all information the same
So if we want more information we simply change the field we’re returning from the spreadsheet
Let’s say we also want their GPA. Copy down D2 to D3 and we now have class twice. Then we simply highlight D3 and in the ribbon bar change the 15 to a 25
How about how many credits they’re enrolled in
Copy the box to the right and change the 25 to a 26
This statement is saying go to the Athletics page and return the Value in fields A2 through A552 where it matches the value (on the current page Index) to the value on the Athletics tab in fields F2 through F552
Now when we drag that plus sign down you can see it’s increasing the B value, while still looking at the same range
Pivot Table
Go back to Athletics and click on the INSERT tab and Pivot Table button
Select the range you want to include by clicking the icon at the end of Table/Range box
Chose New Worksheet
Do not click Add this to the Data Model, this is for when you are pivoting on multiple tables or data sources.
Click OK
Note if you have any columns without a title will get an error because every column needs a label.
Check the empty box next to sport and it will show up in your rows below and list the available sports on the screen
There’s a drop down arrow next to sport as its highlighted and you can sort, filter, unselect values etc.
Let’s say you want to see how many students play each sport
Max GPA isn’t much help, lets drag it back up top to the Pivot Table Fields and that removes it from the table
Hover over Max GPA to highlight it and click to drag it back up to Pivot Table Fields
This looks a little cluttered so let’s take Class and move it down below Sport in our rows
Hover over CLASS in the COLUMNS section to highlight it and click to drag it down below SPORT in our ROWS section
Now this is more readable and we can see the number of students with the teams average GPA
If we click on the Plus boxes in front of the sports we’ll see that the data expands for that section to show the number of students from each class along with their average GPA’s.