Active Directory User Class Update

Here is a link to an article I just posted on Code Project's website (Article)

My Favorite Excel Function

I have come to realize that many of us use software applications and in most cases only know just the surface level functionality of those applications, the common elements that we use on a regular basis. Many of these applications have a lot of really useful and time saving features that just are not well know.

One of these applications that I use on a regular basis is Microsoft Excel. Being a data guy there are many times when I am given a file or multiple files and have to do some sort of data cleansing. A function that is not well know to most but that I use a lot is called VLOOKUP. This be far is my favorite function because it saves me a little time. It allows me the ability to match two different pieces of data from two different spreadsheets in the file using a common key (i.e. I have a file from our HR system and a file from our Network OS (NOS) and I need to make sure that the name fields in the NOS match the name fields from the HR file, I can take both data sets and using the employee ID and my handly VLOOKUP function and can do a mass match of the two datasets and then compare the pieces of data using a simple IF statement).

This may not seem like that big of a deal but when you are dealing with over 6,000 records this can cut down eval time from 6 or 7 hours to about 30 minutes with a lot less chance of mistakes.

If you have a favorite feature to an application that most people do not know about then reply to this post with the info and share away.