Spreadsheets in Finance and Forecasting Presentation 8 Buttons, Boxes and Bars

Objectives After studying this week’s work, you should be able to: Put controls into your worksheets, using option boxes, selection boxes and spinners Link the parts of your worksheets together so that data entry is recorded efficiently.

Menu Introduction Option Buttons Check Boxes Lists and Menus This presentation is split up into five discrete sections. Work through each section in order. When you have finished, move on to the follow up activity using the link below Sliders & Spinners

Introduction This section introduces the main ideas, and the spreadsheet with which you will be working

How this Presentation works The spreadsheet Questionnaire.xls will be used in this presentation to demonstrate how the data entry items work. You should use this both to carry out the task, and as a point of reference afterwards.

The Questionnaire Spreadsheet The page is set up as a questionnaire, but this is not the only function of these objects. They can make data entry highly flexible, and make life much easier for non-IT professionals

The Questionnaire Spreadsheet You should now open up the spreadsheet and examine it. The next few slides will guide you through the important features Action Point

Examining the Spreadsheet On the spreadsheet we have: Option Buttons Check Boxes A List Box A Drop-Down menu A Scroll Bar Spend a couple of minutes looking at each one, and seeing what each one does

Where does the data go? Scroll down the screen. Underneath the turquoise data entry form, is a small table of the data collected from the questionnaire. As you check boxes, and select items, note how the entries in this box change

How does it all work? Scroll to the right of the turquoise data entry form The key to it all is the set of tables Here you can see, for most of the questions A Selection A Data Table

How are the tables used? A data table can be used in two ways: It is a store of items which can be utilised by some of the objects (e.g. the lists of items in a menu is read from the table) It is used to interpret the selection made by the user In this case the user has selected item number 4 This means that s/he is in the age- range

How are selections made? Each of the objects is linked to a particular cell, for example the drop down menu is linked to cell J17 This means that the index number of the item chosen will be placed in cell J17 The user has selected 35-45, which is the 4 th item in the list.

Exploring the Spreadsheet You should now spend a few minutes just examining the different parts, and seeing how the elements fit together. If you View-Zoom- 60%, you can see the whole spreadsheet. Put it back to 100% when you have finished. Return to Menu

Option Buttons

Adding an Option Button Click on View – Toolbars and Forms The Forms Toolbar should appear. Click on the option button item A crosshair cursor appears; add a new option button next to “female” using drag and drop

Making changes Now right click on the option button, and select Edit Text; change the title to “Don’t Know” You can align the buttons properly using the draw toolbar, but we will leave this for the moment.

Creating Links Right click on the option button, and select Format Control, and this box appears. As we have already got some buttons, the links have already been created, and you can see that the option box will write in cell j4 If you were creating the first option box, you would need to create this link.

Adding to the table Click on the “Don’t Know” option This now puts a 3 in cell J4 Complete the table by writing in a third line: 3 - Don’t Know

Collecting the information Now go to the table underneath the questionnaire The data entry for gender is not correct, as we need to extend the table In cell C31 is the formula: =LOOKUP(J4,K4:L5) We have added the line: 3 - Don’t Know To this table How do you suppose that this formula needs to be changed?

Collecting the information The original formula in cell C31 was: =LOOKUP(J4,K4:L5) Since we have added an extra line, this needs to be changed to : =LOOKUP(J4,K4:L6) Return to Menu

Check Boxes

Adding a Check Box Click on the check box on the toolbar and add a new check box to Question 2 Change the text to MSc Add a new line to the table in lines K7 to L11

Linking the Check Box Each Check box is linked to its own individual cell, which records TRUE if the box is checked, and FALSE otherwise. We need to link the new box to cell J11

Linking the Check Box Right click, and select Format Control; write J11 for the cell link

Linking the Check Box Test that the check box now writes TRUE or FALSE in cell J11 according to whether the box is checked.

Linking the Check Box Cell C32 has a very complex formula which concatenates all the qualifications data: = IF(J7= TRUE,L7 & " / ","") & IF(J8=TRUE, L8& " / “, "") & IF(J9= TRUE, L9 & " / “, "") & IF(J10= TRUE, L10 & " / “,"") This formula will add an entry onto the line only if the cell linked to the option box is TRUE, otherwise it adds the null string, “” Append to this line the formula : & IF(J11= TRUE, L11,"")

Check Box Formula The appended formula in Cell 32 reads: =IF(J7= TRUE, L7 & " / ","") & IF(J8= TRUE, L8 & " / “, "") & IF(J9= TRUE, L9 & " / “, "") & IF(J10= TRUE, L10 & " / “, "") & IF(J11= TRUE, L11, "")

Linking the Check Box Checking the boxes should now put the correct information in cell C32 Return to Menu

Lists and Menus

Challenges Since you have already worked through most of the ideas, the topics in this section are presented as a series of challenges. You should read the “challenge”, then attempt to do it before looking at the solution.

List Boxes The List Box in Question 3 is linked to the list of items in cells L12:L14 and writes a single option choice in cell J12 The Challenge here is to Add another option called “Software Engineering”, which will extend the list to L15

List Box Challenge- part 1 Add a new line to the table Link the list box to it Activity Point

List Box Challenge- part 2 Examine the formula in cell C33 Modify it so that it links to the full table of data Activity Point

Testing the List Box When Software Engineering is selected it should now appear here: How has the formula in cell 33 been modified to makes this happen?

The Answer The formula is changed from: =LOOKUP(J12,K12:L15) To: =LOOKUP(J12,K12:L16)

The Combo Box A Combo Box is a drop down menu box, and works in the same way as the a list box. Examine the Combo Box, look at the drop down menu and explore how the linkages are created.

Combo Box Challenge Challenge Modify the Combo Box coding so that category 5 reads “46-59”, and a 6 th category “60+” is added. Activity Point

Combo Box Solution Modify cell L22 Add a new line to cells K23 and L23 Link the Combo box to cells L17:L23 Change the formula in cell C34 to =LOOKUP(J17,K17:L23)

Combo or List Box? Whether you use a Combo or a list box is often a matter of personal preference. However, if you have a large number of items in a list, then clearly a list box is better. Return to Menu

Sliders and Spinners

The Slider Bar Right click on the slider bar and bring up the Format Control box. The bar is linked directly to cell D22 The minimum and maximum values can be changed, and so can the increment. Experiment with these.

Adding a Spinner The “Spinner “ is a simplified version of the slider bar. Write Question 6 as below Use the forms menu to drag and drop a spinner into position, Format cell D26 to No Colour, and Currency

Adding a Spinner Link the Spinner to cell D22 Change the maximum to 2000, and the increments to 100 Add a new line to the Data Collection at the bottom of the questionnaire Return to Menu

What to do now Formative Activity 9 takes you further into the process, by asking you to create buttons & boxes and format them in a situation where calculations are done. The Excel spreadsheet Buttons and Boxes accompanies this activity Return to Menu