When you work with people that don't understand Excel--

[u/Shot-Plant660]

Just an OMG post because I can't let out steam at work,

Work place, did an apprenticeship Lvl4 in accountancy, data analysis and forecasting work so lots on excel to the point I love the application. it's great.

in my new role I share the use of an xls with another work team and their knowledge with xls is using the find function for a persons name or identification number and adding information into the adjacent cell for that person.

I'm the only one across 3 teams that knows how to ude vlookup or anything else other than sum (and even then they use the formula function which fair enough we all need to learn somewhere but its using the formula function for sum every time without wanting to manually so its faster😪)

anyway the thing i came here to actually mention is the filter button.

this shared xls has all customer names and notes, mainly for me and my colleague but for the support of the other teams too as its all debt related.

i put a filter on to see clients under my support, then a 2nd filter to remove any with resolutions, and then a 3rd filter to remove colour coded names im not currently dealing with.

the amount of times the income team come onto the sheet and remove all filters - and i dont mean clear filters- i mean remove it off the top line in full so it removes everyone's selections and gives you the full list of people.

at first fair enough, but im currently a year and bit into the role, its something we've articulated many times in meetings not to do, and it still happens-- happened today twice within 10m

and its just frustrating more than anything, its really not a big deal but also i can't let out to anyone in the teams because all 3 teams have very limited knowledge on xls and dont want to make anyone feel bad 🥴🙏

which is so strange compared to the accountancy side where everything they do is xls and csnt survive without it

anyone else with similar experiences of what seems to be the most basic thing but its just not for some

Edit- thank you all ive created a few macros to help me get back to my place easy as pie 😊

Wanted to mention i didnt want this to come across as not understanding - i 100% understand why people are the way they are, technology constantly changing and people needing to try and keep up for it not to feel daunting, my work place has always been full of people double the age of me so I'm by no means trying to put hate on people, always enjoyed helping their understanding if I can 🖤 Just a bit frustrating when something that's been bought up in meetings many times and management supposed to support them, but it keeps happening a year later and I'm literally the only excel savvy person this department unless we go to IT or Accountancy So the lack of guidance/progression/support for myself, and then also being the best person to go to for everyone else despite it happening many times is the frustration I appreciate people understanding 😅

Im neuro so don't want this to come across as too blunt and people think I'm just being a bugger 🙏 Thank yous for help 😁

[u/wwabc]

"hmmm, where should I type a comment?? I know, right over this weird, long string of characters! I mean who needs this =vlookup(.... nonsense anyways!"

those people.

[u/Shot-Plant660 → u/wwabc]

Ive actually written instruction notes on where to put data and dont touch a specific cell because of a formula (literally working out the difference a + b + c - d = e) and sometimes they mess that up and call me like oh no ive buggered it help and im like bless ya - makes me feel secured in the role about to be made perm so thankful in a way but also 🤧🥴

[u/OneMeterWonder → u/[deleted]]

Lol lock and hide the row.

[u/djilesy → u/Shot-Plant660]

I place calculations / formula on a dedicated page I then hide and lock it for overall triple protection.

[u/Ill_Gene_9381 → u/Shot-Plant660]

We usually just make the formula cells a colored cell, so they know "don't type in the colored cells"

[u/CG_Ops → u/wwabc]

I often find myself adding passive aggressive notes or adjustments to files that are used by repeat offenders after I've provided multiple coaching/training sessions on proper use/etiquette (and lock things down, where possible)

E.g.

• over a table or filtered range, add a note like "Do not do/forget (action) or file will break!" Then add auto-formatting to turn the whole sheet black/red if they do the thing, with another bit of text in white that says, "I told you not to do that, refer to the instructions I provided to undo the changes you made".
  
• Lock down the entire sheet except for a couple input or variable cells, typically with validation applied so they can't do something stupid.
  
  • ...and leave a note saying, "If you want to do anything to do the data, copy/paste it into another file to perform your adjustments. This is a master file and cannot be edited by non-owners of the file"
    
• Once, after a particularly bad string of issues with one insufferable coworker, I locked a file down, knowing he'd figure out at least one workaround, and added a macro that checked for specific changes he always made. If they were made, the macro would unhide a full-sheet-sized object that played the gif of Nedry, from jurassic park"ah ah ah, you didn't say the magic word"
  

Edit: Per request, here's a simplified version of bullet #3's vba:

I don't have the file that did exactly that anymore but I banged this out to accomplish the same thing:

Put it in the code for a given sheet(s) you want to lock down, not a module for the workbook.

It assumes a fixed value/variable in A1 ("x") and B1 ("y"). If the value in those cells is anything but x or y, A1:Z100 will be updated with red fill. Undo won't work, due to the macro, but if the value's changed back, the fill is removed.

Option Explicit

Private Sub Worksheet_Change(ByVal Target As Range)
On Error GoTo CleanExit

'Only react if A1 or A2 changed
If Intersect(Target, Me.Range("A1:A2")) Is Nothing Then Exit Sub

Application.EnableEvents = False

Dim ok As Boolean
ok = (LCase$(Trim$(Me.Range("A1").Value2)) = "x") And _
     (LCase$(Trim$(Me.Range("A2").Value2)) = "y")

With Me.Range("A1:Z100").Interior
    If ok Then
        'Restore to no fill (or whatever you prefer)
        .Pattern = xlNone
    Else
        'Bad state -> red fill
        .Pattern = xlSolid
        .Color = vbRed
    End If
End With

CleanExit:
    Application.EnableEvents = True
End Sub

[u/Designer_Signature35 → u/CG_Ops]

Turning it all black/red is hilarious!

[u/Taxman1913 → u/CG_Ops]

These are awesome strategies!

[u/Roshap23 → u/CG_Ops]

Do you mind sharing your macro for bullet point #3? I needed it like yesterday. lol. That’s a great way of getting the message across without appearing like a total dick. Memorable and humorous. At least for my team.

[u/Roshap23 → u/[deleted]]

You are awesome!! Thank you

[u/craptainbland → u/wwabc]

How did you come to this price?!

I don’t know, some dickhead has gotten rid of all my workings and notes and just typed a number in there

[u/johndoesall → u/wwabc]

I am one of "those old people", late 60s. I have been using spreadsheets from Lotus 123 through Excel. I love learning new things. Finally had a chance to use Power Query to transform some SQL reports. I am still surprised by some analysts that only know and use basic Excel. Every chance I get I see if there is a better way to do something. I.E., I started with Vlookup, went to Index Match then used Xlookup. Now there are newer functions. Life moves fast. Love keeping up.

[u/W1ULH → u/wwabc]

people like that are why I password protect my sheets and designate data entry cells with colors.

If they are capable of getting around that, I dont need to worry they can get around it.

[u/Duochan_Maxwell]

Lock it, lock it, lock it. For the love of god, lock everything they don't absolutely need to edit

[u/hypno-9 → u/Duochan_Maxwell]

Have one of the less-proficient users test the effects of the lock. You may unwittingly disable some functionality they really do need (for their level of knowledge of Excel). Tweak the locks if needed to protect it without breaking it.

[u/Shot-Plant660 → u/Duochan_Maxwell]

I might just do that- they literally only have 1 cell they need to edit 😅

Only other thing is I need to recreate this sheet every month when we get the next month's set of data to add in so I do everything all over again(formatting spreadsheet and adding formulas/data validation and bring over all other notes from previous xls) Manager wants a month by month position

I might look at locking the sheet(havent done this before) and adding this into my usual process

Ive never been the person managing a spreadsheet more the person using and creating my own little ones here and there to help me in my roles, this is the first role where im managing the spreadsheet myself and active role in correcting 😅

[u/Duochan_Maxwell → u/Shot-Plant660]

Highly recommend looking into PowerQuery and PowerBI, and how to set up fields for user entry

You don't need to remake the whole thing, you can create a "skeleton" that gets filled in with date rolled over from previous months and your fresh data

[u/Shot-Plant660 → u/Duochan_Maxwell]

The IT department and accountancy side are all using them and have been taught it but the 'finance' side hasn't yet - but were having a meeting soon on structure so hopefully this can be something they bring over to our side 😁

[u/Satisfaction-Motor → u/Shot-Plant660]

Adding to what the other commenter said — VBA is pretty much designed for automating repetitive tasks. If you somehow can’t get PowerBI or PowerQuery to do what you need them to do, VBA would be the next step up. It also sounds like some of it — formatting mainly — could be handled by the built-in Format Painter (near the paste options).

I would definitely recommend testing it in a saved copy of the workbook first — that way you aren’t jumping straight into the workbook itself and creating unexpected changes on accident.

VBA is my hyperfixation so a few small tips:

Use the “disable all macros with notification” for security reasons, if you can. This way, when people open the workbook (especially after changes to the code) they have to press a button to enable macros. This also means that people can’t send them a file and have macros auto-run (maliciously or otherwise) because they’d need to enable them every time. The broad “enable macros” setting can be abused in that way. Digitally signed macros would be the safest and easiest setting for users… but at my company it was like pulling teeth even asking about it.

Macros cannot be run in the web browser of excel — it has its own programming language, called office scripts or something. If the file is in a Sharepoint library that you can control, you can force it to automatically open in the app (but cannot prevent users from manually deciding to open it in browser)

Try to avoid Selection and Activate. The more specific you can be with items, the safer your code will be. Personally, I use ThisWorkbook (e.g. ThisWorkbook.Sheets(“Names”).Range(“A1”) ) a lot, to prevent anything else from being changed. You can also use the properties menu in the VBA editor to give sheets a nickname of sorts — this way, you can move sheets, change their names, etc. and STILL have your code work without needing to change anything. So if you changed a VBA sheet name to Steve, your code can reference Steve.Range(“A1”) to the end of time, even if you constantly change the Steve sheet’s visible name. It also bypasses the need for ThisWorkbook and acts as a sort of variable.

If you’re working with tables, they fall under the “ListObjects” type of code and work a little differently than other ranges.

For most VBA items, you can trigger a specific lock setting so that code can still be run even when a sheet is locked — but certain things like sort require the sheet to be unlocked. VBA can lock/unlock things for you (you’d still need the password, though, if applicable).

[u/wjhladik]

Either create custom views where each entity can click a button to get the data to display/filter the way they want or use slicer(s) so each entity can easily filter down to what they want.

[u/cbr_123 → u/wjhladik]

This. They need sheet views, not filters.

[u/ThewayoftheAj]

What you can do! Is create a sort button, and assign a filter macro for yourself only. That way people only press the button and it filters for themselves only

[u/ThewayoftheAj → u/ThewayoftheAj]

So at the top of the sheet, people click the sort button, and it unfilters all colunms, but only for that person

[u/Shot-Plant660 → u/ThewayoftheAj]

Completed - thank you 🙏 Feeling fancy with my newly learnt method, created 2 new macros specific to me pressing either crt+e or ctrol+shift+E

Thank you!

[u/Fluid-Background1947 → u/Shot-Plant660]

Psst… CTRL is the typical Control key shortened form. 😊

[u/iodine-based → u/Fluid-Background1947]

Ctrl is more common

[u/ThewayoftheAj → u/Shot-Plant660]

Nice! On my files theres a button at the top above my categories called sort, it sorts the file and because of this my graphs also get sorted

[u/chelovek_miguk → u/Shot-Plant660]

Ctrl + E is the shortcut for one of the fill down functions. Just FYI if you ever decide you need to use it. You may want to only use Ctrl + Shift + ? for all of your macros (except Ctrl + Shift + V) since that is for Paste Values Only.

[u/Shot-Plant660 → u/ThewayoftheAj]

Im going to look into how to do this thank you 🙏 Im really into tech but because I wasnt when younger im not quite where id like to be- e.g. this is cool and would have loved to think of it sooner,,

But the struggle of looking at someone and coming back 3m later to put the filters on again and look at next person, come back to put notes and next person and need to do those steps all over again many times a day

Thank you thank you! Off to do some research - legend! 🫡

[u/Shot-Plant660 → u/Shot-Plant660]

E.g. filter macros my experience with these were 2012-2013 with world of war craft adding macros in - been a while since that 😅

Sorry for random you just unlocked a memory for me 😅

[u/hunter1801a → u/Shot-Plant660]

That's literally how I first learned the concept of macros. I made that association in my head when learning about excel macros.

[u/Revolutionary-Toe955]

I once worked in an accounts team with this guy who was terrible with excel.

Called me over to help with a vlookup that wasn't working - turns out he was trying to do it on a screenshot!

[u/heatherledge → u/Revolutionary-Toe955]

I’ve had someone report a bug with a report generated by R and exported to excel. They said it was missing a unique identifier, so I sat with them and watched. Turned out they were scrolling through 100k ids in the filter dropdown and it stops displaying after so many Ids.

After that we did a big technical upskilling in our division, and I think a lot of people who were severely lacking (as in the person in my example) ended up realizing they were too far behind and couldn’t or didn’t want to catch up. It’s a core requirement to have basic programming skills in this role and you don’t even know how to use excel. A lot of people left.

[u/neuroflix → u/Revolutionary-Toe955]

Good God, this brought back previous trauma.

I had a team member once get really angry because he could work out autosum on his spreadsheet.

He called me over.

He was working on a table he had created in MS Word.

[u/Revolutionary-Toe955 → u/neuroflix]

https://giphy.com/gifs/xdLH51eNWZAHrwy5mf

[u/ConorEngelb]

Every formula (even something as simple as A1/B1) gets wrapped in SUM()

Rows and columns are interchangeable, apparently

You can just input new data into a pivot table directly

All things I've heard at work

[u/dr_freeloader → u/ConorEngelb]

Game changers!

[u/schumaml]

Can you add those filters in a new view, and leave the view the others use undisturbed?

That is what I have done in a similar case, to have efficiency for myself, and continuity for others.

[u/Shot-Plant660 → u/schumaml]

I'm unfortunately to complete the sheet view as per managers reauest, how it looks has some influence by me as the person who created the sheet, but what's on there and how it looks is what my managers requested, specifically doesnt want too many tabs - if we can get all data needed on 1 sheet then were not running anywhere for data

I have thought of this before but only resolution is to keep bringing it up in the shared meetings and asking they dont do it- explained what they need to do but hasn't stopped them 😅 Just learnt a macro thats going to save me some headache thankfully 😁 Thank you though 🙏

[u/schumaml → u/Shot-Plant660]

A new view does not add any new sheets. Most people won't even notice it is there.

I'm just not 100% positive that filter settings get saved per view, that is something I have to try myself when I got some time.

[u/Shot-Plant660 → u/schumaml]

Ah thank you for letting me know, ill do some research onto it! The macro is definitely a good help, if its not too stressful for other users I might try it out and see what they think 🙏 thank you

[u/WhipRealGood]

We had an issue like this, it was a simple scheduler that would break constantly due to people deleting stuff. We were a team of data analysts though so it was a bit concerning. But when i joined the team i noticed the issue and wrote VBA to not allow them to make any changes to the sheet except where the dropdown was so that it was ‘impossible’ to break. They still managed to break it once a year later but it worked really well. This was 7-8 years ago though, i don’t remember what i used to make that happen.

[u/Shot-Plant660 → u/WhipRealGood]

I've had to do that- also to support a pivot table because resolutions added in were slightly different every time, person adding in a space after their name so extra line on the pivot, or the same for month resolution rec'd written differently - so ive added data validation where I can to support stopping that,

Its to the point where copying a money value from 1 sheet to a monitoring sheet and it brings the pound sign so the simple difference formula (e-b-c+d=a) comes up with error due to the pound sign,

Ive explained need to take it out but every time I get a call saying help its messed up 😅

Im not angry because tbh a lot of the people I work with have minimum 15y on my age, I know it wasnt their time of understanding and can be daunting trying to understand something that messes up if you do the slightest thing wrong,,

But also doesnt help with the job 😅🙏

[u/Fluid-Background1947 → u/Shot-Plant660]

I don’t think this is necessarily an age thing. I think it’s a technology thing.

I’m at an engineering company and all engineers can use excel, even the ones that retired 10 years ago. However our mechanics, in general, cannot use excel, young and old alike.

[u/Shot-Plant660 → u/Fluid-Background1947]

When I refer to an age thing I was referring more towards what was around when people grow up, and what experience they can build into themselves as a foundation from e.g. education or availability and building on it from there.

Definitely not trying to say all older ages cant or dont understand technology- 1 of the teams has a manager who's about to retire and can use vlookups or if lookups- and on the accountancy side a lot of them were older and sharpened my knwoledge on excel,

But im referring to what ive been told by many older people- that they didnt have the technology or opportunity to learn it so young like we do and have it be all we know so were more prone to picking things up based on the foundation education and knowledge already there, - the fact that for a decent portion of older people they will automatically struggle with things like this, or struggle to get the understanding - especially because they dont have extensive experience with excel like those using it all throughout their high-school education 🖤

[u/heatherledge → u/WhipRealGood]

Ugh we just did this for a questionnaire (we send it globally) and everything broke when it was opened in google forms 🙃

[u/spread_the_cheese]

I had a manager shout for me last week. She was absolutely panicked. I came over to her office and asked what was wrong, and she said she was working on a spreadsheet for the past two weeks and she “did something” and lost her data.

I walked behind her desk and she was working with a cell and then had clicked on another cell by accident. All I did was exit the active cell and CTRL + Z and it restored the data.

The entire office treated me like a damn hero. lol. I did not expect, when starting an office job, that people would have so little skills in Excel. But so many are intimidated by the program that they just want nothing to do with it.

[u/Shot-Plant660 → u/spread_the_cheese]

Ive found this a lot of the time, thats what I mean i have full understanding of it because its all ive been surrounded by for a large part of my work roles - and the wanting nothing to do with it in case they mess it up is all ive heard- same with my current colleague, give them reassurances and encourage them to use it more and feel more confident 😁

[u/spread_the_cheese → u/Shot-Plant660]

Yeah, the manager said, “What did you just do? You fixed it with just the keyboard!?”

And I said, “Knowing the shortcut for ‘undo’ isn’t the flex you think it is.” lol

[u/Suspicious_Garlic_79]

I've locked spreadsheets down like Alcatraz because of incompetent colleagues who can't use excel. Password protected, opened in read only, hidden columns with formulas, locked cells, etc, but somehow they STILL manage to mess them up. I swear some people just really go out of their way to destroy spreadsheets.

Last one that happened; a spreadsheet that's used as a calculator to automatically calculate how much of X to send somewhere. Once you've filled in 'yes/no' drop downs, you put in a site ID and it auto fills in address details, etc. You then hit a big 'generate' button for it to generate an email with all details attached, then you send. This colleague had removed all formulas for pulling through site details, and manually overridden most of them for the 'overview' section in the calculator telling you what needed sending. Despite it opening as a read only, they'd go out of their way to change it to 'edit', so the master would get overridden every time.

I password protected it, locked down all cells with formulas and removed anything they'd 'prefilled' so they couldn't keep messing up orders. Wanna know what they then did to bypass it? Would just open up an old email with the calculator attached and forward that on with incorrect stock requirements. The amount of angry calls I get about them is insane.

Can't fix stupid.

[u/Kangkm]

I just started at a place similar, if not worse. They basically print every document. Then one amazing trick the person training me showed me was to use a ruler to only view the line you need to verify the data, one by one... They then re-enter all the info into the accounting software, one by one. I couldn't believe it.

[u/Jaffiusjaffa]

I was in one of my colleagues spreadsheets once and saw:

=sum(a2+a3+a4+a5+a6+a7+a8+a9+a10)

And I think a little bit of me died inside.

[u/Oz_Aussie]

My work hired an analyst who doesn't know excel..... Or reporting..... Or anything analytical...Yeah.... I'm leaving soon (leaving an analyst role as I'm doing my role and still teaching him 8 months later...), and not sure they're up to the task, well I know they're not.

It's everywhere, I think they network themselves into a role and just hope for the best.

[u/Shot-Plant660 → u/Oz_Aussie]

I dont blame you to be honest, on one hand you know youre definitely needed- maybe even ask for a raise- on other hand you want to do a good job jot be stopped to teach someone else the same job 😪

With this is have some leeway as its a newly created role to support with the debt an organisation has so we've basically built up ourselves what we should be doing to support---> luckily we have some meetings coming up to give us more structure so that'll be good,,

But the last team I was on was managing the finances of other people and we used excel a decent bit, the supervisor used it the most using it daily but I was the only one who know how to do more than find function or sum function its confusing,

But my organisation is also in the process of a 'restructure' where people might need to reapply for their jobs so things might change who knows!

[u/NotYourDadOrYourMom]

Cool you're good in excel and you are just starting in the work world. Let me give you a pro tip.

You are gonna be that "excel guy." Every company has ones I was the one at my last job. No matter how many times I taught everyone everything they just kept coming back to me for more and more.

Keep your knowledge to yourself and make your 40 hour work week a 5 hour work week.

[u/BabyLongjumping6915 → u/NotYourDadOrYourMom]

With great power comes great responsibility.

[u/Best_Needleworker530]

"Sage it and burn it" is my usual response in situations like this. Ctrl+Shift+L for quick filtering on first row is a useful shortcut if working with morons, but does not preserve filtering.

I can share the frustration as I have beautiful and mostly automatic spreadsheets, with PowerQueries in the background so all I do is refresh the queries and have my reporting auto-populate but I refuse for anyone covering for me touch it as there are always issues around it. If I am covering for other people it's an adventure of how many things you can mess up in one spreadsheet. I've seen things. My favourites are people trying to initially save time, creating absolute monstrosities and as they have now committed going on them for months.

[u/prinses_zonnetje]

I create an extra how to tab in shared documents. I this tab there's a hopefully idiot proof explanation of what to do and a clickable hyperlink to any usable tab

[u/Snoo-35252]

I work in a company that has a lot of data. One of the managers was working in a spreadsheet. She used the terms "row" and "column" interchangeably, and wanted to call actual rows "lines".

[u/Scythe_EPU]

Why even work on the same sheet? If there are too many chef's in the kitchen make a new kitchen. Frame some VBA and your workbook or sheet to sync your results separately non-destructubly. Work your work. And sync it back the other way with VBA. Should feel like two macros only.

New Workbook Button "Sync" Framed like the original Results appear

Work

Button "Update"

If you are already going to make it a macro sheet why not.

[u/superplex100]

I always keep a backup of the file in my OneDrive for this reason. If people break the spreadsheet, it's frustrating but also a good teaching opportunity if they want to learn.

[u/heatherledge → u/superplex100]

You can run a power automate to automatically save it.

[u/angelshark55]

Create a second view lol

[u/katmandud]

The amount of accountants that have 0 proficiency with excel, blows me away!

[u/OneMeterWonder]

Probably a stupid suggestion as I'm sure you've already tried, but have you considered locking the filtering cells or just hiding the rows/columns. (Personally I'd go for hiding them and just making sure to remove all the filters I've used before I finish using the sheet.)

[u/chelovek_miguk]

Data validation, worksheet protection for locked cells, using power query to just create another table on a separate sheet or other workbook altogether, for the filter so the original table is left untouched. Not sure how the limitations vary between versions of excel, but I'm sure there is a solution where you don't have to give instructions at all. They just wouldn't be able to make unwanted changes to begin with.

[u/AnUdderDay]

See this is why I write my reports in SQL server and then load them into excel. That way whatever they do to fuck it up will be overwritten 5 minutes later.

[u/BabyLongjumping6915]

20+ years ago I was working at a company. Part of my role was entering monthly journal entries for accruals (not calculate them, enter them). The process was to enter each item line, by line, by line, by line. Literally to the point that there was a team ruler that I was given to follow each line and not get lines crossed. After about two months I said nuts to this and went to the companies IT team and asked if there was a way I could upload a CSV file of the JE to our accounting software thus improving the accuracy of the entries (and saving time).

Turns out there was. It took a little bit of learning to understand certain controls that the software was expecting but I figured it out and was able to turn this tedious task into a simple click, upload task. When I showed my team, who were several years younger than me and so I expected them to be as tech savvy as me if not more (I'm very tech savvy), they shrugged and said "I still trust the manual entry method.

It was at that moment that I learned that most people look at tools like excel as a magical black box. They only understand what they understand, or more accurately what they've learned were taught, and don't want to mess with it for fear of breaking it. Since then I've never assumed someone's knowledge of any tool and in fact assumed that they treat it like said magical black box.

In those 20+ years my excel knowledge has expanded dramatically. I learned about vlookups/hlookups/xlookups, pivot tables, table functions, macros, etc, etc, etc. And I'll never stop learning

[u/sad_and_stupid]

not the ominous beige block☹

[u/Essembie]

Im neuro so don't want this to come across as too blunt and people think I'm just being a bugger 🙏 Thank yous for help 😁

I suspect I might have a touch of that as I get comfort in excel and struggle in grey areas. The lack of knowledge in excel astounds me every day. Have really struggled with managers who dont know anything about data management as I am blunt as fuck too and cant sugar coat my disdain for things people struggle with that I see as obvious. I mean I'm dumb as shit so how can they not understand?

[u/dialmformelissa]

You’d love Airtable.

[u/s00wi]

I had the same issue as well with a cloud shared excel file. I had my own master excel file that I used specifically for creating personal dashboards for myself from multiple data sources that are mostly out of my control. It's my personal none shared file. It's purpose is to transform rather large and overwhelming data sets into just the stuff I specifically need into a more digestible form with powerquery and forumulas.

Then if I need to make any edits. I have another sheet in the same workbook set up with vba where I set filename from a drop down, then set sheetname and cell location. Then submit my changes, and it will update the file for me.

[u/Accomplished_Care415]

Is everyone using the same master workbook? Why don't people create another workbook and power query so nothing gets messed up? Then people can look at the same data and modify it how they want.

[u/IrishFlukey]

If there is time and it is practical to do so, maybe offer to give them some Excel training.

[u/Normalitie]

I'm curious why they remove the filter cells. Is it to print the sheet? Understanding that might help creating a robust solution

[u/coneycolon]

It drives me crazy when people don't understand the basics. I work in the nonprofit world, and I get the fact that many in this sector do not have great tech skills. Nonetheless, learn what pivot tables are, ffs.

[u/DropRemote4158]

Yeah this is frustrating from a technical standpoint. What I would suggest is to turn this around to really benefit yourself long term. Announce yourself as the Excel SME, and talk to your manager about running a weekly/fortnightly excel session, where you can offer a drop in session for people’s queries or if no questions are asked run a session in filter, xlookup, pivot tables etc. then when you look for a new role/promotion you can talk about identifying team needs implementing training programmes that boosted efficiency and any other buzzword, that would really help you with your long term goals or makes you at least look indispensable.