Finding stories in spreadsheets

@PaulBradshaw
Leanpub.com/u/paulbradshaw
Birmingham City University, City University London
Online Journalism Blog, HelpMeInvestigate
Saturday, 10 May 14

Show of hands. Who has...
- Calculated a proportion
- Used a function like SUM
- Used pivot tables
- Used a function like
VLOOKUP
Saturday, 10 May 14

PART ONE:
BASICS.
Saturday, 10 May 14

https://
pefonline.electoralcommission.org.uk/
search/searchintro.aspx
http://www.eib.org/projects/loans/list/
Download this data:
Donations or EIB loans
Saturday, 10 May 14

- Make a copy, work on that
- Use CTRL+arrow keys to skip to
edges of data
- Clean first few rows to create single
heading row
- Remove grand total row
- Remove empty rows (Open Refine)
Speed: keyboard shortcuts for
checking the data
Saturday, 10 May 14

Numbers Strings Calculations
10 John Smith =10+20+30
20 Kate Brown =A2+A3+A4
30 Mike Moore =SUM(A2:A4)
N/A Kim Smith =COUNT(A:A)
50 =COUNTA(B:B)
Row 1
Column A Column B Column C
Row 3
Row 4
Row 5
Row 6
Row 2
Saturday, 10 May 14

Granular data has row for every
payment, person, crime etc.
Aggregate has rows for total crimes,
payments, etc.
Granular always better - can calculate
your own aggregates
Two types of datasets:
Aggregate and granular
Saturday, 10 May 14

Aggregate data:
- put the focus in Rows
- numbers (money, crimes) in Values
Granular: pivot tables
Saturday, 10 May 14

= indicates this is a formula
SUM is the function to be applied
( contains the ingredients for that formula
D2:D300 this is a range (array) of cells*
, separates each ingredient
) ends the list of ingredients
Using functions - and
arguments
Saturday, 10 May 14

=SUM(D:D) ignores any text/empty cells
=MAX(D:D)
=MIN(D:D)
=AVERAGE(D:D)
More speed: use column
ranges
Saturday, 10 May 14

=AVERAGE(D:D)
=MEDIAN(D:D)
=MODE(D:D) - for ‘most common’: useful
for ordinal ratings which shouldn’t be
averaged.
Sense-checking:
misleading averages
Saturday, 10 May 14

=MAX(D:D)/SUM(D:D) - how much of
the total is accounted for by the biggest
value?
=SUM(D35:D64)/SUM(D:D) - what
proportion from one entity?
=SUM(D:D)/365 - how much per day?
(for annual data)
Combining functions to quickly
make numbers meaningful
Saturday, 10 May 14

Org spending £X per day
Company receives X% of spending
Org spent £X on Y
Stories you can report quickly
Saturday, 10 May 14

Data
health
warning!
Remember the context: e.g. spending over £500, inflation
Saturday, 10 May 14

PART TWO:
CHECKING
Saturday, 10 May 14

=COUNT(D:D)
=COUNTA(D:D)
=COUNTBLANK(D2:D15000) - have to
use specific range or blank cells
underneath table are counted
=COUNTIF(D:D, “Other”)
COUNT functions:
Checking data coverage
Saturday, 10 May 14

=COUNTIF(D:D, “Individual”)
=COUNTIFS(D:D, “Individual”,
B:B,”<10000”)
=SUMIF(D:D, “<10000”)
=IF(This, then that, otherwise this)
IF functions:
Drill down further
Saturday, 10 May 14

=COUNTIF(D:D, “*hire*”)
=COUNTIF(D:D, “Scottish*”)
=COUNTIF(D:D, “* hire*”)
COUNTIF:
Use wildcards - and spaces
Saturday, 10 May 14

=COUNTIF(D2, “*adidas*”)
...
Then sort to bring the 1s to the top
COUNTIF:
Test free text data
Saturday, 10 May 14

THE
BLACK CROSS
DOUBLE
CLICK
Saturday, 10 May 14

PART THREE:
CLEANING
Saturday, 10 May 14

=TRIM(D2)
=SUBSTITUTE(D2,“ ”, “”)
(Target cell, what you want to substitute,
what you want to replace it with)
=SEARCH(“Wales”,A2)
Gives a position of the first match
Cleaning text:
TRIM, SEARCH, SUBSTITUTE
Saturday, 10 May 14

mr SMITH
=UPPER(D2) = MR SMITH
=LOWER(D2) = mr smith
=PROPER(D2) = Mr Smith
Cleaning text:
UPPER, LOWER, PROPER
Saturday, 10 May 14

=LEFT(E2,3) = first 3 characters in E2
=RIGHT(E2,3) = last 3 characters in E2
=MID(E2,10,3) = the 3 characters in E2
starting from position 10
Cleaning text:
LEFT, RIGHT, MID
Saturday, 10 May 14

=LEN(E2) = how many characters in E2
=LEFT(E2,LEN(E2)-3) = Length of E2 -
3. Grab that many characters. i.e.
- If E2 is 5 characters, it will grab the first
2 (5-3=2)
- If E2 is 7 characters it will grab the first
4 (7-3=4)
Combine with
LEN
Saturday, 10 May 14

=SEARCH(“ ”,E2) = which position is the
first space
=LEFT(E2,SEARCH(“ ”,E2)) = Grab all
characters up to (and including) that
space
Combine with
SEARCH
Saturday, 10 May 14

=SEARCH(“ ”,E2) = which position is the
first space
=LEFT(E2,SEARCH(“ ”,E2)) = Grab all
characters up to (and including) that
space
=TRIM(LEFT(E2,SEARCH(“ ”,E2)))
Combine with
SEARCH
Saturday, 10 May 14

=ISERROR(D2) = TRUE or FALSE
See also:
ISNUMBER, ISTEXT, ISNONTEXT,
ISLOGICAL, ISEVEN, ISODD
ISERR (all but N/A)
Finding errors:
ISERROR, ISNA, ISBLANK
Saturday, 10 May 14

PART FOUR:
ADDING
Saturday, 10 May 14

Save time typing search URLs
Saturday, 10 May 14

"https://www.duedil.com/beta/search/
companies?name="&B2
Generate URL
Saturday, 10 May 14

companies?name="&B2
companies?
name="&SUBSTITUTE(B2," ","%20")
Generate URL
Saturday, 10 May 14

=VLOOKUP(What you’re looking for,
what range contains a match & what you
want back, which column you want back,
nearest match?)
=VLOOKUP(D2,Sheet1!D:E,2,false)
Merging data:
VLOOKUP
Saturday, 10 May 14

=TEXT(D2, “dddd”)
=YEAR(D2)
=MONTH(D2) = 1
=TEXT(D2, “mmmm”) = ‘January’
=TEXT(D2, “mmm”) = ‘Jan’
If not formatted as date, use LEFT
Convert dates to years:
TEXT functions
Saturday, 10 May 14

=IF(B2>2500,“High”,“Low”)
Convert amounts to
categories: nested IF functions
Saturday, 10 May 14

=IF(B2>2500,“High”,“Low”)
=IF(B2>2500,“High”,IF(B2<1000,“Low”
,“Mid”))
Convert amounts to
categories: nested IF functions
Saturday, 10 May 14

=IF(COUNTIF(B2, “*dropped*”),
“Dropped”, “Not dropped”)
Can’t use wildcard. Combine
with COUNTIF
Saturday, 10 May 14

1. Save time.
2. Check your data.
3. Clean your data.
4. Add to your data.
5. Feel clever. But don’t be
too clever.
Saturday, 10 May 14

Thank you
Leanpub.com/u/spreadsheetstories
@paulbradshaw
Saturday, 10 May 14

Finding stories in spreadsheets

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