Scheduling people using excel

Question

I'm currently at work trying to begin scheduling employees to begin work. The details are not important but we have 700 employees that need to be scheduled in specific areas. The past people who held my position did everything by hand, and this year I turned it into an excel document because of how often schedules need to change. But now I'd like to be more advanced. The basic setup is all in Excel, and I haven't been able to think/find something that works better. We have 10 different areas that people need to work in.

So what I'd like to be able to do is type someones name into the schedule, and then it automatically go to a different sheet in the same document and have the time they work and where put into the schedule.

I know this sounds very complicated, i've attached a picture that shows the how I would like it to work. Any input would be appreciated.

As a newer member I can't post images but I'd love to share more an example if anyone is curious.

Answer 1

You want a relational database. Don't let that scare you, though. Fire up Access. Create tables for Employees and Hours, join them as one-to-many, respectively. Now you just need to define your data fields, slap together an interface with validation, and whip up reports. "Access for dummies" probably has everything you need to know, and I doubt it willl take longer than trying to force Excel to do it.

Added bonus: you won't be beating on nails with a wrench.

(PS: kudos for ditching the pen&paper in the first place!)

Answer 2

I assume after you release this excel project all of the managers and co - workers will call it an excel database. This is a database app, don't waste your time trying to code a schedule maker in excel its more headache then its worth. Get an IT professional to write an application to handle this. It is really easy.