Why do you ignore my suggestions?

Will you please attach a sample Excel workbook? We are not able to work with or manipulate a picture of one and nobody wants to have to recreate your data from scratch.

1. Make sure that your sample data are REPRESENTATIVE of your real data. The use of unrepresentative data is very frustrating and can lead to long delays in reaching a solution.

2. Make sure that your desired results are also shown (mock up the results manually).

3. Make sure that all confidential data is removed or replaced with dummy data first (e.g. names, addresses, E-mails, etc.).

4. Try to avoid using merged cells as they cause lots of problems.

Unfortunately the attachment icon doesn't work at the moment, so to attach an Excel file you have to do the following: just before posting, scroll down to Go Advanced and then scroll down to Manage Attachments. Now follow the instructions at the top of that screen.

Please pay particular attention to point 2 (above): without an idea of your intended outcomes, it is often very difficult to offer appropriate advice.


Please don't quote whole posts, especially when you are responding to the one immediately preceding your own - it's just clutter. It's OK to quote if you are responding to a post out of sequence, but limit quoted content to a few relevant lines that makes clear to whom and what you are responding. Thanks!

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