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Have you ever had a need to delete duplicate rows in an excel worksheet? Well, for those of you who have scrolled through spreadsheets deleting rows of duplicate records manually, stop the scrolling!

Here’s a quick and easy way to delete duplicate rows in an excel spreadsheet.

Before you start deleting records from your database, a good rule of thumb to follow is to make a copy of the original file (I personally never work in the original file). You will work in the copy you just made and leave the original file intact.

The following steps will walk you through creating a filter, filtering your database for unique records, deleting the original list and replacing the original list with your new filtered list. In order to filter a list, your database must use column headers.

1. Select all the rows, including the header columns. To quickly select all the rows in your database, click the top left cell and drag your moue to the bottom right cell of the cells you wish to filter.
2. On the “Data” menu, scroll to “Filter” and click on “Advanced Filter”
3. In the “Advanced Filter” dialog box, click “Filter the list in place”
4. Select the “Unique records only” check box and click “Ok”. The filtered list will be displayed and the duplicate records will be hidden.
5. On the “Edit” menu, click “Office Clipboard” and the clipboard task pane will be displayed.
6. Make sure your filtered list is still highlighted and click “Copy”.
7. On the “Data” menu, scroll to “Filter” and click “Show All”. The original list will be displayed again.
8. Press the “Delete” key to delete the original list.
9. In the Clipboard, click on the filtered list item and the filtered list will appear in the same location as the original list.
10. Now you re-name and save your file.

There you have it – a nice clean database file in a fraction of the time it would have taken you to manually delete the duplicate records.

If you have a simple but useful tip you would like share please let us know.

In today’s world, keeping client’s information private is of utmost importance, even when it comes to sending emails. It could be a major foopah to send a business email to a group of people and have all the names and email addresses displayed.

So our Simple But Useful Tip of the Day will explain how to send an Outlook email to a group of people without disclosing the recipients?

It’s actually a very easy thing to do but before we tell you how to do that, let’s review the three email addressing options you see when you create an Outlook email.

Option 1 is the “To” field. This is the addressing option most people use when they send an email and it is intended for the primary recipient(s) of your email.

Option 2 is the “CC” field. CC stands for Carbon Copy so it’s great when you want to include people in the email who are not the primary intended recipient(s). Keep in mind though that any information included in the CC field will be visible to all recipients.

Option 3 is the “BCC” field. BCC stands for Blind Carbon Copy so this is the option to use if you want to send an email to a group of people without disclosing any email information such as names and email addresses.

Here are step-by-step instructions to help you create and send emails that assure your clients’ privacy.

Step 1 – Create a new Contact called Undisclosed Recipients

• Open the Contacts Menu and select “New”
• In the “Full Name” field, enter Undisclosed Recipients
• In the “Email Address” field, enter your email address
• In the “Display As” field, enter Undisclosed Recipients
• Click on “Save and Close” button and exit the Contact Menu

Step 2 – Create and send a private email

• Open the “Mail” Menu and select “New”
• In the “To” field, select your new contact called Undisclosed Recipients
• In the “BCC” field, enter the recipients’ email addresses in this field

Note: If you cannot see the BCC field when you create a new email message, you can easily add it by following these steps:

A.  If you are using Word as your email editor, on the toolbar, click the drop-down arrow to the right of the Options button, and click Bcc.

B. If you not using Word as your email editor, on the View menu, click the Bcc Field

There you have it. A simple but very useful tip to help keep your email recipients information private. Recipients will see only “Undisclosed Recipients” in the email address field.

Do you have any ‘Simple But Very Useful Tips” you would like to share?

In my IT role, I’m often asked to evaluate various solutions and pick the best option. There are many methods for evaluation (AHP is my favorite everyday approach), and some work better than others for software vs hardware projects. But, unless your organization has an unlimited budget, all evaluation matrices will include a COST component.

In this article, I’ll provide a simple method to evaluate the cost of a project in a way that includes the up-front costs, ongoing costs, any salvage value, and the time value of money (TVOM). By identifying the project’s Present Worth, we can more accurately compare projects that have varying cost components.

Let’s assume that your organization is planning to replace a machine that is used in the production of one of your products. The life of the machine has been estimated at 4 years. The choice of machines has been narrowed down to three different vendors and you have pricing for the up-front cost, as well as the ongoing yearly cost and any salvage value at the end of the period. Here is the data so far:

Initially, we may choose Machine 3, based on the low up-front cost. However, the ongoing annual operating cost is higher than the other two machines. Machine 1 has the lowest annual cost, but the highest initial cost. Which machine is really the lowest cost option?

You may be tempted to perform a simple calculation that combines the initial cost with 4 years of annual operating expense. Here is the result:

Using these figures, Machine 1 looks like the best-cost option. However, this calculation does not allow for the time value of money (TVOM), or the salvage value at the end of four years.

The Present Value function of Excel allows us to include all components of the cost and calculate each machine’s present worth. Here are the calculations using 10% TVOM, which represents the amount we expect to earn on our investment:

The calculation takes the initial cost and combines it with Excel’s PV function to get the present value of the ongoing costs and salvage value over 4 years.

Since we are evaluating Present Worth, we want to select the Machine with the greatest value. In the example above, all three machines show a negative Present Worth, so the least negative machine is the greatest value (Machine 2).

Try this excel function next time you are evaluating a purchase for home as well, such as a new car or a new home heating system.