Table of contents
Background
Being in the field of ERP from starting of my career, I had to employ Excel to compare two files. The comparison of files cell by cell with Excel will give a lot of insight into the data and will reveal so much hidden details. This insights into the data has saved so much rework and thus could have saved thousands of hours not only for the customers but also for myself.
I have prepared multiple versions of comparison tools in Excel. Ranging from very basic to sophisticated. For the first time ever, finally after so many rounds of evolution over the years, I have prepared a very sophisticated version, which can be easily used by anyone with very little knowledge of Excel.
This version is very dynamic in so many ways.
The column names can be easily configured and changed if needed.
The key to compare the data can be a single column or composite of multiple columns.
And the key to compare files also can be easily defined.
YouTube Video
Download the tool
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1M6mU5msVGkzO9G3v8-uleU68XJ-MSYfU/view?usp=sharing
How to use
Load the before table in the Before tab from B2 cell onwards
Write a formula to define keys.
For example, if only first column is the key, you have to write formula =[@[Col_1]]
If multiple values has to be cused, then concatenate them like: \=[@[Col_1]]&[@[Col_2]] (observe the & which concatenates two cell values)
Because the data is formatted as a table, the formula would be little different than regular excel
Follow the same process for the After too
Give Column names in the setup tab as below
Click Refresh All
Based on number of rows and columns, the process will complete in few seconds to few minutes. Look for left bottom corner
Refer to the below tabs for the comparison results
Tab: Count will show only counts of differences by column.
Tab: Diff-Values will show only the values which are update. i.e. only business title is updated for an employee, only that column will be shown in this tab. other columns like Name, Annual Salary won't be shown. Please observe the data is pivoted.
Tab: Diff-Values-All will show all the rows which are updated. This is the best tab to see the results individually. Please observe the data is pivoted.
Tab: Compare will show in the conventional tabular format.
For the Added Rows, the newly added data will be shown.
For the Deleted Rows, the deleted data will be shown.
For the Updated, both the previous and updated values will be shown in the same cell with carriage return (or new line) along with cell coloring to identify easily. If the data is the same, equals to (=) symbol will be added. Whereas if the data is updated not equals to (!=) symbol will be added.
Note: If the cell colors are not shown properly, click any cell in the table, navigate to Home > Conditional Formatting > Rules. Update the formula in Applies to column with =$A:$Z. This will show the colors properly. The reason why we may have to do extra step every time is, the Table Structure will get updated every time refresh, so the formula also gets updated accordingly.
