Efficiency – Page 3 – Happy Schools

Excel Text to Columns

June 16, 2016

Many of the day to day activities and decisions in schools rely heavily on data in Microsoft Excel. Like a cave with secret passages, in Excel there are lots of hidden ways to fast track things you do regularly, you just need to know the ones you need when you need them! When I present at events or professional development days, one of the items I demonstrate that always gets ooh’s and aaah’s is taking data that is in one column in Excel, and splitting it into multiple columns. The tool we use to do this is called Text to Columns. Have you ever had parent details that are all in the one cell ie. Donna Hanson? You generally need…

Using MS Autocorrect to Save Time

May 10, 2016

Stevef

Efficiency

So much of the everyday tasks in schools today revolve around Microsoft Word. From reports, to letters to parents, to minutes of meetings….. What if you could fast track some of the common pieces of data you enter? If you can save yourself a few minutes here and there it all adds up! Saving 5 minutes each day works out to be almost ½ an hour each week. Multiply that by the school term of approximately 10 weeks and that’s 5 hours you could get back. So “How can I get Word to do the work for me” do I hear you ask? You just need to “train” it and unlike a new staff member, some of the hard work…