2016 Presidential Candidate Comparison Spreadsheet

I'm not really too big into politics but a few readers have asked me to create a 2016 Presidential Candidate Comparison spreadsheet and here it is! This new spreadsheet serves two purposes - it allows you to see where each candidate stands on forty-eight different issues and also allows you to see how your own views align with what candidate.

1. Candidate Comparison

The first sheet in the spreadsheet is the candidate comparison that shows all five candidate's responded to forty-eight different questions on topics such as immigration, gun control, abortion, and more.

2. Which candidate should you support?

If you're still unsure of which candidate you might vote for in this election, you can use the scoring system in the candidate comparison spreadsheet to help you figure it out. Use the drop down menus to give your opinion on each of the issues - either yes, no, or undecided. Additionally, you need to decide which issues are very important to you and which ones you could care less about. Use the drop down menu to select very important, a little important, you're indifferent, or you don't care. The spreadsheet automatically uses a weighting system to score each candidate's response in relation to your opinion.

. Go to the scores sheet to see which candidate has the highest score and is therefore the most similar to you. The spreadsheet uses a "rank without ties" formula to list the candidates in order of highest to lowest score based on the weighting system.

Download the 2016 Presidential Candidate Comparison Spreadsheet here

Only 229 more days until the 2016 election! I'd love to hear what you think of this spreadsheet, if it helps you figure out your politics or not. Any suggestions to improve it?

March Madness 2016 Excel Brackets

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! March Madness 2016 edition is here and the first of the four “play-in” games have already begun (which we’re not counting off any points for in my office pool). Once again, I’ll be using David Tyler’s NCAA Excel brackets, the same ones I’ve been using since at least 2010, as they're still the best as far as I’m concerned. David doesn't lock or hide anything behind password protection so you can examine all the formulas to see how they work and make any modifications you desire. There are two files: the bracket manager and the individual bracket file, that can be downloaded by following the link below.

http://www.whistleblows.com/p/bracket.html

A great way to increase your Excel knowledge is to reverse engineer templates, like these office pool March Madness brackets. Last year, I shared 11 things you can learn from the best Excel brackets and they all still apply for this year’s version.

I'd like to give a special thanks to David Tyler for continuing to update and post his excellent brackets each and every March and giving us something to look forward to as we crawl out of the final few weeks of winter.

I also created a short screen capture video to show you just how easy it is to use David's brackets. Simply click on each team to advance them (don't forget to enable macros).

Pictured below is my bracket. You should probably just go ahead and treat it like the Bible, Koran, and Torah all rolled into one. It’s as good as truth.

Good luck in your office pools!

Nickstradomus


*just a special note to my email subscribers: I will hopefully have an option soon where you can opt out of notifications about sports templates, that is if you only want to read about my general Excel tips and tricks.