Getting a useful Auto Scale

[sb1920alk]

I have a chart showing number of calls per employee as a column graph and
duration of calls as a line graph together. The scale is automatic. The scale
for the number of calls works great. The scale for the duration works, but it
doesn't use nice numbers. For example, if my employee with the longest
duration is currently at 01:55:43 (hh:mm:ss), the top of the scale shows
02:09:36. I want to keep it on automatic, but I want it to use nicer numbers,
like 02:00:00 or 02:15:00 instead of 02:09:36. Is there any easy way to do
this? If not, is there any way to do this?

Thanks,

 

[FloMM2]

sb1920alk,
On the chart, select the scale (left mouse click), this will select the scale.
Then right mouse click on the selected scale.
Select "Format Axis", then select the "Scale" tab.
Experiment with it until you like what you see.
hth

 

[Jon Peltier]

In Excel 2003 and earlier, you can even enter your scale parameters in date
or time formats, and Excel will accept them. For some reason, the designers
of the Excel 2007 interface did not include this nice usability feature.

There is no way to do this "nicely" and "easily".

- Jon

 

[wab713]

Your steps seems clear, but using Excel 2007 I can't follow them. Could you
try to state it differently? I appreciate your help on this.
wab713

 

[Jon Peltier]

There's not a "scale" tab, but the first tab on the Format Axis dialog has
the axis scale stuff on it.

For 2:15:00 you'll have to enter 0.09375, which is 2.25 hours divided by 24
hours. Rather than calculating this, type it into a cell, then change the
cell's number format to "general".

- Jon

 

[sb1920alk]

Ok, I see what you mean about the calculation. The problem is, 02:15:00 will
not always be what I need for the max scale. In the morning it will need to
be lower, and as the day goes on and they make more and more calls it will
need to be higher to make everything fit. So I still want it to be on Auto
but somehow just make it use nicer numbers in the scale.

 

[Jon Peltier]

Yes, well, this is Excel. There's no easy way to automate the settings, and
get nice values for those settings.

If you could write a few formulas to provide reasonable settings, look into
Tushar Mehta's Auto Chart Manager (http://tushar-mehta.com), which links
axis scale limits to worksheet cells.

- Jon

 

[sb1920alk]

So let me see if I'm getting this right. Set up a helper cell somewhere out
of the way on the sheet. This cell should look at the data maybe with some
nested IF statments to say if the max of the data is less than 10 minutes, 10
minutes, if the max of the data is less than 20 minutes, 20 minutes, ...30,
45, 60, 1.5hrs, 2 hours...8+

Then reference this cell in the chart for the scale.

Is that close?

 

[Jon Peltier]

Or a lookup table instead of nested if formulas.

- Jon