Pick a Random name from a list.

[Guest]

I am working on a Free Give Away of some products. Our systems give me a
list of individuals who we have had contact which are then placed in excel.
We would like to pick a weekly winner and would prefer not to throw darts at
my screen. Any Ideas?

 

[SamuelT]

Gummi bears?

 

[Guest]

Insert a column (A) with a sequential number for each individual starting at 1

Then type the follwing formula in a cell :
=VLOOKUP(RAND()*MAX(A:A)+1,A:B,TRUE)
This assumes that you have the names in culumn B

This formula will pick up a random individual, but remember that it changes
everytime you open or recalculate your spreadsheet !!! Winners might quickly
become losers !!!!


Hans

 

[Guest]

No, four packs to sporting events and concerts, free membership to the YMCA,
IPODs, fun stuff like that.

 

[Guest]

Thanks I will give it a try! I guess I can turn off calculation for this
book, just make it manual.

 

[Guest]

Of course, but better is to make a note of the winner, just to make sure.

If you want to prevent this, you could write a macro that does the same
calculation when you run it.


Hans

 

[psells]

Did anyone ever tell you how to do this? I just got 2007 and have no idea now.

 

[James Silverton]

psells wrote on Tue, 30 Sep 2008 07:39:02 -0700:

"David M Fritzke" wrote:

Unless 2007 is different, have you seen the posts over the years
concerning a helper column of random numbers that gets sorted?
--

James Silverton
Potomac, Maryland

Email, with obvious alterations: not.jim.silverton.at.verizon.not

 

[Dave Peterson]

Add another column next to the names.

Fill it with this formula:
=rand()

Select both columns and sort by the random number column.

Choose the name that sorts to the top.

Recalculate and sort again if you have to pick another winner.