random text displaying

[FragileRock]

what i want to do is create a way to make a schedule randomly. i want t
put in all possible shifts in a worksheet, then somehow be able t
bring them up at random with the rand function and give the shifts t
people who are available to work them. i'm not sure if i will be abl
to do this solely with excel, or if i will need to use other tools a
well. any help would be appreciate

 

[Guest]

You have the right idea -- use the =RAND() function. Put this function down a column, then sort your rows by it. The first x rows are what you can use as your sample.

----- FragileRock wrote: -----


what i want to do is create a way to make a schedule randomly. i want to
put in all possible shifts in a worksheet, then somehow be able to
bring them up at random with the rand function and give the shifts to
people who are available to work them. i'm not sure if i will be able
to do this solely with excel, or if i will need to use other tools as
well. any help would be appreciated

 

[Katherine Coombs]

Hi FragileRock,

The only thing that I can think of is something like this:

you setup your roster so that it's complete, and just requires the
employees' names who are going to be working the particular shift. So, it
would like something like this:

Column A = blank
Column B = blank
Column C = day of the week (eg Monday)
Column D = start time (eg 0900)
Column E = finish time (eg 12 noon, although it could just as easily be the
start time + 8 hours or similar depending on shift length)

Elsewhere, probably on a separate sheet, type in the list of all employee
names and a number against each:

Column A Column B
1 katherine Coombs
2 FrgaileRock
..
..
..
20 superman

Go back to Column A on the first sheet and type in =rand()*20 (change 20 to
reflect how ever many employees you have, as per the list on the other
Sheet). In Column B create a vlookup that looks up the employee name from
the second sheet based on the random number that was returned in Column A.

Does this come close to what you're after?

Katherine