A Magical Excel Utility
by Chuck Bower

Every now and then I work with a client that mentions a nifty application that could be of value to others.  In this case, George Anderson, the CFO at Brunk-AJP, Goshen, asked me if I was aware of an Excel add-in called ASAP Utilities.  This is a very handy program that can automate certain tasks in Excel and make your life a little easier.  If you are a heavy spreadsheet user, you might find this utility interesting.

ASAP Utilities is owned and developed by Bastien Mensink, a resident of the Netherlands.  The product has been around a few years, and works with almost all versions of Excel, from 2000 thru the 2010 32-bit version.  There is a free, non-commercial version which will require an update twice a year.  However, for $49, you can purchase a license, get priority support via email, and enjoy all upgrades to the current 4.x version.  Volume discounts are offered, too.  The application has received several international awards and mentions, and the user guide is one of the best written by an individual developer.  ASAP Utilities, once installed, adds another drop down menu selection to Excel.  From here, as well as certain shortcut keys, you can use its features.  Here are some of my favorites:

·         Favorite “Select” utility: a feature to select all non-contiguous cells based on content, formatting, or more.  We’re talking the ability to select based on comparisons like “equals to”, “not equals to”, is between, contains, etc.  We’re also talking about selection based on font attributes too!

·         Favorite “Sheet” utility: a feature to create a quick index sheet of all other sheets in your workbook.  Clickable to jump immediately to any of the other sheets!

·         Favorite “Range” utility: I like 2 different features.  One is the ability to find and replace across multiple sheets at one time.  The other is an advanced sorting feature, that has up to 5 sort columns (not 3), as well as sorting on font attributes, cell attributes, text length, email domain name in a list of email addresses, etc.

·         Favorite “Columns & Rows” utility: a feature to color each N’th row or column in selection, otherwise known as color banding.  Even better, it does not have to be fixed cells, you can define a conditional formatting formula that takes inserted rows and columns into account.

·         Favorite “Web” utility: a feature to cleanly import a table from a web page into Excel, “cleaning” out selected content from the data, such as hyperlinks, images, buttons, etc.  Also allows you to remove trailing and leading spaces from text, apply standard fonts and sizes automatically, and other useful features.

·         Favorite “Export” utility: a feature to export a selection of cells as a clean HTML table for web developers.  Really slick.  This is a nice feature when you have to build web content from Excel data!

 To get more information, read testimonials, and purchase ASAP Utilities, see the web site: http://www.asap-utilities.com.

To learn more about Hawthorne Technology Services, see the website: http://www.hawthornetechsvcs.com/

Why Smart Employees Underperform

We’ve all been there. After an extensive and thorough search for a line manager, one candidate stands out. You hired the qualified individual, only to find there’s a disconnect with the new employee. This report discusses ways to prevent underperformance.

The Common Threads of Coaching and Development

Coaching delivers major results when it comes to developing employees, improving performance, and increasing return on investment.

Bersin & Associates, experts in educating organizations about talent management, has found that these seven processes ensure the best performance management:

  • Goal-setting
  • Alignment of performance goals with organizational goals
  • Employee self-assessments
  • 360-degree assessments
  • Managerial appraisals
  • Competency assessments
  • Development planning

Do you see the common threads of coaching and development? Studies show that coaching delivers significant results, offering 150 percent greater return on investment than performance appraisals. You read that correctly—150 percent! With that number in mind, coupled with the dread almost everyone feels regarding performance appraisals, why don’t all managers coach? Perhaps because they are not clear about how or when to do it.

In the performance appraisal process, the manager coaches in order to fix an issue after it has been identified in the appraisal. But what if the system provided for such feedback from the beginning? If we use feedback and development as tools to drive success instead of fixing problems, we have success from the start. It's an easier way to teach and a more positive way to learn. And if such coaching takes place regularly (as it should) and is tailored to the employee and the specific job, it becomes part of the fabric of our culture.

It is important for coaches to remember that one size does not fit all. Each employee is unique, and employees work differently. The better the manager/coach understands the employee, the more effective the coaching and the results—more engaged and productive employees with less turnover—will be.

To see testimonials regarding Hawthorne Services development tools, visit our website at: http://www.hawthorneservices.com/testimonials.html