{"id":371,"date":"2011-10-10T20:12:12","date_gmt":"2011-10-10T20:12:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.microsofttraining.net\/b\/exceltraining\/?p=371"},"modified":"2023-12-30T23:13:37","modified_gmt":"2023-12-30T23:13:37","slug":"excel-2010-auditing-tools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stl-training.co.uk\/b\/excel-2010-auditing-tools\/","title":{"rendered":"Excel 2010: Auditing Tools"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There are times when you inherit a spreadsheet and wonder how it works. You can identify the cells with formulae, but still have difficulty tracing the sources or subsequent calculations. This is where Excel&#8217;s Auditing Tools can help point you in the right direction (literally).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Tracing Precedents and Dependents<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Select a cell with a formula. To find the cells that feed into your chosen calculation, click on the <strong>Formulas<\/strong> tab and choose <strong>Trace Precedents<\/strong>. The blue arrows or marked areas indicate which cells are used in the calculation of this formula. Choose <strong>Trace Dependents<\/strong> to indicate which cells use this cell in further calculations.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.stl-training.co.uk\/b\/exceltraining\/files\/2011\/10\/Precedents.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-372\" src=\"https:\/\/www.stl-training.co.uk\/b\/exceltraining\/files\/2011\/10\/Precedents.jpg\" alt=\"Blue arrows on a spreadsheet\" width=\"627\" height=\"330\" \/><\/a>It is worth knowing that these are <strong>multiple-level<\/strong> tools so you can take the calculations to the next stage and beyond. For example, if the original data cell is used in a calculation, Trace Dependents will point the cell out. If this is used in a further calculation, click Trace Dependents again (you don&#8217;t need to move from that cell) to see the next calculation, and so on. Just keep clicking until you reach the end of the route.<\/p>\n<p>For 3-D spreadsheets, a sheet icon will appear if the precedents are coming from a number of other sheets. <strong>Double click<\/strong> the arrow to open the sheet list where you can select a particular location to view further (double-click).<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.stl-training.co.uk\/b\/exceltraining\/files\/2011\/10\/3Dprecedents.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-373\" src=\"https:\/\/www.stl-training.co.uk\/b\/exceltraining\/files\/2011\/10\/3Dprecedents.jpg\" alt=\"3D spreadsheets list\" width=\"535\" height=\"292\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are times when you inherit a spreadsheet and wonder how it works. You can identify the cells with formulae, but still have difficulty tracing the sources or subsequent calculations. This is where Excel&#8217;s Auditing Tools can help point you in the right direction (literally). Tracing Precedents and Dependents Select a cell with a formula. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[29,58,173,376],"class_list":["post-371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-excel-training","tag-3d","tag-auditing","tag-excel-2010","tag-mjw"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stl-training.co.uk\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stl-training.co.uk\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stl-training.co.uk\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stl-training.co.uk\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stl-training.co.uk\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.stl-training.co.uk\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6774,"href":"https:\/\/www.stl-training.co.uk\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371\/revisions\/6774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stl-training.co.uk\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stl-training.co.uk\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stl-training.co.uk\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}