Make Informed Decisions On The Go With Excel Mobile 2010

In our previous post entitled “Mobility in Office 2010” we briefly described the office applications available on your phone that would keep you productive on the go. In this post we will deep dive into Excel Mobile 2010, which supports over 100 of the formula functions available in Microsoft Excel 2010. In addition, its support for creating and displaying all of the common chart types brings the visual experience on the phone closer to that on the desktop. In this post, we will see how Excel Mobile 2010 can be used to perform what-if analysis on the phone to solve business or money related personal problems. We will also have a sneak peek into new gesture support in Office Mobile 2010 for touch devices.

Performing a What-If Analysis

What discount should I negotiate for?

Imagine you are a procurement manager with a car sales company. While you are on your way to office you receive a phone call informing you of the availability of a sample of the new car model which is hitting the show rooms next month. You plan to check out the car model before reaching the office and also to negotiate with the distributor on the discount to meet your profit target numbers. Assuming your discount percent is a function of quantity, you want to find out the optimum quantity of cars to purchase and the discount that you should obtain from the distributor so you meet your target profit numbers.

When you open the Excel spreadsheet your company uses to analyze costs on your phone, it looks something like shown below -- with space laid out to fill in the details like manufacturer’s name, car model, cost price, discount, selling price, quantity etc.

When you double tap the content you’re interested in, the sheet zooms in to a readable view (shown below) where you can easily edit your content (and you can adjust the zoom level further from View Menu | Zoom).



As soon as you fill in the discount and quantity details the profit gets calculated from the formula embedded in the sheet in the tabular format as shown below.



If your target profit percentage was a minimum of 10% then by simply looking at the table you would now know that you need to purchase somewhere between 180 to 210 cars and look for a discount not less than 6%. You can now simply change the quantity to see the numbers changing and optimize your figures accordingly. You could also create a chart out of the data shown in the table above to visually see the impact of changes you make on profit%.

What else…

This scenario was specific to business users but it shows that Excel Mobile 2010 can be used to solve many day-to-day problems ranging from keeping a personal budget, comparing auto lease options, maintaining your travel expenditures, to just using it as a smart calculator.

Easy Navigation (Gesture Support)

We saw in the above scenario how a double tap could be used to toggle between readable and overview zoom levels. If yours is a touch phone, you could –


  • Pan across to select a range of cells on which you could insert a chart, name them or perform other operations.
  • Flick to scroll and navigate to any area of the sheet.
  • Tap to select cells, launch menus, select items and more
  • Press and hold on a selection to launch context menu for clipboard and other cell operations.
  • And as seen double tap to change zoom levels in one go.
With the above five supported gestures we are excited for you to see for yourself how intuitive and easy it is to use Excel Mobile 2010. With all the supported formulas, charts, and gestures in addition to the other numerous features, we hope you find Excel Mobile 2010 useful in many different scenarios . We’ll follow up with similar scenario-oriented posts in the coming months, but in the meantime, please let us know if you have questions or feedback in the blog comments. Will this scenario help you? What Office scenarios do you currently use your mobile phone for?

aggbug.aspx

More...
 
I can understand Excel Mobile for business but for the average user whats the point?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 7 Ultimate x64 Service Pack 1 (Build 6.1.7601)
    CPU
    Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 (G0 Kentsfield) LGA775 (FC-LGA6)
    Motherboard
    GIGABYTE GA-EP35C-DS3R (Rev. 2.1)
    Memory
    Corsair TW3X4G1333C9A 4GB PC-10600 (2x XMS3 2GB)
    Graphics Card(s)
    ASUS nVIDIA GeForce 8800 GT (G92GT/D8P)
    Sound Card
    RealTek ALC885/889A/890
    Monitor(s) Displays
    ChiMei CMV CT-730D 17inch (LCD Monitor)
    Screen Resolution
    1280-1024 60Hertz (Ture Colour 32bit)
    Hard Drives
    2x Barracuda 7200.10 SATA 3.0Gb/s 160-GB Hard Drive ST3160815AS (AHCI)
    PSU
    SUPER FLOWER 500watt Plug in Leads 24pin ATX BLACK MODEL
    Case
    Thermaltake Shark (VA7000SWA ATX) Full Tower
    Cooling
    Front 120mm fan (1400 RPM) /Rear 120mm (1400 RPM) blue LED
    Keyboard
    Labtec Media Desktop Y-SAD65
    Mouse
    Razer DeathAdder 3G Infrared Sensor (1800DPI)
    Internet Speed
    Telstra BigPond Elite Liberty ADSL2+ 24Mbps/256kbps
    Other Info
    ASUS PCE-N13 802.11n Wireless LAN card
It's a great idea for those that use Excel, I can think of a few useful spreadsheets to have in my pocket.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 Pro x64/ Windows 7 Ult x64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    76~2.0
    CPU
    Intel Core i5-3570K 4.6GHz
    Motherboard
    GIGABYTE GA-Z77X UD3H f18
    Memory
    8GB (2X4GB) DDR3 1600 CORSAIR Vengeance CL8 1.5v
    Graphics Card(s)
    Sapphire HD 7770 Vapor-X 1GB DDR5
    Sound Card
    Onboard VIA VT2021
    Monitor(s) Displays
    22" LCD Dell SP2208WFP
    Screen Resolution
    1680x1050
    Hard Drives
    Samaung 840Pro 128GB, Seagate 500GB SATA2 7200rpm 32mb, Seagate 1TB SATA2 7200rpm 32mb,
    PSU
    Corsair HX650W
    Case
    Cooler Master Storm Scout
    Cooling
    Corsair H80 w/Noctua NF P12 12cm fan, case fans 2X14cm
    Keyboard
    Logitech Wave
    Mouse
    CM Sentinel
    Internet Speed
    Abysmal
    Browser
    Opera Next
    Other Info
    Dell Venue 8Pro: Baytrail Z3740D, 2GB Ram, 64GB HDD, 8" IPS Display 1280 x 800, Active Stylus.
    Haswell laptop: HP Envy 17t-j, i7-4700MQ, GeForce 740M 2GB DDR3, 17.3" Full HD 1920x1080, 16GB RAM, Samsung 840 Pro 128GB, 1TB Hitachi 7200 HDD,
    Desktop: eSATA ports,
    External eSATA Seagate 500GB SATA2 7200rpm,
Back
Top