Gimme (Tom and John),
You're absolutely right. If the dataset is not a normal
distribution, then Excel's built-in functions Average, StdDev and
Quartiles are of no use whatsoever. What I didn't mention is that my
friend is an amateur mathematician. He created a model that can take
gamma distributions into account. I have very litlte idea of what
that means except that the program's model includes special functions
which can derive Average, StdDev and Quartiles based on a model that
morphs from normal to chi-squared.

I basically want to speed up his calculations using built-in Excel
functions where possible. I think I understand now why his algorithm
is so complicated. Thanks, guys. If you care to continue this
thread, please post any thoughts you might have. Best regards, James

Indeed, as you brought up,

On Jul 9, 5:14?pm, "
wrote:
These numbers aren't normally distributed so STDs are the wrong too
for the job.

Say I have these numbers:

0.2
1
3.25
5
17
50
125
500
1250
1500
32505
50000

You need to filter the data - just like John lined out.

If you want a no code solution ask the client to filter the data on
his end.

I still don't understand why you think filtering the data requires
hundreds of lines of VBA.