Does Excel offer a way to alert you of a change in data?

I am responsible for the tracking and maintenance of our fleet of vehicles.
I would like to know if there is ANY way to set-up a spreadsheet so that
every 3 months or 3,000 miles, Excel will let me know that the vehicle is
ready for Preventative Maintenance service.

Any suggestions? I hope I'm not the only one who has every been curious
about this.

I have already tried to work a bit with conditional formatting but not with
much success.

Let A1 have the vehicle's last PM date
In another cell use =IF(TODAY()-A190,"PM needed","")
Or use this formula in a conditional format (Format|Conditional Format) to
make the row red.
If B1 has mileage of last PM and B2 has current mileage =IF(B2-B12999,"PM
needed","") will work
Also =IF(OR(TODAY()-A190, B2-B12999),"PM needed","") will cover both
best wishes
--
Bernard V Liengme
www.stfx.ca/people/bliengme
remove caps from email

"audiophile" wrote in message
...
Does Excel offer a way to alert you of a change in data?

I am responsible for the tracking and maintenance of our fleet of
vehicles.
I would like to know if there is ANY way to set-up a spreadsheet so that
every 3 months or 3,000 miles, Excel will let me know that the vehicle is
ready for Preventative Maintenance service.

Any suggestions? I hope I'm not the only one who has every been curious
about this.

I have already tried to work a bit with conditional formatting but not
with
much success.

Do you track the mileage daily? If you don't keep track of the mileage
somehow, to where excel knows the vehicle has reached over 6000 miles
in an interval, it won't work exactly, you would be estimating daily
mileage, and that's never worthwhile IMO.

My suggestion:

Create a column for last date of service for the vehicle, and the
mileage at the time of last service, current mileage, and obviously a
vehicle identifier of some sort. If you update this daily, then have
one column that holds the current date, and change it daily. (there may
be a formula that holds current date, but I am not positive)

Place your conditional format on both the date and mileage fields as
follows:

For date:
If cell value (of last date of service) - is less than - (current date
cell) minus 90, and format as you please.

For mileage:

If cell value (of current mileage) is greater than - (mileage at last
service) + 3000, then format as you wish.

Let me know if that would be satisfactory.


--
darkwood
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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View this thread: http://www.excelforum.com/showthread...hreadid=496482

Thanks for the help! FYI, as furnished by Bernard, there is a formula that
holds the current date; TODAY().

"darkwood" wrote:


Do you track the mileage daily? If you don't keep track of the mileage
somehow, to where excel knows the vehicle has reached over 6000 miles
in an interval, it won't work exactly, you would be estimating daily
mileage, and that's never worthwhile IMO.

My suggestion:

Create a column for last date of service for the vehicle, and the
mileage at the time of last service, current mileage, and obviously a
vehicle identifier of some sort. If you update this daily, then have
one column that holds the current date, and change it daily. (there may
be a formula that holds current date, but I am not positive)

Place your conditional format on both the date and mileage fields as
follows:

For date:
If cell value (of last date of service) - is less than - (current date
cell) minus 90, and format as you please.

For mileage:

If cell value (of current mileage) is greater than - (mileage at last
service) + 3000, then format as you wish.

Let me know if that would be satisfactory.


--
darkwood
------------------------------------------------------------------------
darkwood's Profile: http://www.excelforum.com/member.php...o&userid=29948
View this thread: http://www.excelforum.com/showthread...hreadid=496482

Wow! You really know your stuff! Thanks for the help-this worked perfectly.

"Bernard Liengme" wrote:

Let A1 have the vehicle's last PM date
In another cell use =IF(TODAY()-A190,"PM needed","")
Or use this formula in a conditional format (Format|Conditional Format) to
make the row red.
If B1 has mileage of last PM and B2 has current mileage =IF(B2-B12999,"PM
needed","") will work
Also =IF(OR(TODAY()-A190, B2-B12999),"PM needed","") will cover both
best wishes
--
Bernard V Liengme
www.stfx.ca/people/bliengme
remove caps from email

"audiophile" wrote in message
...
Does Excel offer a way to alert you of a change in data?

I am responsible for the tracking and maintenance of our fleet of
vehicles.
I would like to know if there is ANY way to set-up a spreadsheet so that
every 3 months or 3,000 miles, Excel will let me know that the vehicle is
ready for Preventative Maintenance service.

Any suggestions? I hope I'm not the only one who has every been curious
about this.

I have already tried to work a bit with conditional formatting but not
with
much success.