Chapter 03 · 7 min · Basic
First look at a sheet
You open the file. Ten rows, four columns, nothing obviously wrong.
There are five things worth knowing before you compute anything on it, and the last of them decides whether every number you produce afterwards is right or nonsense: what does one row of this stand for? A row can be an order, a customer, a day, a delivery, or — as here — a single line inside an order. The sheet will not tell you. The column names imply it and the data proves it.
This is a first look, not an audit. Five checks, ten minutes, then you either trust the file enough to work or you go back to the sender with a specific question.
The grid
A café export in A1:D11 — order_id, item, qty, line_total_myr. Ten rows. Read the order_id column closely before you start; it is the whole chapter. Work in columns F and G.
How much is in front of you
Start by counting. COUNTA on a column that is filled on every row gives you the size of the file, and order_id is that column here.
Ten rows. Write it down somewhere — not because ten is interesting, but because every number you hand over later is a statement about these ten rows, and you want to be able to say so.
Count the filled rows under the header. What will COUNTA return?
Scroll to see all 7 columns →
| A | B | C | D | E | F | G | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | order_id | item | qty | line_total_myr | |||
| 2 | 3001 | Nasi lemak | 2 | 15.00 | =COUNTA(A2:A11) | ||
| 3 | 3001 | Teh tarik | 1 | 4.50 | |||
| 4 | 3002 | Roti canai | 3 | 9.00 | |||
| 5 | 3003 | Nasi lemak | 1 | 7.50 | |||
| 6 | 3004 | Mee goreng | 2 | 17.00 | |||
| 7 | 3004 | Teh tarik | 2 | 9.00 | |||
| 8 | 3004 | Roti canai | 1 | 3.00 | |||
| 9 | 3005 | Nasi lemak | 4 | 30.00 | |||
| 10 | 3006 | Mee goreng | 1 | 8.50 | |||
| 11 | 3007 | Teh tarik | 3 | 13.50 |
Basic
The rest of this chapter is Basic
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Still to come in this chapter
- 02What is actually in the column
- 03Ten rows, seven orders
- 04The average that means nothing
- 05The five-minute first look