Skip to content
Free Excel Tutorials
  • Home
  • Excel For Beginners
  • Excel Intermediate
  • Advanced Excel For Experts

Data Analysis

  • Reverse List in Excel
  • Example of COUNTIFS with variable table column in Excel
  • How to calculate average last N values in a table in Excel
  • Understanding Pivot Tables in Excel
  • Remove Duplicates Example in Excel

References

  • How to use Excel MMULT Function
  • How to use Excel COLUMN Function
  • Extract all partial matches in Excel
  • VLOOKUP function: Description, Usage, Syntax, Examples and Explanation
  • Basic INDEX MATCH approximate in Excel

Data Validations

  • Excel Data validation with conditional list
  • Excel Data validation allow uppercase only
  • Excel Data validation exists in list
  • Excel Data validation unique values only
  • Excel Data validation allow weekday only

How to randomly assign people to groups in Excel

by

To randomly assign people to groups or teams of a specific size, you can use a helper column with a value generated by the RAND function, together with a formula based on the RANK and ROUNDUP functions.

Formula

=ROUNDUP(RANK(A1,randoms)/size,0)

How to randomly assign people to groups in Excel

Explanation

In the example shown, the formula in D5 is:

=ROUNDUP(RANK(C5,randoms)/size,0)

which returns a group number for each name listed in column B, where “randoms” is the named range C5:C16, and “size” is the named range G5.

How this formula works

At the core of this solution is the RAND function, which is used to generate a random number in a helper column (column C in the example).

Worked Example:   How to generate random number between two numbers in Excel

To assign a full set of random values in one step, select the range C5:C16, and type =RAND() in the formula bar. Then use the shortcut control + enter to enter the formula in all cells at once.

Note: the RAND function will keep generating random values every time a change is made the worksheet, so typically you will want to replace the results in column C with actual values using paste special to prevent changes after random values are assigned.

Worked Example:   How to generate random times at specific intervals in Excel

In column D, a group number is assigned with the following formula:

=ROUNDUP(RANK(C5,randoms)/size,0)

The RANK function is used to rank the value in C5 against all random values in the list. The result will be a number between 1 and the total number of people (12 in this example).

This result is then divided by “size”, which represents the desired group size (3 in the example), which then goes into the ROUNDUP function as number, with num_digits of zero. The ROUNDUP function returns a number rounded up to the next integer. This number represents assigned group number.

Worked Example:   Randomize/ Shuffle List in Excel

CEILING version

The CEILING function can be used instead of ROUNDUP. Like the ROUNDUP function, CEILING also rounds up but instead of rounding to a given number of decimal places, CEILING rounds to a given multiple.

=CEILING(RANK(C5,randoms)/size,1)

Post navigation

Previous Post:

How to generate random date between two dates in Excel

Next Post:

Popularly Used Excel Functions and their examples

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Learn Basic Excel

Ribbon
Workbook
Worksheets
Format Cells
Find & Select
Sort & Filter
Templates
Print
Share
Protect
Keyboard Shortcuts

Categories

  • Charts
  • Data Analysis
  • Data Validation
  • Excel Functions
    • Cube Functions
    • Database Functions
    • Date and Time Functions
    • Engineering Functions
    • Financial Functions
    • Information Functions
    • Logical Functions
    • Lookup and Reference Functions
    • Math and Trig Functions
    • Statistical Functions
    • Text Functions
    • Web Functions
  • Excel VBA
  • Excel Video Tutorials
  • Formatting
  • Grouping
  • Others

Logical Functions

  • How to use Excel NOT Function
  • IF with boolean logic in Excel
  • Check multiple cells are equal in Excel
  • How to use IFS function in Excel
  • OR function Examples in Excel

Date Time

  • How to calculate percent of year complete in Excel
  • How to get number of days, weeks, months or years between two dates in Excel
  • DATE function: Description, Usage, Syntax, Examples and Explanation
  • Get work hours between dates and times in Excel
  • Get days, hours, and minutes between dates in Excel

Grouping

  • Map text to numbers in Excel
  • Group numbers at uneven intervals in Excel
  • Map inputs to arbitrary values in Excel
  • Categorize text with keywords in Excel
  • Group times into 3 hour buckets in Excel

General

  • Convert column number to letter in Excel
  • How to calculate decrease by percentage in Excel
  • Count cells that contain errors in Excel
  • How to get Excel workbook path only
  • How to generate random number between two numbers in Excel
© 2023 xlsoffice . All Right Reserved. | Teal Smiles | Abbreviations And Their Meaning