Checkbox

Checkbox is not a new Excel feature. We were able to add checkboxes to Excel reports earlier, by choosing some of the controls offered in the Developer ribbon (Form Controls, ActiveX Controls). Recently, Microsoft has made this option much more accessible, and in the following post you will find out how to add a checkbox to your report and how you can analyze such reports.

We will start from a simple table where you can see a list of daily tasks. The last column should contain indicators of whether the task is completed? To add checkboxes, in order to monitor the value of the indicator, select all rows in the last column, then go to the Insert ribbon and click on the Checkbox option.

By clicking on one of the checkboxes, you can mark the task as completed or return its status to its original state.

How to count completed tasks. When you check the checkbox, that cell gets the value TRUE. Otherwise, its value is FALSE. The easiest way to count completed tasks is using the formula:

=COUNTIF(C3:C7,TRUE)

If you want to go a step further, by combining the above expression and the REPT function you can generate a simple progress bar:

=REPT(“🟦”,COUNTIF(C3:C7,TRUE))

You can add symbols in the progress bar as eMojis or with the help of the Character Map application.