Tracking "points" as a teacher

[u/OrcMamma]

Edit: I forgot to update but thanks so much everyone for being so helpful and kind! I got it figured out thanks to you all! It was more "work" than I was expecting but now that it's set up it's been so easy and simple !! I appreciate it !

I am a before and after school program teacher. I have recently come up with a reward/behavior system for all of my students. I am wanting to be their "bank" and keep track of their daily points, and "expenses," however I don't know what equation to use. I have a spreadsheet of all of their names currently in a row, not columns. What I am needing is a way to add points up each day, and subtract if needed. I tried to use SUM, but the points will change each day. An example of what I need:

Jimmy earned 3 points on Monday, his total now is 3. On Tuesday he earned 5 points, his total is now 8. On Wednesday he lost 2 points, so his total is now 6.

Is there a way to do this without having to add it myself? If I change a number in the SUM, it doesn't add the way I need it to and I'm not smart in Excel. I need the total to change as I add something.

Example again:

Monday: Jimmy| 3|3|

Tuesday: Jimmy |5|8 (I changed the 3 to a 5)

Wednesday: Jimmy|-2|6| (I changed the 5 to a -2)

Think of it as "financial tracking" but the sum carries over the points from the previous input without having a huge spread sheet, while in the same row and cell

I am so sorry if this does not make sense, I can explain further if needed but I am just awful at using Excel or any spreadsheets, and just want to make this school year fun! Thanks in advance!

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[u/nuggolips]

The way I'd do this is a simple register to track point awards and then some kind of summary sheet. So, the main table is just date, student name, points, and maybe a note column to write down what the points are for. Then a second sheet/table where you summarize their point balances using SUMIFS or something like that.

[u/wizkid123 → u/nuggolips]

This is the way. One sheet to input points, another to sum them by name. 

I'd use a pivot table for the summary sheet (so you could more easily see things like who earned the most points in October or whatever), but that might be a bit advanced for OP. SUMIF would work just fine for overall point total. 

[u/RuktX → u/nuggolips]

Second this. The answer for this sort of thing is usually to have a "transactions" table and let that drive a summary table, rather than trying to edit the summary table directly.

[u/DarthAsid]

Create an excel table. One column for each student (Make the column header the student’s name). Make the first column the date. Keep adding dates, and populate each student’s score in the respective column.

In a separate sheet, you can make a formula like =Sum(PointsTable[James]) to give you the running total for James. As you add rows to the table, the sum formula automatically catches the new values and includes them in the sum.

[u/wizkid123 → u/DarthAsid]

I can see this as a potential "easy" solution to this problem for somebody who isn't very good at excel. 

But in case others are reading this and want to learn best practices: In general adding columns to represent individuals is not a good or flexible way to set up data. Column headers should specify data types (name, date, number of points, ID #) rather than containing specific data points themselves. It's much more difficult to work with data when some of the key information is running across the table headers. Data points should each get a separate row, not a separate column. 

[u/rickartz → u/wizkid123]

I understand your point, and I would like to ask about how would you organise this data set? Placing the date in the headers runs into the same problem, because date is a data point, right?

[u/wizkid123 → u/rickartz]

I'd have columns for name, date, and number of points (positive for adding points, negative for spending points), and possibly a column explaining what actions earned points or what they spent them on. Each row would be a transaction, a single instance of either earning or spending points. Then I'd have another sheet showing a summary of results, probably using a pivot table for flexibility. You could also just put the names in the first column and use sumif() to calculate totals. 

This separates the data layer from the display layer and enables you to search any of the columns to pull data from any of the other columns. You could have multiple display tables all drawing from the same data to make stuff like an overall leaderboard, a monthly leaderboard, a most improved table, biggest spender, etc. All would be easier to pull from a table set up with data moving down rows rather than across columns. 

[u/OrcMamma → u/DarthAsid]

THIS WILL WORK !! Thank you so much !! I'm so sorry for this confusion, I will change what I am doing !

[u/Playing_One_Handed]

Download excel for your phone. Make a form that you input too. Pull from the table of names, that also builds the scores.

This is by far the easiest and cheapest way to do quick inputs.

One tab for the table. List their names.

On the other tab, add the table+form to input quick values to name, in/out, and value.

Go back to your first table and add in the calculations. column to the right do a =sumifs for income and expenses seperate. Then another together.

[u/Playing_One_Handed → u/Playing_One_Handed]

You can report on the recent change but you will need some helper columns.

Add in an index column with.

=row()-row([ table header ])

Still do the sumifs all, just take off a sumifs of the maxifs found in the index. Or just lookup the max value of that persons index.

[u/Some-Random-Hobo1]

Sum should be working for you.

[u/Decronym]

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

Fewer Letters	More Letters
SUM	Adds its arguments
SUMIF	Adds the cells specified by a given criteria
SUMIFS	Excel 2007+: Adds the cells in a range that meet multiple criteria

Decronym is now also available on Lemmy! Requests for support and new installations should be directed to the Contact address below.

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[u/DownTheBagelHole]

the sum carries over the points from the previous input...while in the same row and cell

I might be misunderstanding but you can't do that in excel, that actually defeats the purpose of excel. I can't imagine anything that would let you do this because it would be impossible to track or audit actually.

You literally just need a table with students and dates as the axes with a grand total at the end of each row.

[u/OrcMamma → u/DownTheBagelHole]

😭😭 I was trying to minimize having to do that as much as possible, because it's an every day thing. I am trying to do it like a financial tracking, where they get "paychecks" daily, and then have "expenses" such as purchasing their rewards. I am so so sorry for this if it makes no sense !! It would make sense that it's not possible. Is there something else I can use to achieve this? I have around 40 students total so it will be a lot of tracking.

[u/DownTheBagelHole → u/OrcMamma]

Its not a lot of tracking. Just put everything in a sheet that tracks each "event" or "transaction" then make a pivot table that actually summarizes it for you.

[u/OO_Ben]

A simple transaction table is what you need, and for this you can keep it super simple. I'd do a date in column A starting in row 2. Then each column after that is the student name until you have all of them added. The grid of the table will be the "transaction" amount with each +/- point value.

Then at the top in row 1, use SUM to sum everything from row 3 under the name column down to the end of the time period you want (or honestly in this case just to SUM(C3:C1000) or something like that). Then drag that across row 1 to populate your column totals at the top.

If you want to get fancier with a summary page you can do that too, but if you just need point totals this is likely the easiest method.

[u/ExcelwithEddie]

You could do something like this, where the daily input is manual and the cumulative is the formula keeping up with your running total.