Random Sampler

A specialty add-in product for Microsoft Excel

Do you have these problems:

• Need to create a random sample from a set of data?
• Want an easy method of creating a random sample of data you need to audit?
• Want the ability to customize your random sample?

The Random Sampler can solve all of these problems and more!
 

If you need  to sample a set of data, the Random Sampler add-in will quickly and easily obtain the samples for you.   The main dialog gives you the following options:

The first group of three options is designed for samll databases.  The second group of three options can handle millions of rows across many worksheets.  We ran a test of extracting 8,000 samples from a group of worksheets containing close to 3 million data rows.  The Random Sampler did the task in 30 seconds.

The first option in each group allows you to extract samples from the data rows on the active sheet.  If you have many worksheets that need sampling, the second option in each group will sample them for you.  You can have it extract samples randomly from all specified sheets or specify that N samples are to be extracted from each sheet.

To help you control which rows are part of the data to be sampled, you may use the following dialog:

Additional dialogs have options that allow you to insert the source workbook, worksheet, and row number of the extracted sample data, to specify the marker column if you use the third option in the above dialog, and to specify the text entry.

Once you have supplied the above, the Random Sampler asks you how many samples you want and then either extracts them or identifies them based on your selections above.  Blank rows are ignored.

The third option in each group on the main dialog, "Extract sample cells from a range of cells" is a great way to sample a list like the following:

The Random Sampler is especially useful if you are auditing data and want to quickly and easily select your samples.