How to create notifications or reminders in Excel

Question

_{Tuesday, October 22, 2013 11:03 PM}

Hi I manage a Sleep lab and I am trying to use excel 2010 to help me remind our patient of their appts.  I will do my best to ask my question as intelligently as I can but please keep in mind I have never really used this program so I my not call certain thing by the right name.

  I found a pretty good vid on youtube.  The vid said make a remarks "category" (column c) next to your column B that contains the appointment date.  Then in the remarks column write the following function:

=if(B2<today()+3,send reminder","")

The only problem with this "function" is all past appointments (patient that have already been called and have completed their studies will have a message in the remarks column that says "send reminder".

I just want a reminder message to come up 3 days prior to and on the appointment date; not after the appointment date.  And how do I get the function to understand that I have already reminded the pt.  For ex. If I open the excel program one day and see all my reminder and complete the task of reminding the pt of their appt.  how can I get the message to change so the next time I open the program is doesn't remind me to call pt I have already reminded. 

All replies (2)

_{Tuesday, October 22, 2013 11:12 PM ✅Answered}

Well, if you open your file every day, you could use something as simple as:

=if(B2=today()+3,"Reminder 1",if(B2=today(),"Reminder 2",""))

However, you would miss sending reminders if you failed to open the spreadsheet all day (maybe you are on vacation, or maybe it is a Sunday reminder for Wednesday and you aren't working that Sunday).

A safer approach would be to use two cells with dates in them to be "boundaries" for your reminder period. That way when you come in on Monday you can set the start date to Saturday, or on Friday you could set the end date to Sunday.  On "normal" days you could have them both equal a date three days in the future (e.g. they equal each other).

Let's say that the start date is in cell A1 and the end date is in B1.

=if(and(B2>=A1,B2<=B1),"Reminder 1",if(B2=today(),"Reminder 2",""))

There are also ways to set up A1 and B1 as drop-down lists so you don't have to type the dates, but let's get your original problem solved before trying to complicate your workbook :-)

_{Friday, August 15, 2014 11:15 AM}

is there any option to get reminder for every month ? please help me mail me [email protected]