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Spreadsheets

Ok, I have read too many post that refer to "your spreadsheets". Now, I am a data dude and I am intrigued by some of the comments I have read about spreadsheets. I would like to know what people are tracking on their personal sheets? So...what is the metadata you are tracking? -Chey

Comments

  • dutyjedutyje Posts: 2,263
    Cheyman, I'm all over this.. but I'm headed out for a cigar right now, and may be as late as tomorrow getting it to you, but I'll give you the low-down on my current spreadsheet and how it's laid out.
  • madurofanmadurofan Posts: 6,219 ✭✭✭
    Duty is about to put you into data overload. The man actually has a spreadsheet to track every aspect of his life, including one that tracks his wife's time of the month so he can be prepared.
  • cheymancheyman Posts: 157
    madurofan:
    Duty is about to put you into data overload. The man actually has a spreadsheet to track every aspect of his life, including one that tracks his wife's time of the month so he can be prepared.
    And this is odd because....JK
  • madurofanmadurofan Posts: 6,219 ✭✭✭
    Mine on the other hand is much simpler. I have a basic excel spreadsheet with three tabs one for the inventory, one for cigars I've smoked and one for cigars I've passed to others.

    Inside of all three spreadsheets are the following columns. Inven#, Name, wrapper, binder, filler, Date Acuired and Acquired from. The smoked tab has a column for a simple rating, i.e. Dog Rocket, OK but don't buy again, Very Good, Go buy a box NOW. The passed tab has a field for who I passed it to.

    The Inven# is written with a sharpie on the cello or onto a piece of masking tape on the band.

    In the works are fields for the blender, country of origin and working on seperating the Name field into 3 fields consisting of Make, Model and Vitola. Now that I'm thinking of it I should probably add date smoked and date passed fields.
  • Dude LoveDude Love Posts: 315
    madurofan:
    Duty is about to put you into data overload. The man actually has a spreadsheet to track every aspect of his life, including one that tracks his wife's time of the month so he can be prepared.
    Not really a bad idea... Anyway, mine is pretty simple. Name, size, wrapper, date bought/smoked, vendor, rating, and a one line review. Sometimes I just stare at the cigars with blank spaces under the "Date Smoked" column and curse the winter.
  • phobicsquirrelphobicsquirrel Posts: 7,347 ✭✭✭
    madurofan:
    Duty is about to put you into data overload. The man actually has a spreadsheet to track every aspect of his life, including one that tracks his wife's time of the month so he can be prepared.
    Hahaha, lol...
  • dutyjedutyje Posts: 2,263
    Alright, Cheyman.. here's your first installment. Not sure how far I'll get in describing everything here, so I'll just get started and we'll see what happens:

    I have a large Excel workbook with many tabs. I don't think I'll describe all the tabs, but I'll get to the most important ones. My current inventory is on an aptly-named tab within the workbook. The columns, left to right, are:

    • Brand (ex. Rocky Patel Vintage 1992)
    • Origin (ex. Honduras)
    • Wrapper (ex. Ecuadorian Sumatra, Nicaraguan Habano, etc)
    • Body (as described by ccom or other on-line retailers. Categories are Mild-Medium, Medium, Med-Full, and Full)
    • Size (the named size, such as Torpedo, or 8-5-8 Flor Fina)
    • Len (the length of the cigar in inches)
    • Ring (ring gauge)
    • Price (price as listed at ccom or other on-line retailer)
    • Acq Dt (date that I took the cigar into possession)
    • Humi Date (date the cigar was moved into my "smoking queue" humi)
    • Age (Calculated. time, in months, that has elapsed since I acquired the cigar)
    • Rest (Calculated. time, in days, that has elapsed since the cigar was moved into the "smoking queue" humi)
    • Comments (I'll put notes about who I've reserved the stick for, who gave me the cigar, when


    The cigars are organized within the sheet in order of days rest in the smoking queue (most days rest are at the top). Cigars that have not yet been moved to the smoking queue are organized as I see fit below (usually the next up for the smoking queue will be at the top. Stuff I'm saving to age or for a special occassion near the bottom).

    When I am going out for a smoke, rather than open my humi and rummage around, I simply look at the spreadsheet, and it will tell me the size, body, wrapper, and amount of rest of all the cigars in the smoking queue. This is where it starts behaving not entirely like a queue. From the listed cigars, I will highlight the rows that have had at least 14 days of rest in the smoking queue, and choose my cigar based on the desired body and smoke time, as well as my particular interest in flavor profile. I weight my selection heavily in favor of cigars that have had a lot of rest or age. I'm not interested in my cigars getting too much age on them, unless I've set them aside for that purpose.

    OK.. We're through one tab on the spreadsheet. This may take a while.
  • dutyjedutyje Posts: 2,263
    phobicsquirrel:
    madurofan:
    Duty is about to put you into data overload. The man actually has a spreadsheet to track every aspect of his life, including one that tracks his wife's time of the month so he can be prepared.
    Hahaha, lol...
    That wasn't a joke. Although, technically, I don't have this in a spreadsheet. I have an Outlook reminder set up.
  • madurofanmadurofan Posts: 6,219 ✭✭✭
    dutyje:
    phobicsquirrel:
    madurofan:
    Duty is about to put you into data overload. The man actually has a spreadsheet to track every aspect of his life, including one that tracks his wife's time of the month so he can be prepared.
    Hahaha, lol...
    That wasn't a joke. Although, technically, I don't have this in a spreadsheet. I have an Outlook reminder set up.
    I wasn't kidding either. You really do have a spreadsheet for every aspect of your life!
  • dutyjedutyje Posts: 2,263
    madurofan:
    dutyje:
    phobicsquirrel:
    madurofan:
    Duty is about to put you into data overload. The man actually has a spreadsheet to track every aspect of his life, including one that tracks his wife's time of the month so he can be prepared.
    Hahaha, lol...
    That wasn't a joke. Although, technically, I don't have this in a spreadsheet. I have an Outlook reminder set up.
    I wasn't kidding either. You really do have a spreadsheet for every aspect of your life!
    Direct quote from my wife's "16 Random Things About Joe" ... which she wrote and posted on her Facebook page:

    2. There is a spreadsheet for everything in Joe's life. That is not an esxaggeration. Money, camping gear he wants, cigars he has smoked, things he wants for the next 12 Christmases.....
  • madurofanmadurofan Posts: 6,219 ✭✭✭
    Thats love right there.
  • cheymancheyman Posts: 157
    dutyje:
    Alright, Cheyman.. here's your first installment. Not sure how far I'll get in describing everything here, so I'll just get started and we'll see what happens:

    Price (price as listed at ccom or other on-line retailer) OK.. We're through one tab on the spreadsheet. This may take a while.
    dutyje, this is great stuff. I have a couple of starting questions: 1.) Do you use the price at the time of purchase or the MSRP? a.) If you use MSRP, do you record purchasing price? b.) How do you measure price for samplers? Per stick MSRP? 2.) How do you handle multiples? Do you give every stick a unique identifier and then tag the stick for storage with that id? 3.) How many tabs do you have in total? I'm thinking the use of an Access database may be more efficient in recording. The a nice ERD could be made showing the relationships between tabs...I am assuming their are relationships between tabs? This is awesome...Thanks...and please keep going!!!
  • cheymancheyman Posts: 157
    cheyman:
    dutyje:
    Alright, Cheyman.. here's your first installment. Not sure how far I'll get in describing everything here, so I'll just get started and we'll see what happens:

    Price (price as listed at ccom or other on-line retailer) OK.. We're through one tab on the spreadsheet. This may take a while.
    dutyje, this is great stuff. I have a couple of starting questions: 1.) Do you use the price at the time of purchase or the MSRP? a.) If you use MSRP, do you record purchasing price? b.) How do you measure price for samplers? Per stick MSRP? 2.) How do you handle multiples? Do you give every stick a unique identifier and then tag the stick for storage with that id? 3.) How many tabs do you have in total? I'm thinking the use of an Access database may be more efficient in recording. The a nice ERD could be made showing the relationships between tabs...I am assuming their are relationships between tabs? This is awesome...Thanks...and please keep going!!!
    I'm having format problems..sorry about the block of text.
  • dutyjedutyje Posts: 2,263
    The relationships between tabs don't exist (yet). As far as the price, I use the price listed on-line (almost always ccom) wherever I am looking up the details for a particular brand. This is not MSRP, but also not necessarily purchase price, because as you point out -- you can buy samplers. Somewhere in another thread, I recently stated that I don't record the individual purchase price for each stick. The sampler is the main reason for this. Another reason is auctions, and the fact that I will buy a stick multiple times from multiple sources. I simply record the rough price of the cigar, if bought as a single from an on-line retailer, and leave it at that. When I explain my "Brands" tab, this will begin to make a bit more sense. In order to accomplish what I would need from a relationship perspective, an Access DB would be the way to go. But since I'm only dealing with small volumes of information (I smoke, on average 2-3 times per week) it's not worth the effort to put this in a DB.

    I don't do any tagging of the individual cigars. My low inventory, small number of dupes, and **** retentive organization methods prevent the need for this. If you select any cigar from my spreadsheet, I can tell you exactly where it is.

    Some of these methods are intentionally primitive, and would need to be tweaked for an inventory like Urbino's. Everything is customized to meet my needs. As far as the number of tabs, let me check....there are currently 15 tabs in the spreadsheet, but this fluctuates up and down over time. Some tabs are used to assemble future orders, or to track things like A Pass Deux (in the Trades forum), etc. I'm not sure how many of those tabs I'll endeavor to describe here, but I'll definitely get the ones that are of most interest. Next up will be the "Brands" tab.
  • dutyjedutyje Posts: 2,263
    Alright.. moving on to the Brands tab. This should actually be a pretty easy one.

    The first 8 columns of this tab are identical to the first 8 columns of the "Inventory" tab (that was the appropriate name I had alluded to earlier). Specifically, these columns are Brand, Origin, Wrapper, Body, Size, Len, Ring, and Price.

    After this, I have a column labeled "Try" which I use to mark the cigars which I am interested in sampling, but have not had. I will mark a specific vitola for a particular brand. When I mark a cigar in this column, it highlights the row green.

    The next column is labeled "Re-Try" and I use this to mark a vitola I would like to try next, in a brand that I have already had. Usually, I will make this determination based on my previous experiences with that brand. For example, I tried the 5 Vegas Gold Torpedo and loved it. Then I tried the Churchill, and loved it a little less. So I thought that I would enjoy the blend more at a larger ring gauge. Thus, my introduction to the Double Nickel. Rows that have been marked in this column are automatically highlighted in a light blue.

    The next column has a label which is being withheld. I have used this column to mark all of the cigars that come in a sampler-of-interest, available at another on-line retailer. This column is temporary, and will be removed once I make that purchase, probably sometime in the summer.

    The next two columns are labeled "Qty" and "Total." These are working columns in which I plan an order of assorted singles. I mark the quantity I wish to purchase, and the "Total" column is updated accordingly based on the price. If I select the whole column, I can see the computed total of my order (before shipping).

    The next column is labeled "Comments" and I use this to hold random other information about the cigar (like ratings fom the snooty rags, if they caught my attention.. also, I use it to record the name of a sampler in which this cigar is available, so that I can filter by the contents of that sampler and use it to make a purchasing decision.

    The next two columns are "Had" and "Rating." The "Had" column records how many of a particular cigar I have smoked (since I started recording). The "Rating" column records the afterage rating (I use a 1-5 system that will be described later) for that cigar. These averages are computed manually by filtering and selection on my Ratings tab (to be discussed later). Any cigar which has received a rating of 4 or more is automatically highlighted in royal blue.

    The last column is labeled "MAW Cand"... In the event that I ever have something that somebody wants in the Make a Wish thread, I will need to make myself a selection. Here, I have marked the cigars that would be good candidates (they aren't too pricey, they aren't readily available at the B&M, and they aren't components of any samplers under consideration).

    Each vitola (of interest to me) of each brand (of interest to me) gets its own row in the spreadsheet. For example, there are 5 rows for the Onyx Reserve (Toro, Churchill, Robusto, Torbusto, and Mini Belicoso). When researching a brand, I will choose the sizes/shapes which most appeal to me, and record the information on those. It would be (even more) exhausting to try to list all available vitolas. However, the list I have is pretty exhaustive as it is. There are currently 675 rows on this tab, representing 179 brands.

    When I acquire a cigar, I copy its vital information from the "Brands" tab to the "Inventory" tab. I supply the additional information as required on that tab. If the cigar happens to be a brand that I have not yet recorded in the spreadsheet, I look up its vital information, on all vitolas of interest, and record it in the "Brands" tab before copying the information over to the "Inventory" tab.

    It is worth noting here that, while I use colors for various reasons to highlight items of interest or to imply a certain value, I always have that specific attribute recorded in a cell. The reason for this is that you can't filter and sort based on highlight colors, but you can filter and sort on values in cells. I use sorting and filtering very liberally as I work in the spreadsheet. It is the only way to navigate this volume of information.
  • LukoLuko Posts: 2,003 ✭✭
    While I can respect the organization and dedication, as well as a good healthy case of obsessive compulsive disorder, this approach ain't for me. For the few F & G packages I've received, I've tried to remember to write in sharpie on the cello who I got it from and when. I haven't always remembered to do that.
  • j0z3rj0z3r Posts: 9,403 ✭✭
    I personally think my method is the best. What I do is try my best to remember when/where/who from I got a cigar, if that fails, I just make something up and pass it along as fact. Works magnificently.
  • gmill880gmill880 Posts: 5,947

    j0z3r:
    I personally think my method is the best. What I do is try my best to remember when/where/who from I got a cigar, if that fails, I just make something up and pass it along as fact. Works magnificently.

    Ha! Joe that reminds me of the catamaran captain in the Caymans that said he had never lost a passenger , and to be sure our name was on the guest list so he could mark it off if we were lost overboard during the trip....

  • dutyjedutyje Posts: 2,263
    Luko:
    While I can respect the organization and dedication, as well as a good healthy case of obsessive compulsive disorder, this approach ain't for me. For the few F & G packages I've received, I've tried to remember to write in sharpie on the cello who I got it from and when. I haven't always remembered to do that.
    I never write anything on the cello. It's all in the spreadsheet.
  • dutyjedutyje Posts: 2,263
    Alright.. next up we have the "Ratings" tab. This is where I record cigars that I have smoked. There have been times when I'm partying and I'm already blitzed and some schmoe decides he wants to have a cigar, so I'll share one out of my stock. These don't get ratings, but are rather recorded as something that I've "Passed" -- to myself on another tab which we have not yet covered.

    The columns on this tab are as follows:

    • Brand (as it is on the Inventory tab)
    • Origin (as it is on the Inventory tab)
    • Wrapper (as it is on the Inventory tab)
    • Size (as it is on the Inventory tab)
    • Len (as it is on the Inventory tab)
    • Ring (as it is on the Inventory tab)
    • Price (as it is on the Inventory tab)
    • Acq Date (as it is on the Inventory tab)
    • Humi Date (as it is on the Inventory tab)
    • Smoke Date (should be self-explanatory)
    • Burn (burn time, in minutes, for the smoke)
    • Roll (my rating for the roll. This gets a score from 1-10, with 5 being what you would normally expect, lower for more re-lights, tunnelling, canoeing, etc, higher for a low-maintenance burn)
    • Flavor (my rating for how much I enjoyed the flavor. This also goes from 1-10, with a 5 being of normal flavor, not bad, but not memorable)
    • Body (my rating for the strength of he cigar, from 1-10. 5 would be medium-bodied, lower is more mild, and higher is fuller)
    • Overall (my overall rating for the cigar. See below)
    • Comments (very brief notes. Who gave it to me, key recollections about flavor, roll, and body)


    Regarding the Overall rating, I use a 1-5 system as follows:
    5 - I will smoke this any chance I get at any price
    4 - Great smoke
    3 - I would enjoy it again, but not crave it
    2 - I would smoke this given limited options
    1 - I won't smoke this again

    When I smoke a cigar, its attributes get moved from the "Inventory" tab to the "Ratings" tab, and I supply the additional information. This almost always goes in immediately following the experience, sometimes on the next day. I determine values for the attributes as I smoke the cigar. Yes, I always time the length of the smoke, rounded to the nearest 5 minutes. At this point, you should not find this bit of information at all surprising.

    The day after a smoke, I review my spreadsheet for a good candidate to promote to the smoking queue humidor. I try to retain a good balance of mild- to full-bodied smokes in the queue, of all different sizes and wrappers. The spreadsheet is really handy at this point, because rather than rummaging through my tupperdors, I simply look over the spreadsheet at my stock, and choose a cigar from that list.

    Once I know what cigar is going into the smoking queue, I fetch it from the tupperdor and put it into the smoking queue humi. There is a specific organization to my humi, such that the newest cigar will always go into a certain location, and half the sticks will be subsequently rotated through, following a pattern I will not divulge. The 4 cigars which have been in my humidor the longest also sit "naked." So whichever cigar was previously 5th-oldest is now 4th-oldest. I remove its cellophane (if it had it). I also rotate the cigars themselves through this process (such that they are either facing up or down, depending how far they've progressed through the queue). I will, about once every couple months, flip all the cigars so that their heads are where their feet were (and vice versa). I will also check the hygrometer any time the humidor is opened. If I need to re-charge beads, I will get everything set up for this process before retrieving the beads. It should go without saying that the humidor remains closed while I re-charge the beads.

    Without the spreadsheet, my humidor would be open for a much longer period of time. As it is, my humidor is open very little, and only long enough to reach in and grab the cigar I need. The rotation process isn't nearly as elaborate as you would imagine, because it's a very (VERY) small humidor. I would love to have the humi open longer so I could stare at and smell the cigars, but I have finally reached a point where this temptation isn't so massive. I have been known to open the humidor and take a big whiff. My next humidor will have a glass top, which will at least relieve the urge to stare at the cigars.
  • dutyjedutyje Posts: 2,263
    While I'm at it, I will explain the closely-related "Long Journal" tab. As explained, every cigar I smoke gets placed on the "Ratings" tab. Right next to this is the "Long Journal" tab. This is where I describe the smoking experience in much greater detail. This tab has only three columns (Brand, Smoke Date, and Long Entry). The Brand and Smoke Date are carried over from the "Ratings" tab. The long entry is a paragraph or two that describes everything about the experience.

    There used to be a thread on here called "Pick Joe's Smoke" ... I used this to tell everybody about what I had smoked, such that people could make recommendations about other things I might like. My posts in this thread are taken nearly verbatim from the spreadsheet. I still write in the same manner, but I have elected to quit boring everybody with that thread. I'll occassionally post up in the "whatcha smokin' tonight" thread, but these days that is only when I'm smoking something I've received from somebody else, or the experience was otherwise noteworthy, or I'm just bored.

    Every cigar on the "Ratings" tab has a corresponding "Long Journal" entry. Sometimes, these entries are composed as much as 2 days past the actual smoke date. Usually, they are done the next morning when I'm supposed to be working (like I'm supposed to be right now.. hehe)
  • kaspera79kaspera79 Posts: 7,257 ✭✭✭
    j0z3r:
    I personally think my method is the best. What I do is try my best to remember when/where/who from I got a cigar, if that fails, I just make something up and pass it along as fact. Works magnificently.
    That has always been my plan, and it works for me.. When someone questions me on the source I tell them " I read it, I wrote it down, and then I read it.."
  • OutdoorsSmoke_21191OutdoorsSmoke_21191 Posts: 2,621 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Bump…worth revisiting???

    A good cigar and whiskey solve most problems.

  • ShawnOLShawnOL Posts: 9,607 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Nope.

    Trapped in the People's Communist Republic of Massachusetts.

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