Microsoft Excel Tutorial: Randomly Assign Sides for Thanksgiving Dinner

In today’s tutorial, we’re tackling a fun holiday challenge: assigning dinner sides for Thanksgiving using Excel! Whether you’re hosting a big feast or coordinating a potluck, Excel makes it easy to assign dishes randomly and fairly. In this video, I’ll walk you through the process step by step, using Excel’s powerful SORTBY and RANDARRAY functions.

Have you ever used a spreadsheet to manage your holiday meals? Let me know in the comments! My friend Katie from my morning workout group inspired this video—she needed a way to assign sides for her large Thanksgiving dinner. Together, we built a system in Excel to ensure everyone gets a dish to bring.

You’ll learn how to create a randomized assignment of guests to side dishes (or desserts!) using just one formula. We’ll also discuss how to lock down the results so they don’t change every time the spreadsheet recalculates. With a simple Copy, Paste Values step, you’ll have a finalized list ready to share. And if you want to get extra fancy, I’ll show you how to create a PDF of your list to send out to your guests.

Whether you’re bringing cranberry jalapeño relish (like me!) or coordinating the whole menu, this tutorial will save you time and stress. This technique works with Microsoft Excel 365, Excel 2021, and Excel 2024—perfect for those using the latest features.

Thanks for watching! If you’re in the U.S., I hope you have an amazing Thanksgiving this week. Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more Excel tips and tricks. See you next time for another episode of MrExcel! 🍂🦃

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Table of Contents
(0:00) Who uses a spreadsheet to track holiday parties?
(0:15) Can you randomly assign sides in Excel?
(0:28) Start with two lists and COUNTA
(0:41) Using SORTBY in Excel with RANDARRAY
(1:18) Pressing F9 until Bill gets Relish
(1:30) Changing to Manual Calculation Mode
(1:44) Copy and Paste Values
(1:58) Set Print Range and Export to PDF
(2:15) Happy Thanksgiving
(2:16) Thanksgiving Spreadsheet Blues (Bluegrass)

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