Question: As the organizer of weekly sales meetings, I am required to prepare an electronic attendance register to the Sales Director. I currently use MS Excel for recording the attendance. I usually enter “A” for staff who attended the meeting and an “X” for those who were absent. Is there a better way of tracking employees who attend or do not attend the meetings? What I have in mind is:
present 
& 
absent.
Answer: Yes, by using the great new conditional formatting rules
Why: In order to track tasks or assignments through formatted icon sets
Process (2007 and 2010):
1. Set up the spreadsheet with 1 for people that attended and 0 for those that did not attend
2. In this example you would Highlight the range C2:C7
3. From the Home tab ,in the styles group ,click on the drop down arrow under conditional formatting
4. Select Icon sets
5. Click the one with the Tick, Exclamation mark and X
6. Refer to the screen shot below
7. The result will be as given below
8. From the Home tab ,in the styles group ,click on the drop down arrow under conditional formatting
9. To show only the icon next to the names ; Select Manage Rules
10. Select Edit Rule
11. Select show Icon Only check box, Select OK, Apply ,OK
You can very quickly at a glance see who attended and who did not attend the meeting.
