Generating test data for Excel

One of the most important aspects of building good spreadsheets is to test them thoroughly for any errors. Where possible it is useful to run test data through a model to see how it handles volumes, exceptions and calculations that border some key numbers. The difficulty is generating the test data for excel.

Complex Test Data (Names, addresses etc)

If you need complex test data which includes things like first names, surnames, addresses etc, we have found a few websites that provide this capability. You can Google for other sites but we have found http://www.generatedata.com/ useful for our purposes.

Simple Test Numbers

If you are just looking to generate some random numbers, instead of just bashing the keyboard, use the RANDBETWEEN function. It will generate as many numbers as you need between an Upper and Lower limit. Once you have generated them you may want to Copy/ Paste as values so that it doesn’t continuously change.