How can I create a shipment delivery schedule using MS Excel?

Excel can do whatever you want it to do (almost). Excel is not about a particular industry or function. Excel can look a two different cells with dates and work out the difference in days. Or it can color-code a cell if a date is past a certain threshold that is defined somewhere else. Or do any other calculation where a date and/or a shipment status is involved.

I've been working with Excel (in various industries) for years. I've never come across a shipment schedule in particular. I'm sure these spreadsheets exist, but most of them are probably proprietary developments and not available for download.

So, overall, your question is a bit broad. If you want to develop a shipment schedule (or any other type of Excel file), you need to work out the business logic first, and then apply that business logic to the Excel sheet.

An example of business logic is: if the shipment arrives on or before the due date, it is on time. If the shipment arrives after the due date, it is late.

In an Excel sheet with columns for "DueDate", "ArrivalDate", "Shipment Status", the formula in the Status column would be something like

=IF(arrivaldate-duedate>1,"late","on time")

This is just a tiny example of Excel's capabilities.

Keeping track of inventory will most likely involve formulas that look up data in other sheets or workbooks, or, hopefully, data that is not stored in Excel but in a relational database.

One key problem of Excel is that it may be used for a purpose that it was never designed for. A stock keeping and order processing system would be just such a case, especially if there are multiple users accessing the system at the same time.

Excel works best when it is used by "one user at a time". If many users need to work with the data at the same time, Excel is the wrong tool. A multi-user database like Access, MySql or SQL Server are better storage solutions for the data. The user front-end can still be built in Excel.

If all this is getting a bit too much for your comfort, don't fret. We all had to learn this at some time. I may know a little bit more about Excel than you, but a few years ago I knew less than you know now.

So, make Excel a part of your tool box for your new job. Be aware that there can be many ways to achieve a particular goal. The most important bit is to work out the business logic. Then you can consult a forum like this one to help you translate the business logic into Excel formulas or macros.

Good luck with your job hunt.

cheers, teylyn