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EBOM-2009 SSc4: Alternative Commuting Transportation

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Alternative Transportation Survey Results Calculator - Error

January 11, 2012

Tyler Farmer

Principal Partner
Green Fields Consulting

LEEDuser Basic Member

12 thumbs up

January 11, 2012

I am trying to fill out the LEED user EBOM SSc4 Alternative Tran Results Calculator and I keep getting the same error message. No matter what data I enter into Step: 1, I receive the following message "The number of FTE occupants who received the survey is greater than the total number of FTE occupants in the building." I am using Excel 2010 and have received the message in and out of compatibility mode. Anyone else having this error or have any advice?

Thanks.

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Emily Catacchio

Sustainability Specialist
Wight and Company

LEEDuser Basic Member

610 thumbs up

January 12, 2012 - 7:31 pm

Tyler,I am getting the same error, LEEDuser will investigate.

Jason Franken

Sustainability Professional

LEEDuser Expert

608 thumbs up

January 13, 2012 - 10:09 am

I had a similar issue about a year ago and I think it is a problem with an Excel default setting rather than with the USGBC calculator. I'm running Windows 7 now, so I'm not exactly sure of the specific steps you should take on your operating system, but essentially you need to go to the Options section in Excel and under "Formulas", make sure that "Workbook Calculation" is set to "Automatic". Hopefully this helps.

Trista Brown

Project Director
WSP USA

LEEDuser Basic Member

454 thumbs up

January 13, 2012 - 11:18 am

Hi Tyler,

Have you tried entering values in the subsequent cells? When I work though the spreadsheet I’m able to trigger that error message, but it’s because an acceptable value needs to be entered in cell C15 for the “total number of regular building occupants who received the survey”. This value needs to match the output in the grey cell C14, which differs based on whether Approach 1 or 2 is selected.

Tyler Farmer

Principal Partner
Green Fields Consulting

LEEDuser Basic Member

12 thumbs up

January 13, 2012 - 1:37 pm

Hi Jason,

Thanks for the suggestion. I confirmed that my Workbook Calculation is set to Automatic and I still receive the error message. Also, I tried the other settings (Auto Except for Data Tables and Manual) and they did not resolve the error message either. I will look at some excel forums to see if I can find a solution.

Thanks.

Tyler Farmer

Principal Partner
Green Fields Consulting

LEEDuser Basic Member

12 thumbs up

January 13, 2012 - 1:38 pm

Hi Trista,

Thanks for the response. I have tried entering values in the subsequent cells. Cell C15 is actually where I am getting the error message. I have tried entering values that are equivalent, lower, and higher than the minimum required values of C14 and C12, but I always get the same error message ("The number of FTE occupants who received the survey is greater than the total number of FTE occupants in the building").

Thanks for looking into this and for the help.

Trista Brown

Project Director
WSP USA

LEEDuser Basic Member

454 thumbs up

January 13, 2012 - 2:49 pm

That's very curious. Have you tried downloading a fresh file? When I was testing the spreadsheet I noticed that sometimes I'd update a cell to an acceptable value, but the formula wouldn't reset correctly and the error message would stick around. Using a brand-new file that didn’t have any errors triggered already then fixed the issue. I apologize if you’ve already tried this workaround as well.

Peggy Schwartz

Transportation Action Partnership, Inc.

LEEDuser Premium Member

4 thumbs up

January 15, 2012 - 9:38 am

I have also had problems with spreadsheet -- downloading a new worksheet and changing settings in excel didn't seem to help.
But for a temporary work around, I found that if I entered the values for the cells that were generating the errors messages into a separate worksheet and the cut and pasted the numbers into the appropriate cells it seems to work and I was able to complete the rest of the spreadsheet.