Have you ever tried to figure out what day of the week a specific date occurred on? The Excel WEEKDAY function will make it an easy task. The WEEKDAY function will return a number that corresponds to a specific day of the week.
When Would I Use the WEEKDAY Function
Having the ability to group information based on the day of the week can be very useful when trying to determine workload or forecasting transaction volume. Maybe for a support organization, you may want to see the number of calls you get on Monday versus Friday to help with proper staffing. Possible when looking at timecards you may want to see if there are certain days that have higher time off or non-billable time compared to other days. Similarly, in either example, the Excel WEEKDAY function could be used to group several months worth of data into 7 buckets based on the day of the week. In addition, you may also want to use the function as part of a larger equation to group data by week to see larger trends over time.
What does WEEKDAY actually do
=WEEKDAY(serial_number,[return_type])The Excel WEEKDAY functions simply assign a number from 0-7 to each day of the week. A value from 0-7 is returned for the date or serial number that is input. July 11, 2019, was on a Thursday. By default, the WEEKDAY function would return “5” because Thursday is the 5 day of the week.
Serial_number
Serial_number is the date value that you are looking to evaluate. Above all, make sure that the value is formatted or appears as a date in the cell.
PRO TIP – To learn more about working with dates in Excel check out Working with Dates in Excel Formulas
Return_type
The Return_type in the Excel WEEKDAY function is an optional parameter. Return_type determines the day of the week to start counting from. Return_type =1 is the default if left blank. So the first day of the week will be Sunday. The chart below shows the expected value for each weekday based on the Return_type set.
The Return_type option may feel like overkill when getting started with the WEEKDAY function. However, when your workweek or pay period doesn’t start on a Sunday it can become very useful.
Closing Thoughts on Excel WEEKDAY
Excel Weekday from a date fields is typically something I use as part of a larger function. More specifically it is helpful to group large data sets and create reports.
PRO TIP: If goal is to see the just the day name (ie. Monday or Mon) try using the =TEXT(Date field, “dddd”) or =TEXT(Date field, “ddd”). This fucntion will retrun the day name.