Chart or in Excel From List of Timestamps

Question

I have a program that writes the currenct time to excel when a process is called, so I have an excel file with one column of over 5000 timestamps in HH(24):MM:SS format. I'm trying to visualize these over a 24 hour period in order to find a time where the process is least likely to occur. Can anyone get me started?

Thanks

Answer 1

Simply selecting the data in your column and Insert > Charts – Scatter, Scatter with only Markers might suit. The closer the markers to one another (or the shallower the slope) should indicate the process has been called often in a short time interval. ie the quieter periods are when the slope is steep.

If not a very helpful visualisation then maybe count the number of starts over intervals of fixed length (create ‘bins’) and plot a histogram. “a time where the process is least likely to occur” implies that not only start time but duration may be relevant. In which case an an interval of approximately the average duration may be useful.