Introduction to Excel

16 hours of instruction

Using their own licensed version of Excel, learners will discover why this tool is one of the most-used by professionals and analysts in today’s workplace. After an introduction to Excel’s basic features, learners will, clean, explore, and manipulate data. By the end of this program, students will be able to outline use cases for Excel, wrangle data, and build static and interactive data visualizations.

OBJECTIVES

1. Describe use cases for Excel
2. Import and manipulate data in Excel
3. Build data visualizations
4. Implement best practices for data cleaning

PREREQUISITES

No background in math or data analysis is required, but we recommend that students have some familiarity with Excel.

SYLLABUS & TOPICS COVERED

1. Excel Feature Overview
   • Understanding Microsoft Excel’s core features and limits
   • Performing basic calculations
   • Working with data tables
2. Cleaning a dataset
   • Using basic functions to check for missing values
   • Identifying and handling NAs
   • Manipulating text data
3. Wrangling a dataset
   • Formatting different types of data
   • Aggregating data and basic table lookups
   • Testing for conditions
   • Using table lookup functions
4. Merging and visualizing tabular data
   • Calculating summary statistics
   • Merging data using table lookup functions
   • Auditing formulas and fixing errors
   • Creating simple pivot tables
5. Introduction to data visualization
   • Understanding the importance of visualization
   • Creating a complex pivot table with conditional formatting
   • Using PivotCharts and interactive elements for visualization
   • Creating univariate plots: histograms and box plots
6. Advanced visualizations in Excel
   • Visualizing data for comparison
   • Creating line charts and area charts
   • Using advanced conditional formatting for tabular data
   • Embedding sparklines
7. Dashboarding in Excel
   • Assembing a data dashboard
   • Best practices for data visualization
   • Introducing the dashboard workshop

SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS

• Data dashboard workshop
• Learners must provide their own version of Excel (at least 2016).