Course: Excel Essentials
This course uses realistic business scenarios to show practical application for each technique. It is a comprehensive overview of the critical functions, applications and concepts necessary to proficiently use Excel.
Many people say they “know Excel” but after going through this course, you really will! The learning style includes on screen visual tips and directions to better accommodate visual learners. The audio style is casual and laidback to provide a little extra entertainment and humor.
I hope you enjoy my course!
Learn how to use the Concatenate function to combine text from multiple cells into a single cell. The Trim function is great for cleaning up extra characters in your data. The Proper, Upper and Lower functions will help you to adjust the case of your text. These functions are great for correcting data entry mistakes.
Understand the subtle differences between the Substitute and Replace functions. The Substitute function changes text based on the contents whereas the replace function changes text based on its location. This video helps you to understand when to use each function.
Learn how to use the Left, Right, Find and Len functions in Excel to extract different portions of text from one cell into another cell. These functions are great for manipulating data to get just the part you need.
The Vlookup function is a powerful business function used on a daily basis. The last portion of the function allows you to choose “Approximate” or “Exact.” Here, we learn how the Approximate version can be used when our data is in a range. For example, we want to look up a price based on the order size. Excel is able to look at a pricing table and return the correct price by approximating where in the list the value would fall. This function is used for numerical data when we have ranges.
The Vlookup function allows you to look up a value in the leftmost column of a table and return a value in the same row in the specified column. This function is extremely useful in business. The Exact arguments is used when you are looking up a specific name or exact text. It is most commonly used when you are looking up non-numerical data.
This video explores combining Index and Match functions to look up a value in a specified area. These functions are often combined and its a good idea to become familiar with how they work together.
This video addresses the issue of the column number changing in your Vlookup formula. Sometimes, you want to pull data from a different column and are forced to go into your Vlookup formula and change the column number – not fun. The Match function allows you to dynamically change the column number by referencing a specific input cell. So now, if you want a different column of data, you can just specify in an input cell and the formula will update for you.
The Vlookup function requires you to specify a table to look up the data. But what if your data is sometimes found in a different table? The Indirect function allows you to dynamically change the lookup table in an input cell. So instead of editing the Vlookup formula, you can now specify the table name in a separate cell and Excel will automatically look up the value in the correct table.
