Microsoft Excel. A Handbook of Tips & Tricks. Geoffrey Learmonth Certified Microsoft Office Specialist Master

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1 Microsoft Excel A Handbook of Tips & Tricks Geoffrey Learmonth Certified Microsoft Office Specialist Master

2 What Is Microsoft Excel? The most common business spreadsheet software developed by Microsoft Features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, macro coding, and various add-ons for increased flexibility Used primarily by accounting and finance departments, and with greater use among datasavvy HR, Sales and Administrative Managers 2

3 Getting Around Microsoft Excel has seven tabs, with numerous functions and tools contained in each Home Insert Page Layout Formulas Data Review View 3

4 Functions While data analysis capabilities are near endless for the right user, Excel s workhorse is its library of functions, categorized into four areas: Information Functions Lookup & Reference Functions Logical Functions Analyzing & Filtering Functions 4

5 Types of Functions While there are literally hundreds of functions inside Microsoft Excel, being a power user only requires knowledge of about 15. Information PROPER: capitalize first letter of text FIND: find location of specific characters in a string of text MID: pull out a string of text starting from a particular position LEFT & RIGHT: pull out a string of text starting from either the right or the left CONCATENATE: join two or more text strings together Lookup & Reference VLOOKUP: looks up a piece of data in one column of a table and returns a specified corresponding column INDEX & MATCH: similar to VLOOKUP but is not reliant on the location of the column that is being looked up 5

6 Types of Functions (2) Power users of Excel know functions and do not rely as much on Pivot Tables. Truly customized solutions cannot be achieved with Excel s built-in templates. Logical IF: the user sets the conditional statement and chooses what the cell returns if it is true or false OR: the user sets two or more conditional statements and chooses what the cell returns if one or more is true AND: the other sets two or more conditional statements and chooses what the cell returns if all are true IFERROR: used to clean up cells displaying an error and provide a cleaner, more professional look to end users Analyzing & Filtering COUNTIFS: counts all cells in a range that meet one or more criteria SUMIFS: sums all cells in a range that meet one or more criteria AVERAGEIFS: averages all cells in a range that meet one or more criteria RANK: ranks cells in a column in ascending or descending order 6

7 Information Functions Rearrange data: Many programs don t speak clearly with Excel, and requires the user to re-arrange data first before they can perform analysis Often times, users who are uncomfortable with Excel will rely on manual processes which are not only time consuming, but prone to errors Example: You are asked to create labels for employee letters but your HRIS gives you employee names in First Name, Last Name format in all capital letters. You need it in Last Name, First Name format. How would you handle this task? 7

8 Information Functions Example With just a few simple steps culminating into one function, you can automate this task and save it as a template for future uses. STEPS HRIS FIELD FUNCTION CELL DOWNLOAD REPORT EXTRACT FIRST NAME EXTRACT LAST NAME JOIN NAMES WITH COMMA CAPITALIZE FIRST LETTERS ROBERT CUSHNIR N/A A2 ROBERT CUSHNIR CUSHNIR, ROBERT =LEFT(A2,FIND(,A2,1)-1) =MID(M12,FIND(" ",M12,1)+1,100) =CONCATENATE(C2,,,B2) Cushnir, Robert =PROPER(D2) E2 B2 C2 D2 8

9 Lookup & Reference Functions VLOOKUP is perhaps the most common and useful function in Excel It allows you to cross reference different data lists, or tables, so long as you are looking up the same unique value in each table INDEX & MATCH, however, is preferred by Power Users as it has more flexibility, is easier to audit and is easier to copy over across worksheets Example: You have two lists: one has a list of Employee ID s and the other has Employee Compensation Information. You want to add an Employee s Salary to the Personal Information list. How would you handle this task? 9

10 Lookup & Reference Functions Example VLOOKUP and INDEX & MATCH can both accomplish this. Before learning INDEX & MATCH, get a foundation for how VLOOKUP works first CELL ID SALARY FUNCTION A $60,000 Employee ID s Employee Compensation =VLOOKUP(A2, EMPLOYEE COMPENSATION'!A:B,2,0) CELL ID SALARY TARGET BONUS A $60,000 5% 10

11 Logical Functions Logical functions answer questions and can help slim down otherwise large and overwhelming data sets Logical functions are quite useful when you need to categorize and summarize your data, and wish to present it in a meaningful way IF, OR, AND are the most common logical functions, while IFERROR is used to clean up cells that return errors Example: Your company sells five products and you are analyzing annual sales versus last year. You want to categorize each product into two main categories: Better or Worse than last year How would you handle this task? 11

12 Logical Functions Example (1) Product Result Function Toothpaste $125,000 $138,000 Worse =IF(B2>C2, Better, Worse ) A simple IF statement will suffice in this example If sales are greater than last year, return Better, if not, then return Worse Toothbrushes $274,000 $225,000 Better Dental Floss $87,000 $51,000 Better Mouthwash $68,000 $78,000 Worse Fluoride Rinse $47,000 $19,000 Better =IF(B3>C3 Better, Worse ) =IF(B4>C4, Better, Worse ) =IF(B5>C5, Better, Worse ) =IF(B6>C7, Better, Worse ) 12

13 Product 2018 (S) 2017 (S) 2018 (GM) 2017 (GM) Result Function Logical Functions Example (2) Toothpaste $125,000 $138,000 68% 66% FALSE =AND(B2>C2,D2>E2) Toothbrushes $274,000 $225,000 72% 69% TRUE =AND(B3>C3,D3>E3) Dental Floss $87,000 $51,000 81% 83% FALSE =AND(B4>C4,D4>E4) Mouthwash $68,000 $78,000 58% 61% FALSE =AND(B5>C5,D5>E5) Fluoride Rinse $47,000 $19,000 67% 60% TRUE =AND(B6>C6,D6>E6) In this example, we create categories using the AND function In the first table, if both Sales and Gross Margin are greater than last year, return TRUE, if not, return FALSE In the second table, if either Sales or Gross Margin are greater than last year, return TRUE, if not, return FALSE ) Product 2018 (S) 2017 (S) 2018 (GM) 2017 (GM) Result Function Toothpaste $125,000 $138,000 68% 66% TRUE =OR(B2>C2,D2>E2) Toothbrushes $274,000 $225,000 72% 69% TRUE Dental Floss $87,000 $51,000 81% 83% TRUE Mouthwash $68,000 $78,000 58% 61% FALSE Fluoride Rinse $47,000 $19,000 67% 60% TRUE =OR(B3>C3,D3>E3) =OR(B4>C4,D4>E4) =OR(B5>C5,D5>E5) =OR(B6>C6,D6>E6) 13

14 Analyzing & Filtering Functions COUNTIFS, SUMIFS, and AVERAGEIFS are three functions every analyst should know Each criteria can be viewed as a filter on a table, allowing you to create and highlight key statistics without having to create and filter tables Each function has almost identical syntax, so learning them all at once is very easy Example: You have just finished calculating employee bonuses and want to see how many employees in the Finance department earned bonuses of more than $5,000 and the total of all of these bonuses in the Finance department. In addition, you also want to report on the average bonus for employees with a salary greater than $50,000. How would you handle this task? 14

15 Analyzing & Filtering Example ID Department Salary Bonus Finance $57,000 $6, HR $68,000 $8, Finance $42,000 $3, Finance $88,000 $6,200 If you re looking for assistance in creating these statistics, put an auto-filter on a table and filter until you get to your desired result Each thing you filter on is a criterion, and can be represented in these three functions You can now create your own statistics worksheet which feeds from a report you normally download Marketing $60,000 $5,800 Statistic Result Function # Finance Employees With Bonus > $5,000 Total Bonuses For All Finance Department Average Bonus For Salaries > $50,000 4 $15,900 $6,625 =COUNTIFS($D$2:$D$6,">="& 5000) =SUMIFS($D$2:$D$6,$B$2:$B$6,"Finance") =AVERAGEIFS($D$2:$D$6,$C$2: $C$6,">"&50000) 15

16 Helpful Add-ins Some of my favourite add-ins Excel offers are: 1. Analysis ToolPak great for performing statistical analysis 2. Solver maximizing or minimizing a certain statistic in a model with constraints 3. RDB Merge combining multiple worksheets with the same layout 4. Quotes retrieve delayed stock market quotes from Microsoft Money 16

17 THANK YOU! Geoffrey Learmonth