Microsoft Excel - Basic & Advanced

GoSkills online course syllabus

Thursday, October 13, 2022

Skill level Lessons Accredited by

Beginner 57 CPD

Pre-requisites Versions supported Video duration

None 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019, 2021, 365 5h 21m

Estimated study time Instructor

26h for all materials Ken Puls

Getting to Know Excel

1 The Ribbon
Identify the terminology and elements of the Ribbon.

2 The Work Surface

Recognize the main terms used to describe Excel’s work canvas.

3 Navigation
Utilize the keyboard or mouse to select cells and ranges in a spreadsheet.

4 First File
Create your first Excel file, enter data and create a table.

5 Formatting
Format cells by selecting fonts and color fills to make information more attractive.

6 Basic Math
Utilize basic mathematics including multiplication and division in Excel.

Essential Formula Knowledge

7 Formula Anatomy
Understanding Excel Formula Anatomy
 Cell Referencing
8 Learn about working with absolute and relative cell referencing, and techniques for copying formulas.

9 Function Anatomy
Use to understand the anatomy of Excel functions, and what their components mean.

10 Math Functions
Learn basic math functions including SUM, ROUND and SUBTOTAL.

11 Basic Statistics
Learn basic statistical functions including COUNT, COUNTA, AVERAGE, MAX, MIN, MEDIAN and MODE.

12 Logic Functions
Learn to build standalone logical IF functions, and make them more complex by nesting AND and OR
within them.

13 Text Functions
Learn to break apart text with the LEFT, RIGHT, MID, FIND and SEARCH functions, and to combine text
with the & character.

14 Understanding Dates
Understand how dates work in Excel using the TODAY, YEAR, MONTH, DAY and DATE functions.

15 Understanding Time
Understand how time works in Excel, and how to change from whole numbers into time increments
and back again.

Intermediate Formula Knowledge

16 Formula Auditing
Learn to work with formula auditing tools including tracing precedent and dependent cells and formula
evaluation.

17 Conditional Math
Learn to use SUMIF and COUNTIF to add cells only when certain conditions are met.

18 External Links
Learn about creating and updating external links, and about the potential dangers of external links in
Excel.

19 Temporal Functions
Learn to work with the EOMONTH and EDATE functions that easily shift dates from one month or year
to another.
 VLOOKUP with Approximate Match
20 Learn to use VLOOKUP to find an approximate match and return it or the corresponding value from
another column.

21 VLOOKUP with Exact Match

Learn to use VLOOKUP to find an exact match and return it or the corresponding value from another
column.

22 Other Lookup Methods

Learn to work with INDEX, MATCH and HLOOKUP, as alternatives to the VLOOKUP function.

23 Introduction to XLOOKUP
An introduction to the new XLOOKUP function in Microsoft 365. Bye, bye VLOOKUP, HLOOKUP and
INDEX/MATCH!

Note: this lesson uses Excel Tables, which are introduced in the next section.

Optimizing Data

24 Sorting
Learn to sort data in Excel by a single column or by multiple columns.

25 Filtering
Learn to filter Excel data for specific words, dates, and apply multiple filters to a single data table.

26 Naming Ranges
Learn about creating named ranges, and the benefits of doing so.

27 Excel Tables
Learn about creating Excel tables, and their advantages.

28 Recording Macros
Learn to record basic Excel macros to automate your actions (instead of doing them manually).

Data Analysis

29 Creating PivotTables
Learn to create and modify basic PivotTables (for quickly summarizing and highlighting data).
 Formatting PivotTables
30 Learn to control formatting and other options in PivotTables.

31 Calculated Fields in PivotTables

Learn to create and modify basic calculated fields for PivotTables.

32 What-If Analysis
Learn to perform what-if analysis in Excel using the Scenario Manager and Goal-Seek.

Getting and Transforming Data

33 Unpivoting Data
If you work with PivotTables a lot, you know that they put information out the way users want to read it,
but you can't use it to drive another PivotTable. So what if there was an easy way to unpivot the data?
There is, and it's called Power Query!

34 Contiguous Data
Power Query is the best tool for consolidating your data so it's vertically contiguous (without blank rows
or other garbage) – for Tables, PivotTables and Charts.

35 Importing Data from a Text File

Importing data from a text file into an Excel table using Power Query.

36 Appending Tables
Appending tables is the process of stacking them vertically to create long tables that can be used to feed
business intelligence solutions and PivotTables.

Presenting and Reporting

37 Cell Formatting
Learn to work with the Format Cells dialog to apply text rotation and borders, and to center data across
multiple cells.

38 Outlining
Learn about adding and working with Excel’s outlining tools to quickly hide irrelevant sections of your
worksheet.

39 Custom Number Formats

Learn to build your own custom number formats to display dates, values and variances how you want
to see them.

40 Conditional Formats with Built-In Rules

Learn to create top/bottom and highlight cell rules, as well as to apply icon sets and data bars.
 Conditional Formats with Custom Rules
41 Learn to create custom conditional formatting rules based on formulas.

42 Building Column Charts

Learn how to create an effective column chart by reducing ink and 'noise' that distract from the main
messages.

43 Building Bar Charts

How to create an effective bar chart by reducing ink and noise that distract from the story.

44 Building Pie Charts

Learn how to build an effective pie chart, and when you should and shouldn’t use them.

45 Building Line Charts

How to create an effective line chart through careful manipulation of chart elements to enhance its
story telling ability.

46 Building Combination Line and Area Charts

When you want to graph 3 line series, but only want 2 in focus most of the time.

Validating and Updating

47 Data Validation
Learn how to use Data Validation to ensure that users enter valid data in input cells.

48 Data Validation Lists

Use to restrict users ability to enter invalid data in cells by providing them with a drop down list of valid
options.

49 Comments & Notes

Learn about creating, reviewing and printing Excel comments, as well as how comments are evolving in
Office 365.

50 Styles
Learn how to apply built-in number styles and create your own custom styles packages.

Advanced Formulas

51 Introduction to Dynamic Arrays

An introduction to the new Dynamic Arrays capability added to Microsoft 365.
 FILTER-ing Dynamic Arrays with a Single Condition
52 Using FILTER() to restrict the results of a Dynamic Array based on a single condition

53 FILTER-ing Dynamic Arrays with Multiple Conditions

Combining multiple conditions in a single FILTER() to restrict the results of a Dynamic Array

54 Wildcard XLOOKUPs and Dynamic Arrays

Advanced options for XLOOKUP including using wildcard matches and returing Dynamic Arrays as an
output

Preparing to Deploy

55 Custom Views
Learn how to create and manage Custom Views in a worksheet.

56 Page Setup Options

Learn about page setup options, fitting print jobs on a page, headers and footers, and other ways to
customize print jobs.

57 Security Considerations
Learn about the setup and weaknesses of Excel’s security systems.

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