ADVANCED EXCEL SKILLS

Now a days, many jobs require advanced Excel skills. Naturally, you are interested to know what are theseAdvanced Excel Skills?Based on my experience of training more than 3,000 students in various online & physical training programs, the following 9 areas form the core of advanced Excel skills.

ADVANCED FORMULAS

Formulas make Excel smart. With out them, Excel is just a data keeping tool. But by using formulas, you can crunch data, analyze it and get answers to most complex questions. While anyone can use a simple SUM or IF formula, an advanced user of it would be able to seamlessly write & combine formulas like SUMIFS, SUMPRODUCT, INDEX, MATCH, LOOKUP formulas. Apart from knowing the formulas, advanced Excel users know how to debug them, audit them and how to use which formula for which occasion (and they also know few alternatives for any given formula problem).

TABLES & FORMATTING

Advanced Excel users know how to structure & present their data so that it looks impressive. Good understanding of Excel features like tables, cell styles, formatting options is necessary to make awesome Excel workbooks.

CONDITIONAL FORMATTING

Conditional formatting is a powerful feature in Excel that is often underutilized. By using conditional formatting, you can tell Excel to highlight portions of your data that meet any given condition. For example: highlighting top 10 customers, below average performing employees etc. While anyone can set up simple conditional formatting rules, an advanced Excel user can do a lot more. They can combine formulas with conditional formatting to highlight data that meets almost any condition.

PIVOT TABLES & PIVOT REPORTING

Pivot tables & pivot reporting allows us to analyze massive amounts of data & answer questions with just a few clicks. Advanced users of Excel are very familiar with various features of Pivot tables & can use them really well. Some of the advanced pivot table features are – grouping, slicers, calculations & summary by different type of metrics.

ADVANCED CHARTING

There is no use if all your analysis is buried in a massive spreadsheet. Advanced users of Excel know that by using charts, we can communicate effectively and present results in a stunning manner. The skills required for advanced charting are,

1. Knowing how to pick right type of chart for any situation
2. Ability to combine various charts in to one
3. Use features like in-cell charts & conditional formatting charts
4. Ability to set up dynamic & interactive charts
5. Use sparklines