Excel Stuff
Helping you to Excel
Telephone (01371) 870749
or Contact me
Soft Stuff: Training
Traditional Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced courses
Beyond Advanced: Excel's newest and most powerful features
Day or half-day courses tailored to your requirements
Masterclasses on specific topics
Workshops on your own files
Drop-in surgeries and floorwalking
Other Stuff: Not just Excel!
All training now available online
using Zoom or Teams
Unlike many other programs, it actually matters that spreadsheets are high-quality reliable documents and provide a clear insight into your business. A badly designed or used spreadsheet may not just look unprofessional; it could show incorrect or misleading information and lead to unwise business decisions. In view of this, it makes sense to ensure that every single person using a spreadsheet in an organisation has a solid understanding of basic spreadsheet and formula structure, even if they are only entering data, so as to minimise confusion and avoid errors. As users become more proficient, they can use functions to carry out complex calculations and manipulate data in order to present the required information in tables, charts or Pivot Tables. Once they have mastered these, they can move on to writing code in VBA or crunching data with Excel's Power Tools.
I am a DBS-certified trainer with a wealth of experience at all levels. I offer high quality training in Excel to individuals and groups, with much more flexibility than is possible on conventional courses. I am based in north-west Essex, so am happy to commute to central London, or drive to locations in Essex, Hertfordshire, and occasionally further afield.
These are just some of the sectors I have worked in:
- Local small businesses
- Insurance and reinsurance
- Publishing
- Banking and finance
- NHS and private health and medical
- Travel and tourism, theatre and events
- Military sites
- Solicitors and legal services providers
- Training organisations
- Government departments
- Church and religious organisations
- Housing associations
- Accountancy firms
- Manufacturing and packaging
I usually base my training on the topics below, which can take users from beginner through to advanced level. Although I have arranged them by level, there will normally be considerable overlap and you can of course "mix and match" them to suit your requirements (within reason) or choose specific topics for a quick tutorial. The list is not fully comprehensive; if there is something you would find useful that I have not included, just ask! I am always happy to adapt courses to your needs: I am not bound by outdated outlines or exam requirements, and in any case I always tailor my delivery to suit the ability and interest of my course participants on the day.
Introductory
The Excel environment
Simple arithmetic formulae and AutoSum
Formatting text, numbers, cells, columns and rows
Move, copy, paste and AutoFill
Working with rows, columns, cells and ranges
Simple sorting and filtering
Using relative and absolute cell references in formulae
Navigating large workbooks
Creating simple line, pie and column charts
Page setup and printing
Intermediate
Creating and using a wide range of Excel functions
(this component is extremely flexible!)
Using partially fixed references in formulae
Worksheet auditing
Filtering and sorting in depth
Working with Excel Tables
Conditional formatting
Data validation
Advanced chart options
Basic Pivot Tables and Pivot Charts
Advanced
Many Intermediate topics are explored in more depth.
In addition, there may be modules on some or all of:
Advanced Pivot Table tools and techniques
Exporting and importing data
"What If" analysis tools
Scenarios, Goal Seek
One-click forecasting
Consolidating data
First steps in data cleansing
Recording and editing macros
Hot Stuff: Power Tools
During my own lockdown, I have been developing material on some of the newer or more powerful features in Excel and am now able to offer training on these. This is my "Beyond Advanced" group of modules. These are the main topics: some of course are much larger and more complex than others and may need to be broken down into multiple sessions.
Contact me if you would like to explore these new features.
Beyond Advanced
Excel Array formulae and the NEW Dynamic Arrays *
NEW! Say goodby to VLOOKUP? The new XLOOKUP function is here! *
NEW! Declaring variables using the LET function *
NEW! Create your own user-defined functions using the LAMBDA function **
* These new features are currently only available with Excel 365 or Excel on the web
**This function is not yet generally available in any version
Geography and Stock data types (and now "roll-your-own" data types!)
Creating Dashboards with Pivot Tables and Pivot Charts
Using Power Query/Get and Transform and the M language
Programming Excel with Visual Basic for Applications (VBA)
Using the Data Model for Pivot Tables, Power Pivot and Power BI
Working with DAX formulae
Other Stuff: Non-Excel Training
Having trained Microsoft Office products for many years, I am also available for training in other Microsoft applications - not just Excel. Contact me if you would like to discuss other requirements, such as Word or PowerPoint, sharing information between the different applications, or updating your equipment and migrating to new versions.
