Microsoft Excel Intensive I: Workshop Outline
Duration: 1 Day
Level: Beginner
Format: Resident Human Online with Hands-on Workshop
Event Schedule
Topic 1: Excel Fundamentals & Data Entry
Break
Topic 2: Formulas & Basic Functions
Break
Topic 3: Data Organization & Formatting
Wrap-up & Next Steps
Event Description
Transform your productivity and career prospects with Microsoft Excel Intensive I, a comprehensive beginner-friendly workshop designed to take you from Excel novice to confident user in just one day. This 5-hour intensive hands-on session is perfect for professionals, students, small business owners, and anyone looking to master the world’s most essential spreadsheet tool used by over 750 million people worldwide. Through practical exercises and real-world business scenarios, you’ll learn how to organize data efficiently, perform calculations automatically, create professional-looking reports, and unlock Excel’s powerful features that save hours of manual work every week.
This Excel workshop covers foundational skills that employers expect from every professional, including navigating the Excel interface, entering and editing data efficiently, creating formulas with cell references, using essential functions like SUM, AVERAGE, COUNT, and IF statements, applying professional formatting to make data readable and impactful, and organizing information with sorting and filtering tools. You’ll work with realistic datasets including budgets, sales reports, inventory lists, and schedules, learning keyboard shortcuts and best practices that experienced Excel users rely on daily. Each module builds on previous concepts, ensuring you develop a solid understanding of how Excel works and how to apply it to solve common business problems.
Whether you’re looking to advance in your current role, prepare for a new career opportunity, manage personal finances more effectively, or simply stop feeling intimidated by spreadsheets, Excel Intensive I provides the essential foundation you need to use Excel with confidence. By the end of this workshop, you’ll have created several professional worksheets and gained practical skills you can immediately apply in your work or personal projects. All participants receive practice workbooks, formula reference guides, keyboard shortcut cheat sheets, and access to resources for continued learning and skill development.
Topic Areas
Topic 1: Excel Fundamentals & Data Entry
Learn to navigate the Excel interface including ribbons, worksheets, and workbooks, understand the grid structure of rows and columns, and master efficient data entry techniques that save time and reduce errors. You’ll discover how to select cells and ranges using mouse and keyboard shortcuts, use AutoFill to quickly populate data series and patterns, understand different data types including text, numbers, and dates, and employ basic editing functions like cut, copy, paste, and undo. This session covers essential skills like creating new workbooks, saving files in different formats, managing multiple worksheets within a workbook, and using Excel’s AutoCorrect and AutoComplete features to work more efficiently and accurately.
Topic 2: Formulas & Basic Functions
Master the foundation of Excel’s calculation power by learning to write formulas using mathematical operators, cell references, and ranges to automate calculations and analysis. You’ll understand the difference between relative and absolute cell references using the $ symbol, create formulas that automatically update when data changes, and use essential built-in functions including SUM, AVERAGE, MIN, MAX, COUNT, and COUNTA for statistical analysis. This session covers logical functions like IF statements to make decisions based on data conditions, text functions like CONCATENATE and TRIM, date functions for working with time-based information, and best practices for formula construction including proper syntax, troubleshooting common errors like #DIV/0! and #VALUE!, and using the formula bar effectively to build and edit complex calculations.
Topic 3: Data Organization & Formatting
Discover how to transform raw data into professional, easy-to-read reports using Excel’s powerful formatting and organization tools that make information accessible and visually appealing. You’ll learn to apply number formatting for currency, percentages, and custom formats, use font styles, colors, and cell borders to highlight important information, merge cells for headers and titles, and adjust column widths and row heights for optimal display. This session covers sorting data alphabetically or numerically in ascending or descending order, filtering data to display only records meeting specific criteria, using conditional formatting to automatically highlight cells based on values or rules, creating and formatting tables with banded rows for improved readability, and applying cell styles and themes for consistent, professional appearance across your worksheets and workbooks.
