Microsoft Excel Intensive II: Workshop Outline
Duration: 1 Day
Level: Intermediate (Requires Microsoft Excel Intensive I or equivalent experience)
Format: Resident Human Online with Hands-on Workshop
Event Schedule
Topic 1: Advanced Functions & Lookup Formulas
Break
Topic 2: Data Analysis & PivotTables
Break
Topic 3: Charts, Visualizations & Data Validation
Wrap-up & Next Steps
Event Description
Elevate your Excel expertise with Microsoft Excel Intensive II, an intermediate workshop designed for graduates of Excel Intensive I or professionals with foundational Excel experience who want to unlock advanced analytical capabilities. This 5-hour intensive session takes you beyond basic formulas and formatting to explore powerful data analysis tools including VLOOKUP and XLOOKUP functions, PivotTables for summarizing large datasets, advanced logical formulas with nested IF statements, and professional data visualizations that turn numbers into actionable insights. Through hands-on business scenarios and real-world datasets, you’ll learn the advanced techniques that data analysts, financial professionals, and business managers use daily to make informed decisions and create executive-ready reports.
This intermediate Excel workshop focuses on skills that dramatically increase productivity and analytical capability, including lookup functions that connect data across multiple tables, text manipulation functions for cleaning and standardizing data, date and time calculations for project management and scheduling, creating dynamic PivotTables that summarize thousands of rows instantly, building interactive dashboards with slicers and timelines, and designing impactful charts and graphs that communicate trends and patterns effectively. You’ll work with complex datasets including sales transactions, customer databases, financial statements, and inventory records, learning to extract meaningful insights, identify patterns, and present findings in clear, compelling formats that influence business decisions.
Whether you’re advancing toward a role in data analysis, financial planning, business intelligence, or project management, Excel Intensive II provides the critical intermediate skills that distinguish power users from basic spreadsheet operators. This workshop transforms you into a go-to Excel resource in your organization, capable of solving complex data problems, automating repetitive analysis tasks, and creating professional reports that impress stakeholders and executives. All participants receive comprehensive practice workbooks, function reference guides, PivotTable templates, chart design examples, and curated resources for continued skill development and professional certification preparation.
Topic Areas
Topic 1: Advanced Functions & Lookup Formulas
Master powerful lookup and reference functions including VLOOKUP, HLOOKUP, INDEX, MATCH, and the modern XLOOKUP to retrieve data from tables and connect information across multiple worksheets and workbooks. You’ll learn to use nested IF statements with AND/OR logic for complex decision-making, combine multiple functions to solve sophisticated problems, use IFERROR and IFNA to handle errors gracefully in your formulas, and apply text functions like LEFT, RIGHT, MID, CONCATENATE, and TEXTJOIN to manipulate and clean data. This session covers advanced techniques including using SUMIF, SUMIFS, COUNTIF, and COUNTIFS for conditional calculations, working with date functions like DATEDIF, NETWORKDAYS, and EOMONTH for business calculations, and creating dynamic formulas that adapt automatically when data ranges change, enabling you to build robust, maintainable spreadsheets for complex business analysis.
Topic 2: Data Analysis & PivotTables
Discover Excel’s most powerful data analysis tool by learning to create, customize, and manipulate PivotTables that summarize thousands of rows of data in seconds and reveal insights hidden in raw information. You’ll learn to drag and drop fields to reorganize data perspectives, group data by dates, categories, or numeric ranges, create calculated fields and items for custom metrics, and use PivotTable filters and slicers for interactive data exploration. This session covers essential analysis techniques including cross-tabulation for comparing multiple variables, building hierarchical summaries with row and column groupings, using different summary functions beyond simple sums like average, count, and percentage calculations, refreshing PivotTables when source data changes, and creating multiple PivotTables from the same data source to analyze information from different perspectives for comprehensive business intelligence and reporting.
Topic 3: Charts, Visualizations & Data Validation
Learn to transform data into compelling visual stories by creating professional charts and graphs including column, bar, line, pie, scatter, and combination charts that highlight trends, comparisons, and distributions effectively. You’ll master chart customization including formatting axes and labels, adding data labels and trendlines, using dual-axis charts for comparing different scales, creating dynamic chart titles that update automatically, and selecting the right chart type for your data and message. This session also covers implementing data validation rules to control user input and prevent errors, creating dropdown lists for standardized data entry, setting numeric ranges and date constraints, displaying custom input messages and error alerts, and using conditional formatting rules to create heat maps, progress indicators, and highlight exceptions automatically, ensuring data integrity and creating interactive spreadsheets that guide users to enter accurate, consistent information.
