Advanced Excel Techniques for Improved Productivity

Hidden Excel Tools You NEED to Master 🤓 Excel keeps surprising me... and these hidden tools might just blow your mind 👇 ➡️ POWER QUERY (GET & TRANSFORM) If you work with data, this tool will change your LIFE. Seriously... Power Query is THE most powerful feature in Excel, and most people don't even know it exists! No more spending hours cleaning data. No more manual updates. No more repetitive tasks. Just clean data at the click of a button. Want to know what makes it amazing? - It handles ANY data source you throw at it - Creates processes you can use again & again - Cleans messy data AUTOMATICALLY - Updates everything with ONE click ➡️ PIVOT TABLE SLICERS & TIMELINES Static pivot tables are so 2010... Time to make your data DANCE 💃 These tools turn boring reports into interactive dashboards that'll make your stakeholders say WOW. The magic happens when you: - Add visual filters across multiple pivot tables - Drop in timeline slicers for date analysis - Build dashboards that look like they took days (but really took minutes) - Give your team the power to slice & dice data their way ➡️ FLASH FILL (CTRL + E) This might be Excel's best-kept secret... No formulas. No functions. Just pure MAGIC. Flash Fill watches what you do and copies the pattern instantly. That's it! Perfect when you need to: - Split full names into first/last - Format dates your way - Pull out specific pieces of text ➡️ CONDITIONAL FORMATTING RULES MANAGER Want your spreadsheets to tell stories at first glance? This is where the magic happens... The Rules Manager is like having a design assistant right inside Excel: - Set up complex rules without the headache - Make your data pop visually - Keep all your rules organized - Create dashboards that update on their own ➡️ NAME MANAGER Ever looked at a formula and thought "what does this even mean??" Name Manager turns this: =SUM(Sheet1!$B$2:$B$1000) Into this: =SUM(MonthlyRevenue) Now THAT makes sense! ➡️ WATCH WINDOW Ever get lost jumping between sheets trying to track changes? The Watch Window is your new best friend. It's like having a second screen that shows you exactly what's happening to your key cells - no matter where you are in your workbook. ➡️ SCENARIO MANAGER Planning for different business scenarios used to be a PAIN. Not anymore... Now you can: - Compare different scenarios side by side - Create summary reports in seconds - Save multiple versions of your assumptions - Switch between scenarios like a pro ➡️ DATA VALIDATION Bad data = Bad decisions Data Validation is your spreadsheet's bouncer 🚫 It keeps the bad data out and only lets the good data in. You get: - Custom dropdowns that make data entry foolproof - Input restrictions that prevent mistakes - Formula rules that catch errors === I use these tools EVERY single day, and they've saved me more time than I can count. Which tool caught your eye? Drop a comment below and let me know which one you're trying first! 👇

Are you willing to invest 15 minutes to level up your Excel skills today? Check out this brand new video and learn how to solve real business cases using Excel's most powerful tools: Power Query, Power Pivot and DAX. In this demo, you'll play the role of a newly hired Data Analyst for Maven Electronics, a global electronics retailer. It’s 4:00pm on a Friday, and you just received an urgent email from your VP, asking you to build a brand new revenue report for regional sales managers. To make matters worse, the data is over the place – SQL servers, CSV files, even static PDFs – and she needs it first thing Monday morning. Yikes 😬 For the average Excel user, this type of task would typically involve hours of manual, tedious effort. But I'll show you how to solve it like a POWER USER, using the right tools for the job. Here's how we'll tackle this one: ↳ We’ll start by using Power Query to extract, transform, and load data from external sources like SQL databases, PDFs and CSV files ↳ Next we’ll use Excel's Data Model to create table relationships (without writing a single formula) ↳ From there we'll conduct a quick exploratory analysis using Power Pivot, and add some calculated measures with Data Analysis Expressions (DAX) ↳ Finally we’ll use Pivot Charts and slicers to design a quick interactive report that the sales team can use to analyze regional performance All in a matter of MINUTES 💪 Excel is an incredibly versatile and powerful business intelligence platform, yet <1% of users know how to leverage these tools (or that they even exist!). These skills not only allow you to work smarter and faster in Excel, but also help you build foundational database and ETL skills that can easily be applied to tools like SQL or Power BI. They literally transformed my entire career. Ready to dive in? Check out the video and download the project files here 👉 https://bit.ly/3V8AQlM

This is all it takes to create one, dozens, or hundreds of named Excel references in less than 5 seconds. Instead of constantly clicking back and forth across worksheets to grab reference cells with your mouse, you can create named cells and ranges automatically with a single command: 👉 Create From Selection Here’s how: • Build a data set • Include labels next to the values • Highlight the values and the labels • Go to the Formulas tab and click "Create from Selection" • Tell Excel where the labels are (top row, left column, etc.) • Click enter You can do this for product prices, exchange rates, dates, salesperson IDs, and more. This technique is especially helpful when you have lots of inputs scattered across a model. it's also great for capturing inputs by a descriptive name versus having to remember which cell has the values you want. This keeps your formulas clean, dynamic, and easy to audit later. Instead of typing Sheet1!E5, you can now just type =starting_revenue. Instead of typing Sheet1!E6, you can now just type =growth_rate. In this walkthrough, I demonstrate exactly how to do this and why it matters. But this technique isn't without its controversy... Having taught this to lots of FP&A teams and analysts, I sometimes get pushback because: 1. Names are confusing (are they though?) 2. Names cause issues when copying and moving worksheets 3. Excel trainers have said not to use names These aren't invalid reasons, but they can be easily addressed by using Ctrl + H to find/replace names once the model building process is done. Opposition to names also means that you're unlikely to benefit from remarkable functions such as LET. This function allows you to create robust multi-step calculations using named elements within the formula, not outside of it. This small trick in Excel is a big timesaver when building financial models. Quickly refer to vital cells and data sets with shortcuts in seconds.

I remember when I started my analytics career, I always felt I was too good for Excel. It’s funny that after several years in data, I was completely wrong. Excel continues to adapt and bring in new features that truly take your reporting to the next level. Enter: Dynamic Array Formulas These are functions that automatically “spill” results into adjacent cells. No dragging, no extra steps. Here are some examples of ones worth learning today: 1. FILTER() → returns only the data you need 2. UNIQUE() → instantly removes duplicates 3. SORT() / SORTBY() → orders data with zero manual effort 4. SEQUENCE() → builds custom number arrays in seconds Together, these functions let you: • Build dashboards that update automatically • Replace complex nested formulas • Clean up your files and reduce size If you haven’t explored them yet, now’s the time. Do you use these in your role? Have you started learning them?