The purpose of this guide is to provide students with strategies and resources for learning Excel outside of formal training or instruction.
Use this guide if you:
This guide will explore six different approaches to learning Excel independently:
IMI students new to Excel have sometimes asked FLC staff for advice on how to structure or focus their efforts to learn Excel.
While the obvious answer is 'learn what the task/assignment/job requires', we thought it might be useful to share what one former Department of Management student identified as the core Excel functions and features that all business students should be familiar with:
| SUM | CONCATENATE |
| AVERAGE | IFERROR |
| IF | SUBSTITUTE |
| VLOOKUP | SUMPRODUCT |
| HLOOKUP | Pivot tables |
| STDEV | Trend forecasting, e.g. TREND, FORECAST |
| Percentile Rank | Freezing cells |
| COUNT | Charts & graphs |
| COUNTA | Information functions |
| LEN | Data validation, e.g. drop-down lists |
| TRIM | Filtering data |
| LEFT, MID, RIGHT | Net present value, e.g. XNPV |
| SUMIF, COUNTIF, AVERAGEIF | Shortcuts |
