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Excel Tips & Tricks -Beginner

Elizabeth Allen – SchoolDude Asset Team Lead – CSC

Using Data to Make Useful Information

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Total Work Orders by Craft

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Labor Hours by Location

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Learning Objectives

• Basics of Microsoft Excel

• Basic Tips and Tricks

• Basic Formulas

• Introduction to Pivot Tables

Basics of Microsoft Excel

• When you think of a spreadsheet, what immediately comes to mind?

• What are the different components of a spreadsheet

Basics of Microsoft Excel

Elements of a Spreadsheet

• Columns

• Rows

• Cells

• Worksheets

Basic Tips and Tricks

What are some basic formatting and techniques that can help you work more effectively with your data?

• Setup your sheet: Quickly resize column width or row height

• Text Wrapping: Allows text to fit in a preset column width

• Sorting: Arrange the report in alphabetical or numerical order

• Filtering: Temporarily remove unwanted fields from the report

• Backspace v. Delete: Use the backspace key to clear out contents, use delete to completely delete row or column

• Freezing Panes: Maintain the column or row headers while scrolling through report

• Find: Use CTRL + F to quickly find a specific word or phrase

• Cell Formatting: Display the data the way you would like

• Hiding Data: Hide data you don’t want to view

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Basic FormulasHow can you use formulas to help you effectively use your data?

You can use auto-formulas to quickly Sum, Average or Count a column or row

Introduction to PivotTables

• What is a PivotTable/PivotChart?These are data mining features that enable one to summarize and analyze large amount of data in lists and tables. PivotTables and PivotCharts can quickly be rearranged to show different groupings of data from one report.

• Why should I use PivotTables/PivotCharts?PivotTables and PivotCharts are easy options to help quickly organize large amounts of data into clear and concise charts. Having the ability to create powerful graphs with just a few clicks will save you time and help your data look organized and professional. Any report that you can run to Excel from a SchoolDude product can be used to generate a PivotTable or a PivotChart.

Introduction to PivotTables

• Highlight the data range• Click the Insert tab• Select the PivotTable button

• In the “Create PivotTable” window, keep the default options and Click OK

Introduction to PivotTables

• Excel will open up a new Sheet with the PivotTable Field list on the right side of the page.

• To start creating report views, select the fields you want to have included in your report.

• Let’s make a report that shows the average time to complete a work order by craft.

• Drag “Craft” into the Rows section, and “Days Aged” into the Values

Introduction to PivotTables

The Values section will default to “Count” the data, we want it to “Average” the data.

To change this:• Click on the dropdown

arrow• Click Value Field

Settings• Change the option to

Average and Click OK

Now your PivotTable will display the correct data.

Report Dimensions

Adding a field to the “Columns” section of the PivotTable Fields List allows you to add another dimension to this report. In this example, we now see the average days aged by Craft for each Employee

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Sorting Values• There are times when it is

helpful to sort your data alphabetically or numerically

• To sort a field, right click on one of the cells of data and put your mouse over Sort• If the data is numeric, you

can sort from smallest to largest or largest to smallest

• If the data is text, you can sort A-Z or Z-A

Filtering Values

• If you have a long list that makes the chart difficult to read, you can choose to show only the top 10 or only specific items

• Click on the box beside the Row Header to see what options you have• Checking or unchecking the

small boxes will tell the system which values to show

• Selecting Top 10 will allow you to show the top/bottom values depending on your selections.

Grouping• Grouping allows you to take a list of dates and group them together by month or year.

• Right click on the data you want to group and click Group

• Month will break the data down by month, but not separate years (use this if there is only data for the same year)

• Years will break down by month and year (use this if the data spans over two or more calendar years)

Excel Templates in the Community• Under the Resources Tab,

you’ll see links for each type of user group. Select ‘Maintenance Help’ for example

• Click into the Resources folder and explore those resources – Calculators under Maintenance Help will give you templates for common reports that users run.

• The links below will take you to the respective Resource pages:

Maintenance ResourcesFacility Use ResourcesEnergy ResourcesTechnology Resources

Additional Resources

• Come see us in the learning lab! We would love an opportunity to work one-on-one with you to run any reports!

• General Product/Report Questions and Training Requests – support@schooldude.com or support@facilitydude.com

• Custom Report Building Services – email requests into support!

One last thing…

• Dude University 2017!• April 30 – May 3, 2017• Raleigh Convention Center

• Class Survey within the App!

• Live poll from within the App!• To access both, use the University App and locate this

class.• To pull up the live poll, tap on my name under

Presenters.• To pull up the Survey, tap Post Session Survey on the

same screen.