Essential Excel Tools, Tips &

TricksNicole Soer

Loras College

Why

Example 1 (demographic)

Example 2 (financial)

Quick Bar

Find a quick average, count or sum of selected cells. Also find maximum and minimum.

Printing Column Headings on Each

Page

Page Layout tab > Print Titles button

Tables

Tables provide a quick way to look at certain attributes like 90 or more credits…

Tables

Students registered as graduate students…

Tables

Students who are NOT graduate students but ARE registered for less than 12 credits…

Pivot Tables• Tool with reporting functionality that helps

summarize and analyze data

Pivot Tables

Tool that helps dynamically summarize and analyze large amounts of data

Pivot Tables

Pivot tables are a powerful tool that gives important information about our data like…

Pivot Tables

Cohort counts and outliers

Pivot Tables

Breakdown cohort by state

Pivot Tables

Detail in on 09/FA cohort who have SR status and are from MN

Pivot Tables

Determine sum and total average of student loan amounts and count of students

Duplicate Entries

Excel can color code duplicate entries with Conditional Formatting.

Custom Sorts

Home tab > Sort & Filter > Custom SortSort by cell color

Custom Sorts

Sort by multiple fields

Removing Duplicates

Take care with this!Data tab > Remove Duplicates

Function Basics

To use functions, you must have = sign, the function (SUM in this case) and the arguments (F2:L2)

Function Basics

To enter a function, type it in the cell…

Function Basics

or click the fx button to use the wizard

Filling in Functions

Click and drag OR double click the box in the corner of the cell.

Absolute vs. Relative Cell References

Absolute: the cell address stays same when fillingRelative: the cell address changes when filling

VLOOKUPLooks up a set of data from another spreadsheet• Grade book

o 90 – 100 = Ao 80-89 = B

• Financial Aid Calculatoro GPA 3.5 – 4.0 = 20,000o GPA 3.3 – 3.49 = 15,000

• ID look upo Combine information from demographic sheet to financial sheet

VLOOKUP

VLOOKUP

IF• Usually compares 2 things• If something is true, do a calculation or show text• If it’s not, do this calculation or show text

CONCATENATE

Combine cells, text or numbers