OST-ITC8109 - Introduction to Microsoft Excel 2016

Course Description

Learn to quickly and efficiently use Microsoft Excel 2016 and discover dozens of shortcuts and tricks for setting up fully formatted worksheets. This course, taught by an experience Microsoft Excel instructor, provides in-depth knowledge for beginners that will have you using Excel like a pro.

Course Outline

1. Lesson 01 - Excel Basics
   • This lesson will help you develop a solid understanding of the Excel interface. You will become fluent in the secret language spoken only by Excel users and discover the best way to correct any mistake you made in Excel.
2. Lesson 02 - Creating a Worksheet
   • In this lesson, you will learn five simple steps you should always follow to ensure that your worksheets are always well-planned, well-constructed, and beautifully-formatted.
3. Lesson 03 - Time-Savers
   • This lesson will teach you the tricks of the Excel masters: a wide variety of useful shortcuts guaranteed to save you time, energy, and frustration. You will also spend some time working with the Quick Analysis and Flash Fill tools, introduced in Excel 2016.
4. Lesson 04 - Relative, Absolute, Mixed, and Circular References
   • Do you know the difference between a relative reference, an absolute reference, a mixed reference, and a circular reference? You will after this lesson. This lesson focuses on writing formulas that can help ease through some rather sticky scenarios.
5. Lesson 05 - Three Dimensional Workbooks
   • With enough practice, most Excel users quickly become adept at organizing their worksheets across two dimensions: rows and columns. But only a select few will learn how to take their worksheets into the third dimension.
6. Lesson 06 - Sorting, Subtotaling, and Filtering
   • No Excel course would be complete without a lesson on Excel's data-crunching capabilities. In this lesson, you will not only learn how to build a database in Excel, but how to subtotal, sort, and filter.
7. Lesson 07 - Charting Basics
   • This lesson introduces the various charts available in Excel. You will build your first graph in this lesson, and you will learn how easy it is to adjust the chart type, labels, titles, colors, and many other aspects of your chart.
8. Lesson 08 - Advanced Charting Techniques
   • This lesson explores everything from bar charts and line charts to more prosaic graphs like the pie chart, the bubble chart, and 3D charts. You will find out how to personalize your charts and discover the best ways to print or otherwise display the truly impressive charts that you will be creating.
9. Lesson 09 - Intro to Excel's Statistical Functions
   • Excel includes many powerful functions that can automatically perform complicated tasks for you. This lesson introduces helpful ways to put these functions to work. You will find out how to ask Excel to magically derive averages, modes, maximums, minimums, and other useful statistics.
10. Lesson 10 - Financial Functions
    • This lesson provides an in-depth look at Excel's financial functions. By the time this lesson is over, you will be able to figure out how much money you will have when you retire, when your kids reach college, or just before your next vacation.
11. Lesson 11 - Worksheet Automation
    • This lesson introduces automation. You will discover how to move your most frequently used commands from their present locations to a much more convenient place: the toolbar. You will also learn how macros can be used to reduce just about any complex task to a single keystroke.
12. Lesson 12 - Mastering Excel's IF Function
    • In your final lesson, you will learn how to teach Excel to make and act on certain decisions. You will learn how to utilize a function that allows Excel to make comparisons and use that comparison as the basis for important decisions.

Notes

This is an asynchronous online course offered through the third party vendor ed2go. This course must be taken on a PC. It is not suitable for Macs. The instructional materials required for this course are included in enrollment and will be available online. There are twelve lessons in the course, and two lessons are released each week on Wednesdays and Fridays. You do not have to be present when lessons are released. You will have access to all lessons until the course ends. However, the interactive discussion area that accompanies each lesson will automatically close two weeks after the lesson is released. As such, we strongly recommend that you complete each lesson within two weeks of its release. The final exam will be released on the same day as the last lesson. Once the final exam has been released, you will have two weeks to complete all of your course work, including the final exam.