How Excel is Used in Real-World Data Analysis .

ASHLEY KALONDU — Sun, 07 Jun 2026 12:00:31 +0000

I have used excel for years but in the basic way possible, just the usual enter data and do basic aggregations. What I know is there is a very big world out there on how excel is used, seemed far-fetched to me because I did not get to work on large data sets.
This week, I started getting deeper into excel and for the first team I received a disorganized data and knew how to locate duplicates.
A brief introduction to what Excel is
• In this week I have learnt the comprehensiveness of excel a software for storing, cleaning, analyzing visualizing data. It’s an all-comprehensive tool for a data professional.
3 ways excel can be used in real world data analysis

• Sales Performance: Excel can be used to map out when a business attained either highest or lowest sales using a pivot table. A visualization can be created of the current sales vis a vis the set targets. We can map out the highest and lowest sold products/service and aid in decision making
• Monitoring and Evaluation: Monitoring and evaluation professionals interact with excel when storing data for all their field activities, they go through the phase of cleaning and mapping out the success of their programs against their donor given targets. This enables them be aware if they are making an impact with their programs in the society.
• Budgeting and Forecasting: Excel is used to map out our budgets usage, double down to which areas have high expenses and also used in creating a forecast of future expenditure.
Mention at least 3 Excel features or formulas you've learned so far and explain how they can be applied
• Sum if and Sum ifs: This function is used when doing conditional aggregates. Data reveals more information when we calculate aggregates and more so conditional ones, this information can be used to drive decisions. For example, in an HR dataset, we can get the sum salary of Female in an IT department in comparison to the Male sum of salary in the same IT department.
• Pivot Table: I came across a pivot table a very strong analytical tool. By using the 3 elements row, column and values and its capabilities sort and order data we are able to analyze and understand the different parameters of our data.
• Central of tendency (Mean, Medium and Mode): The central tendency shows us where the majority of our data lie. If the mean and the median are in a close range with each other the data cluster around a certain value but it there is a big disparity between the 2 it shows our data has extreme outliers.
Your personal reflection:
• Excel is making interaction with data seamless and fun .

DEV Community: ASHLEY KALONDU

How Excel is Used in Real-World Data Analysis .