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    <title>DEV Community: Gloria Adhiambo Awinja</title>
    <description>The latest articles on DEV Community by Gloria Adhiambo Awinja (@gloriaawinja).</description>
    <link>https://dev.to/gloriaawinja</link>
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      <title>DEV Community: Gloria Adhiambo Awinja</title>
      <link>https://dev.to/gloriaawinja</link>
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    <language>en</language>
    <item>
      <title>Building an Interactive Excel Dashboard for E-commerce Product Analysis: A Case Study of Jumia Products</title>
      <dc:creator>Gloria Adhiambo Awinja</dc:creator>
      <pubDate>Sat, 05 Sep 2026 21:44:47 +0000</pubDate>
      <link>https://dev.to/gloriaawinja/building-an-interactive-excel-dashboard-for-e-commerce-product-analysis-a-case-study-of-jumia-285c</link>
      <guid>https://dev.to/gloriaawinja/building-an-interactive-excel-dashboard-for-e-commerce-product-analysis-a-case-study-of-jumia-285c</guid>
      <description>&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Introduction
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;E-business platforms generate large amounts of product data, including prices, discounts, ratings, and customer reviews. When properly analyzed, this information can help sellers and businesses understand product performance and identify areas that may require attention.&lt;br&gt;
For this project, I built an interactive Excel dashboard for Jumia product analysis. The project focused on transforming raw product data into a structured dataset, performing exploratory analysis, and presenting the results through an interactive dashboard.&lt;br&gt;
The main objective was to investigate relationships between price, discount, rating, and customer reviews, while identifying products with strong or weak performance.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  1. Project Objective
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The main objective was to build an interactive Excel dashboard that could answer questions about Jumia product performance.&lt;br&gt;
Specifically, I wanted to understand:&lt;br&gt;
• Whether larger discounts were associated with more customer reviews.&lt;br&gt;
• Whether highly rated products attracted stronger review engagement.&lt;br&gt;
• Whether product price and rating appeared to move together.&lt;br&gt;
• Which products had the highest and lowest ratings.&lt;br&gt;
• Which products had the highest discounts.&lt;br&gt;
• Which products generated the most reviews.&lt;br&gt;
• Which products might require additional pricing, marketing, or product-quality attention.&lt;br&gt;
An important consideration throughout the project was that reviews were treated as a proxy for customer engagement, not as a measure of sales or revenue.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h3&gt;
  
  
  2. Dataset and Business Questions
&lt;/h3&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The dataset contained information about 112 Jumia products.&lt;br&gt;
The analysis focused on product-level variables such as:&lt;br&gt;
• Product&lt;br&gt;
• Current Price&lt;br&gt;
• Old Price&lt;br&gt;
• Discount&lt;br&gt;
• Rating&lt;br&gt;
• Reviews&lt;br&gt;
The business questions guiding the analysis were:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ol&gt;
&lt;li&gt; Does a higher discount correspond to more reviews?&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt; Do highly rated products receive more reviews?&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt; Is there a relationship between current price and rating?&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt; Which products have the highest ratings?&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt; Which products have the lowest ratings?&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt; Which products have the highest discounts?&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt; Which products have the highest number of reviews?&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt; Are there products with high discounts but relatively weak ratings or engagement?&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ol&gt;

&lt;p&gt;These questions helped determine which calculations, PivotTables, and visualizations were needed.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h3&gt;
  
  
  3. Initial Data-Quality Audit
&lt;/h3&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Before making changes to the dataset, I performed a data-quality audit to understand the condition of the raw data.&lt;br&gt;
The audit focused on:&lt;br&gt;
• Number of rows and columns=116&lt;br&gt;
• Blank or missing values =55 each for two columns&lt;br&gt;
• Duplicate records =2&lt;br&gt;
• Price ranges =2&lt;br&gt;
• Misspelled column header=1&lt;br&gt;
• Improperly written product names=1&lt;br&gt;
One of the most important findings from the audit was the presence of missing ratings.&lt;br&gt;
Out of the 112 products, 55 products had no recorded rating and review, meaning that approximately 49.1% of the products lacked rating and review information.&lt;br&gt;
This was important because rating-based and review-based analysis could only be performed reliably on the products with available ratings.&lt;br&gt;
The original dataset was preserved rather than overwritten so that the cleaning process remained traceable.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h3&gt;
  
  
  4. Cleaning and Preparation Decisions
&lt;/h3&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The raw data was kept separate from the cleaned dataset. This ensured that the original data remained available for comparison and verification.&lt;br&gt;
The cleaned dataset was then prepared for analysis by:&lt;br&gt;
• Checking and correcting data types.&lt;br&gt;
• Handling missing values where appropriate.&lt;br&gt;
• Ensuring prices were treated as numerical values.&lt;br&gt;
• Ensuring discount values were represented consistently as percentages.&lt;br&gt;
• Checking rating and review fields.&lt;br&gt;
• Creating additional analytical fields.&lt;br&gt;
• Converting the cleaned range into an Excel Table for easier reference and analysis.&lt;br&gt;
The cleaned table was named &lt;strong&gt;cleaned&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h3&gt;
  
  
  5. Excel Formulas and Enrichment Fields
&lt;/h3&gt;

&lt;p&gt;After cleaning the dataset, I created additional fields to support the analysis. Some of these tables were:&lt;br&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Discount Amount&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;br&gt;
The discount was calculated from the difference between the old price and current price.&lt;br&gt;
For example:&lt;br&gt;
&lt;code&gt;= [Old Price]- [Current Price]]&lt;br&gt;
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;br&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Rating Categories&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Products were also classified according to their rating to make it easier to analyze rating quality.&lt;br&gt;
The categories were designed to distinguish products with poor, average, and excellent ratings.&lt;br&gt;
For example:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;=IF([Rating]="","Missing”, IF([@Rating] &amp;lt;3,"Poor”, IF([@Rating] &amp;lt;=4.5,"Average","Excellent")))&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This classification made it easier to summarize rating performance using PivotTables.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;These enrichment fields transformed the original variables into categories that could be used for business-oriented analysis.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h3&gt;
  
  
  6. PivotTable and Analysis Workflow
&lt;/h3&gt;

&lt;p&gt;After preparing the cleaned dataset, I created PivotTables to summarize the data. This was vital because some of these tables would bring about slicers and graphs that would be used to represent data on the dashboard.&lt;br&gt;
The PivotTables were used to investigate:&lt;br&gt;
• Distribution Rating.&lt;br&gt;
• Discount distribution.&lt;br&gt;
• Price versus rating.&lt;br&gt;
• Engagement by discount category.&lt;br&gt;
• Top products by rating.&lt;br&gt;
• Bottom products by rating.&lt;br&gt;
• Top products by discount.&lt;br&gt;
• Top products by reviews.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h3&gt;
  
  
  7. Relationship Analysis
&lt;/h3&gt;

&lt;p&gt;To investigate relationships between numerical variables, I created scatter plots with trendlines.&lt;br&gt;
The three relationships analyzed were:&lt;br&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Discount vs Reviews&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;
The calculated correlation for this was 0.0440, which indicated a very weak relationship.&lt;br&gt;
The analysis therefore did not suggest that discount percentage strongly explained differences in review engagement.&lt;br&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Rating vs Reviews&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;
The calculated correlation was 0.0572, indicating a very weak positive relationship.&lt;br&gt;
This suggested that rating alone did not strongly explain differences in review engagement.&lt;br&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Current Price vs Rating&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;
The calculated correlation was 0.1101, indicating a very weak relationship.&lt;br&gt;
The analysis therefore provided limited evidence of a meaningful relationship between current price and rating.&lt;br&gt;
These analyses however, reinforced an important lesson, that a single variable should not automatically be treated as the main driver of product performance.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h3&gt;
  
  
  8. Dashboard Design and Slicer Connections
&lt;/h3&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The final stage of the project was to transform the analysis into an interactive dashboard. At the topmost of the Dashboard was the heading/header written in bold formart and a large font size. Beneath it was 5 key performance indicators commonly known as KPI's. They included&lt;br&gt;
• Total Products: 112&lt;br&gt;
• Average Current Price: Ksh 1,186.89&lt;br&gt;
• Average Discount: 0.365089286&lt;br&gt;
• Average Rating: 3.889474&lt;br&gt;
• Total Reviews: 723&lt;br&gt;
Beneath this KPI's were three slicers that allowed the dashboard to be filtered interactively. To do these it was paramount to Report connection by right clicking while your cursor is on a slicer and choosing "Report connection" , The slicers used were:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ol&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Price Category-it categorized data into High price, Low price and Medium Price.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Discount Category-it categorized data into High discount, Low discount, and Medium discount&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Rating Category- that categorized data into average, excellent, poor and missing for missing values.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ol&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Charts were located beneath these slicers and used to communicate patterns in the data.&lt;br&gt;
The dashboard was designed to allow users to move from an overall view of product performance to more specific product-level analysis.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Besides the chart I created a recommendation table that would inform the Jumia sellers. &lt;br&gt;
It is also important to note that when building a dashboard, Presentability and neatness are key, the colors used in the graphs, dashboard background and headings must be consistent.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  9. Key Findings
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;High-Engagement Products&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;
The top 10 products by reviews accounted for 388 of the 723 total reviews, representing approximately 53.7% of all reviews in the dataset.&lt;br&gt;
The 120W Cordless Vacuum Cleaner had the highest review count with 69 reviews, followed by the 137 Pieces Cake Decorating Tool Set with 55 reviews.&lt;br&gt;
This shows that review engagement was concentrated among a relatively small group of products.&lt;br&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Top-Rated Products&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;
The top 10 products by rating had an average rating of 4.94/5.&lt;br&gt;
Seven of these products had a rating of 5.0, while the remaining three had ratings of 4.8.&lt;br&gt;
These products could provide useful benchmarks for understanding characteristics associated with positive customer experiences.&lt;br&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Low-Rated Products&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;
The bottom five products by rating had an average rating of 2.12/5, compared with the overall dataset average of 3.89/5.&lt;br&gt;
The lowest-rated product was the Wall-Mounted Sticker Punch-Free Plug Fixer, with a rating of 2.0/5.&lt;br&gt;
These products may require investigation before additional marketing or promotional resources are allocated to them.&lt;br&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Highly Discounted Products&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;
The top 10 products by discount had an average discount of 54%.&lt;br&gt;
The highest individual discount was 61%, recorded for the Pen Grips for Kids Pen Grip Posture Correction Tool for Kids.&lt;br&gt;
However, the relationship analysis showed that discount percentage had only a very weak relationship with reviews. Therefore, larger discounts should not automatically be assumed to produce stronger engagement.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Screenshot of original data, cleaned data, pivot tables, and Dashboard.
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;To to attach a face to our long article I have uploded the four most vital images that were generated in this analysis but most of all a view of the dashboard that was created.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;a) The original data&lt;br&gt;
&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fibmp4kljax9wfsm8e9i6.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fibmp4kljax9wfsm8e9i6.png" alt=" " width="800" height="447"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;b) The Cleaned Data&lt;br&gt;
&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fqmebbv61xmry95w1o8el.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fqmebbv61xmry95w1o8el.png" alt=" " width="800" height="450"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;c) Pivot tables&lt;br&gt;
&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Focf1evlz1bohyl606kz0.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Focf1evlz1bohyl606kz0.png" alt=" " width="800" height="422"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;d) Dashboard&lt;br&gt;
&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Favzglg6le7qhxvof4xni.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Favzglg6le7qhxvof4xni.png" alt=" " width="800" height="450"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  10. Business Recommendations
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Based on the analysis, several recommendations can be made.&lt;br&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;1. Prioritize High-Engagement Products&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Since the top 10 products accounted for approximately 53.7% of all reviews, sellers could identify what these products have in common and prioritize similar products for visibility, promotion, and inventory planning.&lt;br&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;2. Test Targeted Discounts&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Medium-discount products recorded the highest total reviews at 348. However, the correlation between discount and reviews was very weak.&lt;br&gt;
Rather than relying on large discounts across all products, sellers should test targeted promotional strategies and evaluate their results using multiple performance indicators.&lt;br&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;3. Investigate Low-Rated Products&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Products with consistently low ratings should be investigated before receiving additional promotional investment.&lt;br&gt;
Possible areas for investigation include product quality, product descriptions, customer expectations, and fulfillment experience.&lt;br&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;4. Use Highly Rated Products as Benchmarks&lt;/strong&gt;The highest-rated products can be examined to identify practices that may contribute to positive customer experiences.&lt;br&gt;
These could include product quality, accurate descriptions, competitive pricing, and reliable fulfillment.&lt;br&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;5. Use Multiple Metrics for Decision-Making&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Because the relationships between price, discount, rating, and reviews were weak, sellers should avoid relying on a single metric when making business decisions.&lt;br&gt;
A broader analysis incorporating sales, revenue, listing age, customer feedback, and other product-level factors would provide stronger evidence.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  11. Limitations
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This analysis has several limitations.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;No sales or revenue data: The dataset does not contain actual sales, revenue, profit, or conversion data. Reviews were therefore used only as a proxy for customer engagement.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Missing ratings: 55 of the 112 products, or 49.1%, had no recorded rating. This limits rating-based comparisons.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;No listing-age information: The dataset does not indicate how long each product had been available. Older listings may naturally have more reviews.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Correlation does not imply causation: The correlation analysis identifies relationships between variables but cannot establish that discounts, prices, or ratings directly cause changes in review engagement.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Limited customer information: The dataset does not contain detailed review comments, product-quality measures, seller information, or delivery performance.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Dataset size: The analysis covers 112 products and therefore should not automatically be generalized to every product on Jumia or the wider e-commerce market.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Conclusion
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The Jumia Product Performance Dashboard transformed raw e-commerce product data into an interactive analytical tool covering 112 products.&lt;br&gt;
The analysis showed that discount, rating, and current price had only weak relationships with the available review data. At the product level, however, engagement was concentrated among a smaller group of products, while a separate group of products had notably low ratings.&lt;br&gt;
At the same time, the limitations of the dataset highlighted the importance of combining reviews with additional business information such as sales, revenue, listing age, and customer feedback. Additionally, the importance of having a good dashboard in a business was seen.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Project Resources
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The complete project files are available in my GitHub repository and include original data, cleaned dataset, analysis, PivotTables, dashboard, and supporting documentation.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;GitHub Repository link&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;
&lt;a href="https://github.com/gee-999/JUMIA-PRODUCT-PERFORMANCE-PROJECT" rel="noopener noreferrer"&gt;https://github.com/gee-999/JUMIA-PRODUCT-PERFORMANCE-PROJECT&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

</description>
      <category>dashboards</category>
      <category>pivottables</category>
      <category>data</category>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>Getting Started with Excel for Data Analytics: From Basics to Data Cleaning.</title>
      <dc:creator>Gloria Adhiambo Awinja</dc:creator>
      <pubDate>Sun, 30 Aug 2026 20:26:55 +0000</pubDate>
      <link>https://dev.to/gloriaawinja/getting-started-with-excel-for-data-analytics-from-basics-to-data-cleaning-o52</link>
      <guid>https://dev.to/gloriaawinja/getting-started-with-excel-for-data-analytics-from-basics-to-data-cleaning-o52</guid>
      <description>&lt;h1&gt;
  
  
  Introduction
&lt;/h1&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Microsoft Excel is an application that was developed by Microsoft as a tool for organizing information in rows and columns, performing calculations and presenting data. Overtime, excel has evolved into a powerful tool for data analysis.&lt;br&gt;
Data specialist adopted excel and begun using it for various purposes including data entry, cleaning, organizing, storing, calculating, and validating data among others.&lt;br&gt;
In this article we will be learning the basics of excel and data cleaning in the process of data analysis. We will use example to see how we can convert raw data into meaningful data that can be used to generate powerful insights.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Overview
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;1.Understanding the Excel Interface&lt;br&gt;
2.Data Types&lt;br&gt;
3.Functions&lt;br&gt;
4.Data Analysis&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h3&gt;
  
  
  i) Understanding the Excel Interface.
&lt;/h3&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The first time you open an excel &lt;strong&gt;worksheet&lt;/strong&gt; you will be met by a book like image with a toolbar panel at the top referred to as a &lt;strong&gt;ribbon&lt;/strong&gt;, beneath it on the left a bar referred to as a name box, and next to it is what is referred to as a &lt;strong&gt;formular bar&lt;/strong&gt;, at the center and what covers the main area is a &lt;strong&gt;worksheet&lt;/strong&gt; &lt;strong&gt;frame&lt;/strong&gt; with &lt;strong&gt;rows&lt;/strong&gt; and &lt;strong&gt;columns&lt;/strong&gt;, with each having a column and row header. The rows are numbered from 1 to 1,048,576 while the Columns are named from A to XFD.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;An example of a worksheet would be like the one bellow.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fofbo65y26bhrvdh0ehbl.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fofbo65y26bhrvdh0ehbl.png" alt=" " width="800" height="450"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The different parts of a worksheet are precisely named in the image below:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fhpg5xkeg53ft8rcojnz6.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fhpg5xkeg53ft8rcojnz6.png" alt=" " width="621" height="657"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;For a better understanding we shall define the parts labelled in our image above.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Control Menu/Box&lt;/strong&gt;- Opens a menu with commands for controlling the Excel window, such as minimizing, maximizing, or closing it.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Quick Access Toolbar&lt;/strong&gt;-Provides quick access to frequently used commands, such as Save, Undo, and Redo.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Ribbon&lt;/strong&gt;-The main area at the top of Excel that contains the different commands and tools used to work with a workbook.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Ribbon Category/Tab&lt;/strong&gt;- Organizes Excel commands into different tabs, such as Home, Insert, Page Layout, Formulas, Data, and Review.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Title Bar&lt;/strong&gt;- it displays the name of the current workbook along with the name of the Excel program.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Help Button&lt;/strong&gt;- Opens Excel's help and support features, allowing users to find information or guidance when needed.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Worksheet Frame&lt;/strong&gt;- This is the main part of the Excel window where the worksheet grid and its contents are displayed.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Select All Button&lt;/strong&gt;- Selects the entire worksheet at once, including all rows and columns.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Name Box&lt;/strong&gt;- Shows the location or name of the currently selected cell, such as A1. It can also be used to move quickly to a specific cell.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Active Cell&lt;/strong&gt;-The cell that is currently selected and ready for data entry or editing.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Dialog Box Launcher&lt;/strong&gt;- A small button that opens a dialog box containing additional settings and options for a particular group of commands.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Insert Function Button (fx)&lt;/strong&gt;- Helps users find and insert functions into formulas without having to type the entire function manually.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Column Headings&lt;/strong&gt;- The letters at the top of the worksheet that identify each column, such as A, B, C, and D.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Row Headings&lt;/strong&gt;-The numbers along the left side of the worksheet that identify each row.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Formula Bar&lt;/strong&gt;- Displays the contents of the selected cell and allows users to enter or edit data, text, and formulas.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Category Groups&lt;/strong&gt;- Groups related commands together on the Ribbon, making it easier to find and use the tools needed for a particular task.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Worksheet Area-&lt;/strong&gt; The main grid made up of rows and columns where users enter, organize, and view their data&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;workbook&lt;/strong&gt;- is an excel file that contains one or more worksheets.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Split Boxes&lt;/strong&gt;- Divide the worksheet window into separate sections so that different parts of the worksheet can be viewed or scrolled at the same time.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Scroll Bars&lt;/strong&gt;- Allow users to move around the worksheet vertically or horizontally to view areas that are not currently visible.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Sheet Tabs&lt;/strong&gt;- Allow users to switch between different worksheets within the same Excel workbook.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Insert Worksheet Button&lt;/strong&gt;-Adds a new worksheet to the current workbook, making it possible to organize information on separate sheets.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Status Bar&lt;/strong&gt;-Located at the bottom of the Excel window and displays useful information about the current worksheet, selected cells, and other activities.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;View Buttons&lt;/strong&gt;-Allow users to change how the worksheet is displayed on the screen.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Normal View&lt;/strong&gt;-The standard Excel view used for entering, editing, and working with data in a worksheet.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Page Layout View&lt;/strong&gt;- Shows the worksheet in a format similar to how it will look when printed, including page boundaries and margins.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Page Break Preview&lt;/strong&gt;- Shows where Excel will divide the worksheet into separate pages when the document is printed.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Zoom Slider&lt;/strong&gt;- Allows users to increase or decrease the size of the worksheet displayed on the screen, making it easier to view the data.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h3&gt;
  
  
  Data Types
&lt;/h3&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Now having understood the excel interface we will look at the different data types catered for in the excel working space.&lt;br&gt;
They include:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ol&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Numeric-data type that contains only numbers.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Text-data types that contain text and strings&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Date-contains date which includes, days, months, and years.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Time-contains the time&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Currency-contains the different currency like KES and $&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Boolean-refers to the data that generates TRUE and FALSE values.&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ol&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Functions
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Functions refer to predefined formulas in excel that perform specific calculations.&lt;br&gt;
In our article today we are going to look at text, numeric, date and COUNT Functions used in excel.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h4&gt;
  
  
  a.)Text function
&lt;/h4&gt;

&lt;p&gt;In excel you will encounter text function like &lt;br&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Upper function, Upper()&lt;/strong&gt;-is used to change a given text into uppercase.&lt;br&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Lower function, Lower()&lt;/strong&gt;-is used to convert a given text into lowercase.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Proper function, Proper()&lt;/strong&gt;- is used to convert a given text into proper case E.g. Mary Ann&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Find function, Find()&lt;/strong&gt;-its a function that is used to find a certain text within another text.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Left function, by Left()&lt;/strong&gt;-is used to extract a specified number of text to the left of a text string.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Right function, right()&lt;/strong&gt;-is used to extract a specified number of text to the right of a txt string.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Length function, Len()&lt;/strong&gt;-is  used to count the number of characters in a cell or text including spaces.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Mid function, mid()&lt;/strong&gt;-extracts a specific number of characters from the middle of a string.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;CONCAT function, CONCAT()&lt;/strong&gt;-it is used to combine text from two or more cells into one &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h4&gt;
  
  
  b.) Numeric Functions and Operators
&lt;/h4&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Operators refer to symbols used in excel to perform calculations. &lt;br&gt;
These operators include:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ol&gt;
&lt;li&gt;Arithmetic Operators which involve:
i) Addition (+)
ii) Subtraction (-)
iii) multiplication (*)
iv) Division (/)
v) Exponent (^)&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ol&gt;

&lt;h4&gt;
  
  
  c.) Mathematical functions
&lt;/h4&gt;

&lt;p&gt;i) Power()&lt;br&gt;
ii) sqrt()&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h4&gt;
  
  
  d.) Aggregate Functions
&lt;/h4&gt;

&lt;p&gt;In addition we have aggregate functions which can be used to work on a group or range of numbers and give one output.&lt;br&gt;
PRODUCT()&lt;br&gt;
MIN()&lt;br&gt;
MAX()&lt;br&gt;
MODE()&lt;br&gt;
MEDIAN()&lt;br&gt;
SUM()&lt;br&gt;
AVERAGE()&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h4&gt;
  
  
  e.) Date Function
&lt;/h4&gt;

&lt;p&gt;These are functions used to create, extract, calculate, or manipulate dates and times in excel&lt;br&gt;
They include:&lt;br&gt;
TODAY()&lt;br&gt;
NOW()&lt;br&gt;
DAY()&lt;br&gt;
MONTH()&lt;br&gt;
YEAR()&lt;br&gt;
DATEDIF()&lt;br&gt;
NETWORK()&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h4&gt;
  
  
  f.)Counting Functions
&lt;/h4&gt;

&lt;p&gt;These are functions that are used to count cells or values in a range.&lt;br&gt;
They include&lt;br&gt;
COUNT()&lt;br&gt;
COUNTA()&lt;br&gt;
COUNTBLANK()&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h4&gt;
  
  
  e.)Conditional Aggregation Functions
&lt;/h4&gt;

&lt;p&gt;We also have another set of functions that are used to calculate or summarize data only when certain conditions are met.&lt;br&gt;
This functions can be used with both numerical and text data types. They include:&lt;br&gt;
SUMIF()&lt;br&gt;
SUMIFS()&lt;br&gt;
COUNTIF()&lt;br&gt;
COUNTIFS()&lt;br&gt;
AVERAGEIF()&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Data analysis
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The process of analyzing data in excel begins with having data, then cleaning the data and ensuring each entry is in the correct order, and finally analyzing it to get answers to the questions at hand. We shall define some more labels that will be paramount in our journey to analysis our data.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Data cleaning&lt;/strong&gt;: This is the process of finding and correcting or removing inconsistencies in a dataset so that the data is accurate and ready for analysis.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Data validation&lt;/strong&gt;: refers to a feature that is in excel that controls the type of data that a user can enter into a cell, and if entered at a later time when we have our data it prevents entry of current data that is not coherent with the type of data specified.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Conditional Formatting&lt;/strong&gt; : this refers also to an excel feature that automatically changes the outlook of a cell when they meet a specified condition.&lt;br&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;Sorting&lt;/strong&gt;: these refers to arranging data in a particular order.&lt;br&gt;
sorting is unique for numeric, text, and date data types and custom filter where you use your own condition.&lt;br&gt;
In &lt;strong&gt;numeric Sorting&lt;/strong&gt; numbers are sorted from largest to smallest or smallest to largest&lt;br&gt;
In &lt;strong&gt;text sorting&lt;/strong&gt; sorting occurs either from A to Z or Z to A&lt;br&gt;
While  &lt;strong&gt;in date sorting&lt;/strong&gt; its done from oldest to newest or newest to oldest.&lt;br&gt;
Above that we have &lt;strong&gt;multilevel sorting&lt;/strong&gt; where we sort data using more than one criterion, one after another.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;Filtering&lt;/strong&gt;: is the process of displaying only the data that meets specific conditions while temporarily hiding the other data.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Just like sorting filtering depends on the data type, where we have &lt;strong&gt;text filters&lt;/strong&gt; having criterions like equals, does not equal, Begins with, Ends with, Contains, Does not contain, meanwhile &lt;strong&gt;number filters&lt;/strong&gt; have criterions like Equals, Does not Equal, greater than, less than, less than or Equal to, Between, Top 10 and&lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;date filters&lt;/strong&gt; containing criterions like equals, before, after, Between, Today, Tomorrow, Yesterday, This week, Last week etc.&lt;br&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;custom filters&lt;/strong&gt; on the other hand is used where you use your own conditions.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Now we shall look at an example that puts to practice every information that has been discussed in the article.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Lets say we have a data called &lt;strong&gt;Nurses salary&lt;/strong&gt;. Our data contains different column entries including Nurses id, first name, last name, age, country, year of employment, salary and the type of shift each does.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The image below shows a sample of the data we are working with. &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F1kp7nsfjygn7yqrwtxrt.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F1kp7nsfjygn7yqrwtxrt.png" alt=" " width="799" height="413"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;It is important to note that before begin anything with your data you must have two worksheets, one which contains the original data, and the other named cleaned which you will be cleaning and carrying out your analysis&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  i) cleaning the data
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The first thing is to remove duplicates- Select your data range or press Ctrl + A to select the whole table. Go to the Data tab on the top ribbon. Click Remove Duplicates.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h4&gt;
  
  
  1.cleaning numeric data example
&lt;/h4&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Point to note in our data set is that the age column seems to have age appearing on the left side of the column instead of the right. All text appear on the left and numeric data to the right. Our data seems to have a problem with data type so we will go to Home-Number tab-select numeric&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F8zq1lrn4ua3ototec5lt.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F8zq1lrn4ua3ototec5lt.png" alt=" " width="800" height="417"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;after correction&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fughnlvarlyy4dkfqbt4q.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fughnlvarlyy4dkfqbt4q.png" alt=" " width="800" height="417"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;In the salary column you will also note blanks, where there is no entry, for numeric we leave it like that.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h4&gt;
  
  
  2.Cleaning date example
&lt;/h4&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fhr6cwv4gukxgrpipft21.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fhr6cwv4gukxgrpipft21.png" alt=" " width="800" height="529"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;the first entry contains a different format of the date so we are required to change it into one format&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F3nszq8ajpo35szhg5b25.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F3nszq8ajpo35szhg5b25.png" alt=" " width="800" height="471"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h4&gt;
  
  
  3. An Example of cleaning Text Data
&lt;/h4&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Firstly, check if there are any blanks in text columns and convert them to unknown Using ctrl+H that enables you to find the blanks and replace them.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fr6uue5grunuj0u6sn6ou.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fr6uue5grunuj0u6sn6ou.png" alt=" " width="800" height="423"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;then click on replace all &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fny1mrascj1zv6mfe4dg9.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fny1mrascj1zv6mfe4dg9.png" alt=" " width="800" height="414"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The text data my contain text not written in proper format like names.&lt;br&gt;
for example look at our screenshot below.&lt;br&gt;
we are required to right click in the columns header-insert column, and use the function Proper to change the names into proper format.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F7oc474mqtz0405a84d44.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F7oc474mqtz0405a84d44.png" alt=" " width="800" height="420"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F8z0q291fnv57uax30vi5.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F8z0q291fnv57uax30vi5.png" alt=" " width="800" height="439"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;create yet another final column that you will copy the entries from the column first name p to, to avoid having reference errors when the column first name is tampered with.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F66oh1kolrp0enav5ekr2.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2F66oh1kolrp0enav5ekr2.png" alt=" " width="800" height="422"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;delete the other columns and remain with the last created column named first name proper.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fbowr0fb1py1jx3gld1zm.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fbowr0fb1py1jx3gld1zm.png" alt=" " width="800" height="420"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;h3&gt;
  
  
  Conclusion
&lt;/h3&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Excel provides a simple and practical starting point for data analytics because it allows users to organize, examine, clean, and prepare data within a single application. Understanding basic concepts such as rows, columns, cells, cell references, formulas, and functions creates a strong foundation for working with datasets. Through the practical dataset used in this article, it has been demonstrated that Excel can be used to identify and correct common data-quality problems such as missing values, duplicate records, inconsistent text entries, and incorrect data formats. Features such as sorting, filtering, tables, and functions make the cleaning process more efficient and help ensure that the resulting dataset is accurate and consistent. Overall, data cleaning is an important step in the data analytics process because the quality of analysis depends largely on the quality of the data being analyzed. By mastering these basic Excel skills, beginners can confidently move from raw data to a clean, structured dataset that is ready for further analysis and visualization.&lt;/p&gt;

</description>
      <category>excelbasics</category>
      <category>cleaninginexcel</category>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title>PUSHING A LOCAL FOLDER TO GITHUB USING GIT AND SSH.</title>
      <dc:creator>Gloria Adhiambo Awinja</dc:creator>
      <pubDate>Sat, 22 Aug 2026 21:30:01 +0000</pubDate>
      <link>https://dev.to/gloriaawinja/pushing-a-local-folder-to-github-using-git-and-ssh-3j18</link>
      <guid>https://dev.to/gloriaawinja/pushing-a-local-folder-to-github-using-git-and-ssh-3j18</guid>
      <description>&lt;h1&gt;
  
  
  Introduction
&lt;/h1&gt;

&lt;p&gt;As a beginner in the data industry it is paramount to understand that projects are often created and stored locally on a computer before being shared or backed up online. Therefore, the first step into the journey of a data specialist becomes to learn the simplest yet most important thing: How to transfer these folders or files in your local PC into GitHub. This article will show you how to transfer locally created directory to GitHub using Git and a SSH key.&lt;br&gt;
Git Bash commonly known as Git is a tool installed on your computer that tracks and manages changes made to your projects' files and folders. GitHub on the other hand, is an online platform where you can store your Git projects. The platform enables you to access, share, and collaborate on the project from anywhere. Meanwhile, an SSH key is a secure digital key that allows your computer to connect to your GitHub account without repeatedly entering a password. &lt;br&gt;
In this article I will show you how to create or access your local folders and files using git and transfer them to a GitHub platform with the use of a SSH key.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Overview
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The article will contain:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;ul&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;How to create a local Directory&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Initializing Git&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Adding Local Directories to the Staging Area&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Committing the Project&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Connecting the Local Repository to a Remote Repository&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Understanding the SSH KEY&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;li&gt;&lt;p&gt;Pushing the Project to GitHub Using a SSH key&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/li&gt;
&lt;/ul&gt;
&lt;h3&gt;
  
  
  A. Creating a Local Directory
&lt;/h3&gt;
&lt;h4&gt;
  
  
  Steps to Creating a Local Directory.
&lt;/h4&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;NB&lt;/strong&gt;: We will use Sales Project as an example of our project directory.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The first step in creating your local project directory is to check your current working directory. This is done by opening the Git terminal and  writing the command:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;pwd&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This command simply asks, where am I right now?&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;After knowing where you are, you can now create a project directory in the location you are currently in or open a new location you would like the directory to appear.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Lets say we want to create a directory called Sales Project, and we would like it to be located in the Desktop directory. What we require is to open the desktop directory and create our sales project directory there. &lt;br&gt;
To open the Desktop Directory we use a command &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;cd&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; which allows us to enter into a directory of our choice as long as the directory exists in our local PC. So our code would be:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;cd Desktop&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Now, having opened the desktop folder, we want to create our sales project directory. To create a folder we are required to use the command &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;mkdir&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;.The code appears as:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;mkdir "sales Project"&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Now, when you check your Desktop, you should be able to see a folder called Sales Project.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;You can also check for the presence of the folder by using &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;ls&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; under the directory Desktop. &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;ls&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; is simply a command we use to show the files and folders in your current location.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;After creating our sales project directory we are required to create a README.md file. A README.md file is a document that is created using markdown language and is used to explain what the project is about, the tools used, how it works, and other important information concerning the project. It helps users understand a project without having to read the code.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;To create it we use the command &lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;touch&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; , the code appears as:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;touch README.md&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Afterwards we can create a folder That will contain all the data used in the project in question. For example our data could entail excel files, screenshots and pictures. Lets say our folder is called DATA, then we will have to create it by coding:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;mkdir DATA&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;With these steps we would have successfully created our folder called Sales Project, which contains a README.md file and a folder where we can place the data we are working on called DATA. So in summary the codes of creating this directory in our PC would be:&lt;br&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;div class="highlight js-code-highlight"&gt;
&lt;pre class="highlight shell"&gt;&lt;code&gt;&lt;span class="nb"&gt;pwd
cd &lt;/span&gt;Desktop
&lt;span class="nb"&gt;mkdir&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span class="s2"&gt;"Sales Project"&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;span class="nb"&gt;cd &lt;/span&gt;Sales Project
&lt;span class="nb"&gt;touch &lt;/span&gt;README.md
&lt;span class="nb"&gt;mkdir &lt;/span&gt;DATA

&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;

&lt;/div&gt;



&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  B. Initializing Git
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;When we say Git initialization we refer to the process of enabling Git to start tracking a particular folder as a Git repository.&lt;br&gt;
In our example, when we initialize git we are enabling the ordinary directory we called Sales Project to be turned into a git repository where changes made to it can be tracked.&lt;br&gt;
To enable this we use the command:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;git init&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  c. Adding Files to the Staging Area
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;After initializing, we are required to tell Git which changes we want to include in our next commit. For this to be possible we use the command:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;git add&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Now depending on the changes in the directory you want to stage you will use different ways to initialize. For instance, if you want to add everything in the directory and its subdirectories to the staging area we use the command:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;git add .&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;if you want to select specific changes then you select the specific areas you want to add to the staging area. For example, we want to add the changes in the README.md file alone we will initiate a:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;git add README.md&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;if we need changes committed in the DATA folder only we will have:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;git add DATA/&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  D. Committing the Project
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;A commit refers to a saved checkpoint of the project. It records the changes that you had prepared in the staging area. &lt;br&gt;
The command used to commit is:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;git commit -m " what you are committing"&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The message inside the quotation marks describes what the commit contains and helps in understanding the project later.&lt;br&gt;
taking the example of our project we could write&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;git commit -m "Sales project"&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  E. Connecting the Local Repository
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;After committing we are now required to create a repository on GitHub. GitHub, acts as a remote location where we can store and access the project online. &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The remote repository can be given a name , and a description, and it will generate a SSH key URL which will be used in connecting the local repository to GitHub. The command used will be:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;git remote add origin&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Here &lt;strong&gt;origin&lt;/strong&gt; means the name given to GitHub repository connected to the local project. If we use the example of our project the command would appear as:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;git remote add origin git@github.com:username/repository.git&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;with the URL written after origin being an SSH remote URL that connects the local Git repository to the GitHub repository.   &lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h1&gt;
  
  
  Understanding the SSH KEY
&lt;/h1&gt;

&lt;p&gt;To connect your local Git repository to GitHub securely, you require a key called the secure shell key or commonly called the SSH key. &lt;br&gt;
It is generated and obtained after you have configured the Git Bash, the key is generated using the command:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "Your email@example.com"&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Consequently, Git bash will ask you to enter a passphrase twice for the purpose of confirmation. Then it will generate a private key and a public key, which helps us to connect the local Git repository to GitHub securely.&lt;br&gt;
For safety purposes we will use the public key written with &lt;strong&gt;.pub&lt;/strong&gt; which stands for public.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;The command&lt;br&gt;
&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub|clip&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;shows us how to copy and clip the key.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;After acquiring this public key we are required to go to the GitHub account, and open settings then click SSH key, then New SSH Key and add the SSH key there.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Afterwards return to Git Bash and test the connection using the command&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;ssh -T git@github.com&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Once the connection is successful, we now know we will be able to connect the local repository with the remote repository using the command;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;code&gt;git remote add origin git@github.com:username/repository.git&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Allowing GitHub to verify that the computer is authorized to access the repository.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  F. Pushing the Project to GitHub
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;After connecting the project to GitHub, check what your branch is called using the command:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;git branch&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;A branch in this context refers to a separate version of Git project that allows you to make changes without directly affecting the main branch. Meanwhile, the main branch is the primary branch of a Git repository which contains the main, stable version of your project.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Its important that the local branch and remote branch you are  pushing to match. In the past the branch was commonly referred to as &lt;strong&gt;master&lt;/strong&gt; but with time the modern GitHub default branch evolved and begun to be called &lt;strong&gt;main&lt;/strong&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;So for instance if your default branch is master and your remote branch was created as main you will be required to change it to main and hence, use the command&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;git branch -M main&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This changes your branch to main. &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Now after dealing with the branch, the next step is to push the project and it is done using the command:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;git push -u origin main&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;br&gt;
or &lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;&lt;code&gt;git push -u origin master&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;depending with what your remote repository is called. After pushing your project successfully, the repository will appear in your GitHub account marking the end of the process of creating and pushing a directory to become a repository from the local PC to a remote GitHub repository.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;This image shows the steps of pushing a local directory to GitHub using git.&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fo2o9o7ejdv7rtjj25pqg.png" class="article-body-image-wrapper"&gt;&lt;img src="https://media2.dev.to/dynamic/image/width=800%2Cheight=%2Cfit=scale-down%2Cgravity=auto%2Cformat=auto/https%3A%2F%2Fdev-to-uploads.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com%2Fuploads%2Farticles%2Fo2o9o7ejdv7rtjj25pqg.png" alt=" " width="800" height="304"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;Now lets have a code example showing the flow of events in the process of pushing a locally created directory to GitHub using the SSH key:&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;p&gt;&lt;u&gt;example&lt;/u&gt;&lt;br&gt;
Lets consider that we already set up our SSH key and we want to push a locally generated project from the git bash to GitHub using the SSH key.&lt;br&gt;
While using our example of Sales Project as our directory, this is how the flow of creating a directory and pushing it would look like:&lt;br&gt;
&lt;/p&gt;

&lt;div class="highlight js-code-highlight"&gt;
&lt;pre class="highlight shell"&gt;&lt;code&gt;
&lt;span class="nb"&gt;pwd 
cd &lt;/span&gt;Desktop
&lt;span class="nb"&gt;mkdir&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span class="s2"&gt;"Sales Project"&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;span class="nb"&gt;cd&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span class="s2"&gt;"Sales Project"&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;span class="nb"&gt;touch &lt;/span&gt;README.md
&lt;span class="nb"&gt;mkdir &lt;/span&gt;DATA
&lt;span class="nb"&gt;cd&lt;/span&gt; .. &lt;span class="c"&gt;##this allows you to go a step back from current directory.&lt;/span&gt;
     &lt;span class="c"&gt;## this one for instance will take you back to README.md&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;span class="nb"&gt;echo&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span class="s2"&gt;"sales"&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span class="o"&gt;&amp;gt;&lt;/span&gt;README.md &lt;span class="c"&gt;# enables writing text into a file&lt;/span&gt;
&lt;span class="nb"&gt;cat &lt;/span&gt;README.md &lt;span class="c"&gt;# displays contents of a file in the terminal&lt;/span&gt;
nano README.md &lt;span class="c"&gt;# enables editing of README.md file&lt;/span&gt;
git init
git status &lt;span class="c"&gt;##Helps check what is happening in your git project&lt;/span&gt;
git add &lt;span class="nb"&gt;.&lt;/span&gt;  
git commit &lt;span class="nt"&gt;-m&lt;/span&gt; &lt;span class="s2"&gt;"Sales Project"&lt;/span&gt;
git remote add origin git@github.com:username/repository.git                                                   
git branch
git push &lt;span class="nt"&gt;-u&lt;/span&gt; origin main
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;

&lt;/div&gt;



&lt;h2&gt;
  
  
  Conclusion
&lt;/h2&gt;

&lt;p&gt;In conclusion, moving a project from a local computer to GitHub involves a clear sequence of steps which involve creating and initializing the repository, staging and committing changes, establishing an SSH connection, linking the local repository to a remote repository, and pushing the committed work to GitHub. Each stage serving a specific purpose in maintaining a reliable version-controlled project. Understanding this workflow provides a practical foundation for managing  projects, tracking changes, and collaborating through Git and GitHub.&lt;/p&gt;

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      <category>firstgithubproject</category>
      <category>pushinglocaldirectory</category>
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