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Marion Mukomi
Marion Mukomi

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EXCEL MASTERY: Beginner's complete guide.

INTRO
Excel is extremely important in data analysis. Most analysts use Excel daily. It’s a tool used to clean data, perform calculations, analyze trends, and create reports.
Listed below are the step-by-step guidelines to help you move from beginner to mastery.

1. Interface and Piloting
An Excel workbook has cells (the rectangular boxes), columns (across the top with different letters), rows (on the left with numbers going down the screen), the ribbon (the green command center at the top of the window), and the Quick Tool Access Bar.
Cell addressing- Every cell has a name based on its column and row.
Example: Cell D3 is the intersection of Column D and Row 3.

2. Data entry, Formatting, and Validation
Excel treats texts, numbers, and dates differently. It sees this (31/12/2025)as a number and (New Year's Eve) as a text.
Data entry in Excel
Number formatting helps make data clear and precise. Some of the number formats include:

  • General – default format
  • Number – controls decimal places (quantity, scores, measurements).
  • Currency – shows money values (accounting).
  • Percentage – converts values to % (ratios and rates).
  • Date/Time – displays dates correctly (calendar dates).
  • Comma style – adds thousand separators

Conditional Formatting
This helps you spot issues and trends easily by changing the appearance of cells based on the rules you set. Types of conditional formatting include:

  • Highlight cell rules -greater than, less than, between, equal to, text that contains, duplicate values.
  • Color Scales -creates value ranges like a heatmap effect.
  • Icon sets -adds small symbols next to your data.
  • Data bars -turn your cells into mini-bar charts.
  • Top/Bottom rules -compares a cell's value to the other data in the selected range.

Important Formulas for Data Analysis
A formula is an instruction for Excel to calculate something. An Excel formula must always start with =. These formulas are essential in manipulation, cleaning, and interpreting data.
a. Aggregate Functions
These are the basic functions, and they summarize multiple values into a single result.

  • SUM – adds values
  • AVERAGE – calculates the mean
  • COUNT – counts numeric values
  • COUNTA – counts non-empty cells
  • MAX – returns the highest value
  • MIN – returns the lowest value

Conditional Aggregate Functions

  • SUMIF / SUMIFS – adds values that meet one or more conditions.
  • COUNTIF / COUNTIFS – counts values that meet one or more conditions.
  • AVERAGEIF / AVERAGEIFS – averages values that meet one or more conditions.

b.Text Functions
These functions clean, format, and manipulate text data. (They prepare data for look-up). IDs, addresses, and coordinates should always be forwarded to text.

  • TRIM – removes extra spaces
  • LEFT – extracts text from the left
  • RIGHT – extracts text from the right
  • MID – extracts text from the middle
  • LEN – counts characters in text
  • UPPER – converts text to uppercase
  • LOWER – converts text to lowercase
  • PROPER – capitalizes the first letter of each word
  • CONCAT (CONCATENATE) – joins text together
  • TEXT – formats numbers as text

c.Logical Functions
These functions perform logical tests and return one value for True/false.

IF
The IF function is used to flag conditions and categorize values supporting logical analysis.


A nested IF function in Excel chains multiple IF statements together within a single formula to evaluate several conditions, allowing for more than two possible results.

AND/OR
These two are used to test multiple conditions at once. They create more accurate decision logic in analysis.

d.LookUp Functions
These are like the search engine in your spreadsheet.

  • VlookUp(Vertical LookUp) It's used to search for a value in the first column of a table and return a related value from another column.
  • HlookUp(Horizontal LookUp) It's used to search the first row of a table for a value and return a related value from the row below.
  • INDEX+MATCH INDEX and MATCH are used together to perform powerful and flexible lookups in Excel.  PIVOT TABLES Pivot tables summarize and analyze large data sets quickly. They reorganize raw data to show totals, averages, counts, and comparisons without complex formulas.

SLICERS
Slicers in Excel are interactive, visual buttons that filter data in tables, PivotTables, and PivotCharts, offering a more user-friendly way to drill down into data than traditional filters, making them ideal for dashboards and quick data exploration.

How to insert a slicer

  • Click anywhere inside your Pivot Table.
  • Go to the PivotTable Analyze tab on the Ribbon.
  • Click Insert Slicer.
  • A window will pop up with all your data headers. Check the box for the field you want to filter by (e.g., "Region" or "Salesperson") and click OK.

CHARTS
Charts help to show trends, patterns, comparison and relationships in data at a glance. They help improve dashboards by making insights clear and visual.
Chart types - column/bar, pie, line, and area.
Example
Below is a chat created to track the performance score of employees over 12 months.

*Chart Insights *

  • There is a consistently high performance with an overall average score of about 4.96.
  • Performance peaks in the first quarter(March).
  • Performance peaks in the last quarter(October).
  • There is a performance drop in July, showing a mid-year slowdown.
  • Steady performance recovery from August onwards.
  • Overall, performance wavering is minimal, meaning employee performance is stable and reliable across the year.

These steps will take you from a beginner to mastery level in Excel.
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