Tag: excel 2010 training

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Excel Training

Overcoming the fear of upgrading from Excel 2003 to Excel 2010

I’ve recently upgraded from Excel 2003 to 2010 – and I’m scared. What if it’s too tricky, what if I break it…. and then I thought I could do save time by teaching myself…

Image of Excel 2003
My familiar looking Excel 2003 screen

 

So I’ve made my list to overcome this fear…and I’m sharing it because I suspect that I’m not alone…

  • I use Excel everyday, but I don’t really get the most out of if. There is bound to be an easier way to get results and enter data.
  • If I don’t make time to learn it, I’m going to miss out on all the time saving features, and tools for analysing data more easily.
  • I know I have an Excel Skills gap but I’ve been too busy to tackle it.
  • I need to work out what Excel can do, and what I’d like to be able to do based on my work, so I can do some targeted Excel training.
  • I actually like learning! I just have a fear of computers doing things I don’t understand.
Screen-shot-Excel- 2010
This is how my new shiny Excel 2010 looks…it’s asking me to learn more…

So my conclusion is that:

  1. I’d like to think that I can learn all this from books or online, but in reality, what works for me, is learning from a real, live person. So I can ask questions, work through examples, and learn from mistakes.
  2. To build my skills I need to do it quickly with our Excel intermediate course and our upgrade to MS Office 2010 (so I’m working across the whole office suite) to the best out of all the programs and can link work between them.
  3. I need to be able to practise in a “safe environment” so I’m not worrying about ruining live data or a colleague spotting me struggling.
  4. I need a trainer who has all the knowledge of the program, and who can break it down into usable chunks in plain language.
To overcome my fear, I had to face the uncomfortable feeling of “I don’t know how to do that”, and now, I can focus on “What can the program do and how can I make it do what I want” and most of all “When can I start”.  Excel 2010 training booked…first step taken.

 

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Excel Training

Excel 2010 Training – Excel Slicer Tool for Pivot tables

A new feature introduced in 2010 version of Excel is the Slicer tool. Used to visually and quickly filter data within a Pivot Table.

Although the Pivot Table feature makes it extremely easy to manipulate the layout of data lists in Excel, we have found most attendees of our Excel 2010 training Courses are excited by the power of the new Slicer tool.

Create a standard Pivot Table and from the Insert Ribbon click the Slicer tool in the Filter Section.

This will display the Insert Slicers Dialog. From the Insert Slicers dialog tick the fields you would like to filter on.

Training Excel 2010 - Slicer Dialog

 

This will display a box for each field selected. These can be moved and resized to suit available space on the sheet.

Excel Training in London - Excel Slicer Boxes

To filter data, click on the relevant data. In our example below we have chosen the Bristol and London Store with Departments of Sales and Payroll. (You can select multiple items by holding the Control key while clicking).

Microsoft Excel Training Courses - Slicer and Pivot table filer

The results are immediate, and the slicer dialogs visually show what is currently filtered.

To clear the filters, click the small funnel icon in the top right of the Slicer boxes.

NOTE: This Slicer feature is disabled if you have workbooks from earlier Excel versions running in compatibility mode. To enable Slicer, Save the workbook as a 2010 file format, then re-open.