Excel Project

My professor gave us a challenging task to take on for our first project. We were to take raw data and formulate it into a readable spreadsheet along with unique pivot tables. When I first read the directions for this project, I grew anxious with anticipation. I work with Excel on a daily basis and also create pivot tables to send to our large customers. This will be a way to utilize and improve my skills. I was working smoothly through step one until I reached "targeting the heart rate", which we needed to create a formula to utilize on address that when changed will auto populate the heart rate percentage through the data. I found this to be difficult, but after playing around with different formulas and weighing my options, I finally pulled the formula together. Take a look at the Microsoft guide for creating formulas within Excel if you need help.

After completing all necessary tasks within the raw data, I needed to create two pivot tables. Over the past six months within my company, I have learned a great deal about pivot tables due to our growing clients needs. Pivot tables are helpful in most business situations. After reading the directions for the pivot tables, I selected the needed data to complete the pivot table. After placing the appropriate data into the fields, I also fancied it up a bit. Unfortunately, I completed my work within Excel 2003 so I do not have the great pivot tables options that Excel 2010 has. I recommend that if you have Excel 2010 available to play around and see the different options. Take a look at my "AvgIncrease" pivot table:

After completing this project, I felt accomplished. I took a look over it and feel that it is easy to read and understand which is very important when passing this information on one anyone regardless of if its your professor or client. So jump in head first and play around with Excel and learn pivot tables!!

Week 5: Clear - Pivot Tables in the Work Place

I really enjoyed the lectures provided this week on Excel. I work with Excel on a daily basis and think I am pretty familiar with the system. But it is always nice to see how someone else may work out problems. I deal with a customer some of you maybe familiar with..... Coca Cola, on a daily basis. My company ships there point of sales products and Coca Cola requires daily updates on the shipments along with monthly data. To provide this data I use Excel to create list, pivot tables and graphs. All of with are easy to read and understand. Unfortunately, my work has an older version of Excel, but I work with what I have!

Everyday I come in and begin by importing my data into an excel spreadsheet. I then follow by editing the data into formulas that are needed to receive the appropriate information. After the spreadsheet is complete, I create the pivot table. Once my pivot table is complete, I import the information into a graph. This may sound foreign now but I can do this at the snap of a finger. And you can too! It is much easier than you think. It all began by opening Excel and playing around. The help tab is very useful and I will even google things that I am having trouble. Often many other had the same problems and posted them online. Many functions are available through Excel. I have often sat at my desk for hours playing around with creating my own functions to solve issues. The online Office guide is also helpful to creating your own functions. You may even create the pivot table through the graph by simply selecting the graph option and dragging the data into into the correct graph areas. This will populate the information within the pivot table on a separate page. Here is an example of a pivot graph below:

You are able to edit these graphs into tables, charts, line or pie. If you work in a business environment, I would recommend becoming familiar with these tools. It will impress your boss when you need to provide data and you supply a chart along with it. VideoJug has a great video posted on "How to Impress Your Boss with a Pivot Table" with very usual steps. Just think of it as climbing the ladder to success!