Course: Microsoft Excel (ACCO1095) (Year 2 Students)

1: Introductory Lecture

This purpose if this lecture is to outline and demonstrate the topics covered in the practical lab sessions that follow. Most students will have attended my short introductory Excel course (ACCO 1117) in year 1. That course taught the basics of Excel including navigation, data entry, formatting simple calculations and basic charting. In this course you will learn about more advances calculations, using nested functions, conditionals, lookups and data analysis functions. You will also spend more time on data presentation using Excel charts.

• Handout: Microsoft Excel - Nested Functions (fsExcelCalcUG_1.pdf)
  These lecture notes include examples of some of the functions shown during the lecture with explanations of how they work. All the techniques described are suitable for both Excel 2007 and Excel 2003.

2: Lab Session

In the lab session you will be able to practice the techniques covered in the earlier lecture. Topics include formula writing, working with conditional functions, using percentages, correct use of absolute and relative references, number formatting and creating charts.

• Handout: Practical Exercises - Writing Formulas and Analysing Data (fsExcelCalsUG_2.pdf)
  Instructions and illustrated notes for the practical exercises.
• Excel Workbook: Forecast.xlsx (Forecast_xlsx.zip)
  A zip file containing the file Forecast.xlsx to be used with the Writing Formulas set of exercises.
• Excel Workbook: Sales.xlsx (Sales_xlsx.zip)
  A zip file containing the file Sales.xlsx top be used with the Analysing Data set of exercises.
• Excel Workbook: ABC_Exercise.xlsx (ABC_Exercise_xlsx.zip)
  A zip file containing the file ABC_Exercise.xlsx which is similar to the test exercise that will follow this course.
• Files in Excel 2003 Format: Excel_Y2_Version_2003_Files.zip
  The above three Excel workbooks in Excel 2003 format. Download these files if you do not have a copy of Excel 2007 on your computer.

You can see the the answers to the questions posed in the Analysing Data section of the lab exercise here.

3: Lab Workshop

The purpose of this optional workshop is to allow any students who require additional practical experience to work through the example files, ask questions, get advice and generally hone their Excel skills with someone on hand to help them. The session is unstructured - just come along if you are struggling with any aspect of Excel work you have done so far.

If you have successfully completed the exercises from the Lab Session want to test your Excel skills further, try one of these tests. They were created several years ago for students using Excel 97 but are completely relevant today and will work with Excel 2007.

• Excel Workbook: Practice Test 1.xls (Practice Test 1_xls.zip)
  Testing basic Excel skills. You should be able to complete all the tasks in this workbook with the knowledge you have gained during you Excel courses in Years 1 and 2.
• Excel Workbook: Practice Test 2.xls (Practice Test 2_xls.zip)
  Testing some advanced Excel skills. Don't worry! You probably won't be able to do much here but it will give you an idea of the sort of things you will know by the end of Year 3.

[Updated: 10/11/2009]