Foundations of Excel Data Analysis

This unit establishes core Excel skills for organizing, summarizing, and preparing data for financial analysis. Students will learn to create and manage tables, import and export external data, use PivotTables/PivotCharts and the Excel Data Model, and apply basic statistical and financial analysis tools to produce reliable summaries that support later, more advanced modeling and reporting.

Learning Objectives

• analyze datasets by creating and managing Excel tables and structured references, including building tables, importing/exporting external data, and preparing data for analysis
• apply PivotTables, PivotCharts, and the Excel Data Model (Power Pivot) to summarize, visualize, and organize relational data, including configuring fields, subtotals, and summary calculations
• demonstrate use of analysis tools and functions—Analysis ToolPak, database and lookup functions, counting/averaging functions, descriptive statistics, sampling, and best-fit/trendline and future value calculations—to generate summary statistics and basic projections
• evaluate data quality and decision alternatives using conditional formatting, Goal Seek, sorting/subtotals, and interpretation of descriptive statistics to inform subsequent advanced analyses