There is no such tool that is more versatile or user-friendly than MS Excel. It is highly popular in the business world, whether it is a small, family-owned business or a large corporation with hundreds of employees. Employees and managers like to use MS Excel because of the highly visual spreadsheets that can be transformed into easy-to-understand graphs, pie charts, pivot tables. MS Excel is used in different areas of the business such as analysis, managing human resources, performance reporting, operations management, and project & program management. In this article, we are going to cover the answer to the “Where Can I Take Microsoft Excel Courses?” question.
MS Excel Use and Benefits
As a tool used in business and strategic analysis, Excel can help convert data into something meaningful and help people who do the business make the right decisions. For example, Excel can run a profitability report or can guide actions such as investments or asset allocations based on the evaluation of raw data.
Before answering the “Where Can I Take Microsoft Excel Courses?” question, let’s see what benefits MS Excel has and for which tasks it is ideal.
Human resource management
Excel can organize information about stakeholders, whether they are employees, customers, supporters, or training participants. Excel can store and retrieve personal information efficiently. A spreadsheet with rows or columns can be used to organize personal records that may include information such as the name, email address, employee start date, level of education, trainings completed, employee status, and types of contracts.
Performance reporting
This is a specialized type of analysis that can be done effectively using MS Excel. Performance analysts create a pivot table to convert data into a performance report in Excel. By inserting a pivot table and linking it to data, you can quickly get very useful information from the dataset provided. Pivot tables have numerous in-built functions that allow for tasks such as counting and summing certain types of data within the dataset.
Day-to-day operations
Many businesses rely on using Excel functions and spreadsheets for day-to-day operations. Operations often involve logistics tracking, control of inventory flow to keep operations running smooth and without overspending on overstocking items. Using Excel the operations, business operations analysts, and managers can keep track of vendor and client transactions. They can also manage critical dates and schedules. Large corporations might have custom software to manage operations. However, MS Excel is an essential and valuable tool for many smaller businesses. Excel has a great advantage over more sophisticated software programs in that it is relatively low-tech. That means that it is quite resilient to programming bugs and a large number of people can use it. Also, it is easy to learn through dedicated training programs and courses.
Ideal for some projects
Most of the project and program managers use specifically designed project management software. However, there are times when an Excel Workbook and a simple spreadsheet might be an effective alternative. For example, if you work on relatively simple projects with very few dependencies and team members, you may not need a designated project management software. You can use a simple spreadsheet to track the progress of project tasks or issues.
If you want to learn why project management is important today, you can check out our other blog post.
You can also get trained for Microsoft Project certification which is a project management software product, developed by Microsoft.
Easily shareable and versatile
An advantage of using Excel is that you can easily share the project workbook with others. This includes people who are unfamiliar with or cannot access the custom Project Management software. Excel tools can be used interchangeably across many industries. For example, a status report template created in Excel can be used in government-focused projects as well as Energy or IT projects alike. The attractiveness of Excel tools is that the Project manager can customize the spreadsheet to align with the needs of the specific project.
Furthermore, you can use Excel as a tool to create issue logs, action item lists, project budgets, or even a Gantt Chart that will help you track the completion of tasks in real-time. Additionally, project plans can be placed into a workbook. Then you can use them to track progress, keep the project on schedule and engage with the stakeholders.
How to Become a Certified MS Excel Expert?
Now we can start answering the “Where Can I Take Microsoft Excel Courses?” question. Having fundamental experience with Excel is almost a necessity. Because Excel skills are in high demand by employers, no matter the industry or the size of the business. You can have the right Excel skillset through different Excel learning formats.
There are many different options to learn MS Excel these days:
- Self-Paced courses
- Live online courses
- Classroom-based training tailored to the individual or the company
Let’s look at different options that Master of Project Academy is offering based on your Excel level of proficiency. All the training courses come in a self-paced and live online format. Based on the client’s needs, Master of Project Academy can also organize classroom-based MS Excel training for different levels of proficiency and industry focus.
MS Excel Courses Based on Level of Proficiency
Currently, there are five MS Excel offerings based on your level of proficiency:
- MS Excel Foundational (Basic) level training
- Microsoft Excel Intermediate and Advanced level training
- MS Excel Bundle (Foundational + Intermediate + Advanced) training
- PM Master + Bundle (MS Excel is part of a large group of training courses such as PMP, MS Project, Six Sigma, Agile, Scrum, and many more)
- Free MS Excel training
MS Excel Foundational (Basic) Level
If you don’t have any experience using MS Excel, it is best to start with the foundational level.
During this MS Excel Foundational self-paced online training, you can download and follow simple and short lectures that give step-by-step instructions on how to create Spreadsheets, Workbooks, Charts, Pivot Tables, filter data, and set up the formulas you will need to make calculations.
We also offer the foundational course in Live online, or Classroom format, according to your needs.
Check out our MS Excel foundational course.
MS Excel Intermediate and Advanced Level
If you are already using Excel, but you want to improve your understanding and learn about new features, then, you can opt for MS Excel Intermediate and Advanced level training.
During this training, you will learn how to create dynamic and customized reports, financial and statistical functions, advanced charts, graphs, visualizations. You will learn all these cool features following simple step-by-step lectures that explain concepts through real-life scenarios.
Please note that we also offer this intermediate/advanced MS Excel training in Live online, or Classroom formats.
Find out more about MS Excel Intermediate and Advanced Level training.
MS Excel Bundle (Foundational + Intermediate + Advanced)
If you want to have an uninterrupted flow of MS Excel training starting from basic all the way to advanced level, you should consider the MS Excel Bundle. In over 17 hours of simple-to-follow lectures based on real-life scenarios, you will master your Excel skills and improve your day-to-day work using different Excel tools and functions.
Click to learn more about our MS Excel Bundle.
PM Master + Bundle
The PM Master + Bundle program is the best and most cost-effective way to improve your professional skills and learn about cutting-edge management skills. In this most popular PM Master+ Bundle you will get access to over 25 self-paced certification courses, over 1000 hours of lectures and videos, thousands of practice questions for certification exams, handouts, cheat sheets, documents, and much, much more.
Find out more about PM Master+ Bundle.
Free MS Excel Training
Free MS Excel Training is for individuals who want to learn quickly about the very basic Excel functions. It is also ideal for the ones who are not sure about their level of Excel proficiency. This course will also help you determine whether you should start with the foundational or with an intermediate/advanced MS Excel training course.
Check out our Free MS Excel training.
Conclusion: Where Can I Take Microsoft Excel Courses?
Excel is a highly accessible and relatively easy to learn program. You can use Excel to perform both simple and highly sophisticated business tasks. In this article, we answered “where can I take Microsoft Excel courses question. Because once you learn how to use Excel, you will find yourself using it more and more. Companies should encourage and support their employees to take Excel training courses, because, in return, they will get better skilled and more efficient employees who can do a wider range of business activities.