Microsoft Excel Business Intelligence And Dashboards Course

Is it right for me?

Our Excel Business Intelligence and Dashboards course is designed for existing users of Excel who can build simple Excel spreadsheets and now want to develop their skills in using Excel for better business intelligence and reporting.

The course includes dealing with imports of data, analysing data using Pivot Tables and getting the most out of the extensive graphing features in Excel.

It also looks at combining information into easy to use dashboards to show key trends and relationships without the need for high levels of detail.

What will I get out of it?

By the end of the course you will be able to:

• Work with different data formats
• Connect to external data sources
• Build Pivot Tables
• Create business charts
• Create dashboards

Versions available

2003, 2007, 2010

Related courses in our range

• Excel - Pivot Table Specialist
• Excel - Macros Specialist
• Excel Module 3 - Data Analysis
• Excel Module 4 - Advanced Formulas and Functions

What does it cover?

Analysing information using Pivot Tables

• Building a Pivot Table
• Pivot Table structure
• Data formatting
• Subtotalling data

Using external data sources for Pivot Tables

• Creating a Pivot Table with an external data source
• Data source options
• Pivot Table options
• Publishing to a web page

External data sources

• Creating database queries
• Setting external data range properties
• Creating web queries

Data Structure

• Importing text files
• Data layout and structures
• Merging and consolidating information

Dashboard charting techniques

• Creating and customising charts
• Adding more data
• Creating user-defined chart types
• Changing the default chart type
• Creating miniature charts suitable for dashboards

Data analysis in charts

• Target vs actual charts
• Using bubble charts
• Creating charts directly in cells

Creating a dashboard

• Dashboard layouts, best practice
• Linking to analysed data

Advanced charting techniques

• Using invert if negative (not available in 2007)
• Combining different chart types in one chart
• Creating custom markers

Creating advanced background formats

• Creating a quadrant background
• Emphasising data with vertical banding
• Mean and Standard Deviation lines

Using conditional formatting to highlight data

• Conditionally format stacked columns
• Conditional formatting based on values
• Conditionally format axis labels

Specialist charts

• Simple Waterfall chart
• Thermometer chart
• Tornado chart

Create a dashboard example using your own data

• Bring along some of your own data and our trainer will help you build a dashboard