Excel Functions and Formulas

Functions are at the core of Microsoft Excel and provide much of its power. However, many users find working with functions and formulas confusing and frustrating. This Excel training course focuses on the creation of formulas using the most useful and essential functions in each of Excel's main function categories. Delegates will also be shown the various types of formulas and the different methods of creating them, the different ways of inserting functions and using nested functions to build complex formulas. This Excel course also covers the auditing of formulas and and the handling of errors.

Course Outline

Building formulas

Entering and editing formulas, Understanding operator precedence, Copying and moving formulas, Understanding relative reference format, Understanding absolute reference format, Copying a formula without adjusting relative references , Displaying Worksheet Formulas , Working with range names in formulas , Pasting a name into a formula , Applying names to formulas, Understanding external references

Working with functions

Inserting functions, Supplying function arguments, Supplying range arguments, Inserting nested functions

Text functions

Converting text, LOWER(), UPPER(), PROPER(), Extracting a substring, LEFT(), RIGHT(), MID(), Concatenation, Creating customer account numbers

Logical functions

Using the IF() function, Working with nested IF()s, Using AND, OR and NOT

Lookup functions

Creating lookup tables, Using VLOOKUP() and HLOOKUP(), Using range lookups, Finding exact matches, Using the CHOOSE() function

Date and time functions

How Excel handles dates and times, Construction dates with the DATE() function, Extracting date elements with DAY(), MONTH(), and YEAR() , Isolating the day, month and year , Determining the day of the week, Calculating the tme between two dates using DATEDIF(), Calculating elapsed time , Creating time sheets

Maths functions

ROUND() and MROUND() , ROUNDDOWN() and ROUNDUP() , CEILING() and FLOOR() , EVEN() and ODD() , INT() and TRUNC() , Using RANDBETWEEN() to generate data, Using RANDBETWEEN() to generate date and time values

Database functions

How database functions work, Defining the Excel database, Defining the criteria area, Using AND and OR with your criteria, The DSUM() function, The DAVERAGE() function, The DCOUNT() function, DMIN() and DMAX(), The DGET() function

Dealing with errors

Understanding Excel error values, #DIV/0!, #NAME, #REF, #NULL!, #N/A, Using conditionals to anticipate error values, Using IFERROR(), Using the formula error checker, Auditing a worksheet, Tracing cell precedents and dependents, Evaluating formulas, Watching cell values