Advanced Excel Courses to Boost Productivity for Administrative Assistants

Advanced Excel Courses to Boost Productivity for Administrative Assistants

7 mins readComment
Jaya
Jaya Sharma
Assistant Manager - Content
Updated on Oct 15, 2024 19:01 IST

Advanced Excel courses help administrative assistants enhance their productivity, streamline data management, and contribute more strategically to their organisations. These courses help learn beyond basic spreadsheet functions, dealing with complex data analysis, automation, and visualisation techniques that can transform routine tasks into powerful business insights. 

advanced excel courses

Table of Contents

How Do Advanced Excel Courses Help Administrative Assistants?

  • Data Management: Advanced MS Excel courses teach Administrative Assistants to efficiently organise and sort large datasets, master filtering techniques for quick information retrieval, and understand data validation to ensure accurate data entry. These skills help in handling large volumes of information more effectively, reducing errors and saving time in data processing tasks.
  • Formulas and Functions: These courses develop skills in complex formulas for automated calculations, the use of logical functions (IF, AND, OR) for conditional data analysis, and the implementation of VLOOKUP and HLOOKUP for cross-referencing data. This knowledge allows assistants to automate complex calculations, perform advanced data analysis, and quickly find and correlate information across multiple datasets.
  • PivotTables and PivotCharts: Assistants learn to create dynamic reports summarising large datasets, analyse data from multiple angles quickly, and generate visual representations of data for presentations. These tools enable them to transform raw data into meaningful insights and create impactful visual reports, enhancing their ability to support decision-making processes.
  • Automation with Macros: The courses cover recording and running macros to automate repetitive tasks, basic VBA programming for customised solutions, and creating user-friendly interfaces for routine operations. This automation knowledge significantly reduces time spent on repetitive tasks, allowing assistants to focus on more strategic activities.
  • Advanced Formatting: Administrative Assistants learn to use conditional formatting for visual data analysis, create professional-looking spreadsheets and reports, and implement custom number formats for consistent data presentation. These skills enable them to produce polished, easy-to-read documents that effectively communicate information.
  • Data Analysis Tools: The courses teach the utilisation of Goal Seek and Solver for what-if analyses, implementation of data tables for multiple scenario planning, and the use of statistical functions for deeper data insights. These advanced tools allow assistants to perform complex data analysis, aiding in forecasting and strategic planning.
  • Time-saving Shortcuts: Assistants learn keyboard shortcuts for faster navigation and data entry, master quick formatting techniques, and understand time-saving features like Flash Fill and Quick Analysis. These skills significantly speed up routine Excel tasks, improving overall productivity.
  • Collaboration Features: The courses cover how to protect and share workbooks effectively, understand version control and tracking changes, and utilise commenting and review features for team collaboration. These skills enhance an assistant's ability to work efficiently in team settings and manage shared documents effectively.
  • Data Visualization: Assistants learn to create compelling charts and graphs, use sparklines for compact data representation, and implement dashboard creation for data overview. These visualisation skills allow them to present data in more engaging and understandable formats, improving communication of key insights.
  • Integration with Other Tools: The courses teach how to import/export data from various sources, understand how to link Excel with other Office applications, and explore Power Query for advanced data importing and shaping. This knowledge allows assistants to work more efficiently across different platforms and leverage Excel's capabilities in conjunction with other software tools.

List of Advanced Excel Courses To Boost Productivity

The following MS Excel courses are beneficial for expediting tasks that otherwise would take hours.  

1. Excel: Advanced Formatting Technique

Tips will be discussed to make Excel data more readable and understandable. Formatting and aligning of text, numbers and dates will also be taught in this course. Students will learn to work with images and shapes through this advanced Excel course. 

Course Name

Excel: Advanced Formatting Techniques 

Duration

3 hours

Provider

Linkedin Learning

Course Fee

₹ 1,150

Trainers

Oz du Soleil

Skills Gained

Installation, Conditional Formatting, Advanced Excel

Students Enrolled

74,186  students

Rating

4.7/5 (1,582 ratings)

Why Choose This Course?

  • Value For Money: The instructor teaches ways to customise the work environment within Excel. One project file will also be included in this course.
  • Learner’s Experience: Great possibility to learn more in-depth about Excel. Great both for beginners and those who have a bit more experience, as there are usually more than 1 way of doing every action.

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2. Excel Skills for Business: Advanced

This course teaches students spreadsheet design, documentation, advanced formula techniques, data cleaning and preparation, financial functions, advanced lookup functions and how students can build professional dashboards.

Course Name

Excel Skills for Business: Advanced

Duration

22 hours

Provider

Coursera

Course Fee

₹ 4,115

Trainers

Nicky Bull, Professor Yvonne Breyer and Dr Prashan S. M. Karunaratne

Skills Gained

Financial Modeling, Microsoft Excel, Data Cleansing

Students Enrolled

217,174  students

Rating

4.7/5 (5,858 ratings)

Why Choose This Course?

  • Value for Money: Students can practise MS Excel by completing 29 assessments included within the course. This advanced MS Excel course is taught in 22 languages.
  • Learner’s Experience: I really liked this course and learned a lot. I was able to get the Microsoft Office Excel Mo-200 certificate thanks to this course, will attempt the MO-201. The way the course is structured and taught is really beginner friendly, the only downside for me was the advanced course especially from week 4 to week 6 where the level of complexity in regards to the courses content, exercises and the length of the questions was just completely off compared to the rest of the course. But overall a great course and a great tool to master.

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3. Advanced Excel - Top Excel Tips & Formulas

This course covers Excel tips and formulas that enhance productivity, reduce spreadsheet complexity, and enable dynamic data analysis. Learners will learn to use Excel's features effectively. This course is ideal for professionals looking to excel in business roles requiring extensive Excel proficiency.

Course Name

Advanced Excel - Top Excel Tips & Formulas 

Duration

7 hours 8 minutes

Provider

Udemy

Course Fee

₹ 599

Trainers

Leila Gharani

Skills Gained

Financial Modeling, Microsoft Excel, Data Cleansing

Students Enrolled

11,468 students

Rating

4.5/5 (5,858 ratings)

Why Choose This Course?

  • Value for Money: Students will get access to comprehensive learning materials including videos, articles, and 8 downloadable resources.
  • Learner’s Experience: The course exceeded my expectation of what an advanced Excel course is. I've used Excel for so many years and yet, I've learned from Leila so many valuable tips that I didn't know simply because I kept on doing the same things over and over again and didn't know there's anything better. From Pivot tables to formatting, this course is a real time-saver (And I'm not even halfway the course yet!). Thank you for creating this well-organized course, Leila!

4. Excel to MySQL: Analytic Techniques for Business Specialization

Students will learn to use data analytics to leverage it for the growth of the company. The focus of the course is on data analysis concepts and methods. All the advanced concepts are demonstrated through individual Excel spreadsheet templates that can be used for answering relevant questions.

Course Name

Excel to MySQL: Analytic Techniques for Business Specialization

Duration

392 hours

Provider

Coursera

Course Fee

₹ 4,115/month

Trainers

Jana Schaich Borg and Daniel Egger

Skills Gained

Data Analysis and Microsoft Excel

Students Enrolled

222,430  students

Rating

4.6/ 5.0 (11,253 reviews)

Why Choose This Course?

  • Value for Money: The course can be completed at a flexible schedule which allows students to study while managing other aspects of their lives.
  • Learner’s Experience: Used powerful tools like Excel, MySQL, Tableau and analyze data, create forecast models, design visualization.

5. Microsoft's Analyzing and Visualizing Data with Excel

Through this course, students will learn to import data from different sources, create mashups between data sources and prepare data for the purpose of data analysis. The course helps in performing data analysis in Excel through classic tools such as pivot tables, pivot charts, slicer and the data available on the worksheet.

Course Name

Microsoft's Analyzing and Visualizing Data with Excel 

Duration

6 weeks

Provider

edX

Course Fee

₹ 8,328

Trainers

Dany Hoter and Jonathan Sanito

Skills Gained

Data Modelling and Data Visualization

Students Enrolled

222,430  students

Rating

4.6/ 5.0 (11,253 reviews)

Why Choose This Course?

  • Value for Money: Students will be able to perform data visualizations in Excel and perform year-over-year comparisons. They will also learn to use Excel on mobile phones. 
  • Learner’s Experience: This is a Microsoft certified certificate and if you're willing to learn Excel in an advanced mode it is of great use. However, I'd suggest people to have the basic knowledge of Excel Functions before taking up this course.

By enrolling in advanced Excel courses, administrative assistants can not only improve their current job performance but also open doors to career advancement opportunities. Through advanced Excel courses, students will experience a boost in productivity and efficiency for administrative assistants, ultimately making them indispensable assets in the modern workplace.

About the Author
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Jaya Sharma
Assistant Manager - Content

Jaya is a writer with an experience of over 5 years in content creation and marketing. Her writing style is versatile since she likes to write as per the requirement of the domain. She has worked on Technology, Fina... Read Full Bio