Excel Blog Posts

By Burningsuit

Excel Learning Power BI in Practice Power BI Resources 29th January 2019

The “Strictly” Report: Insights into the Data

Alison Box, one of our Directors and Trainers, details how she used Power BI to bring her Strictly statistics to life. In my previous blog, “The Strictly Report: Behind the Scenes”, I explained how I imported the data, cleaned and re-structured it. The next question was how was I going to explore all this data to get meaningful insights. Would I ever get to answer the “contestant journey” question that had prompted me to create the report in the first… Read More

By Burningsuit

Excel Learning Power BI in Practice Power BI Resources 21st January 2019
Strictly Results

The “Strictly” Report: Behind the Scenes

We speak to Alison Box about how she gathered the data to create The Strictly Report. Contrary to what people might think, I’m not a raving Strictly Come Dancing fan. I find the first weeks of the competition quite entertaining when they stumble around, but when they get good it all gets a bit boring and samey. However, there’s one question regarding “Strictly” that has always intrigued me; for those that get to the final, how has their “journey” differed… Read More

By Burningsuit

Excel Microsoft 9th October 2018
Excel

Microsoft Excel: Why you Need to be an Expert!

Microsoft Excel is one of the most well known and used computer programs in the world. Whilst you probably know the basics of how to use it, there are many benefits to undergoing training and improving your knowledge and skills. Discover our top reasons why you need to become an expert in Excel. Improve your day-to-day work life In the majority of office jobs, there is at least some need to use Microsoft Excel, from HR tasks to big data… Read More

By Burningsuit

Excel Microsoft Power BI Resources 24th May 2018
Power BI

Why Power BI is the future of Excel

Microsoft’s Power BI is powerful and easy to use, and with new features being added every week, it is fast becoming the future for business analysis. Excel formulas and pivot tables may well be the most popular programming language in the world, and the addition of tools like Power Query, Power Pivot, Power Map, and Power View mean you can connect to, clean, remove duplicates and transform almost any data you have. We have discussed the benefits of Power BI… Read More

By Alison Box

Excel Power BI Resources 12th May 2017
Burningsuit blog post featured image graphic

Quick Measures or Quick Fix – are Power BI’s Quick Measures up to the mark?

Hey Excel users, anyone remember this? Yes, it’s the now defunct “Lookup Wizard” which, according the MSDN Library entry of January 1996, “…helps Excel users create lookup formulas quickly. Even expert users will find the Wizard’s lookup formulas useful in advanced spreadsheet and application development projects” Well, this was obviously not the case or else this “useful” wizard would still be with us today.  What “expert” Excel user can’t construct a simple Vlookup or even use the fiddly Index/Match combo?… Read More

By Stuart Box

Excel Office 2013 Office 365 Power BI Resources 2nd January 2015

Microsoft Power BI for Office 365, this is not your Father’s Spreadsheet

Microsoft Power BI for Office 365 is a fusion of tools designed to provide data analysis, visualisation, ad-hoc query and sharing of Excel data and spreadsheets. It brings together the "Power Tools" for Excel, Power Query, Power Pivot, Power View and Power Map, with cloud-based online facilities which allow you to view, store, share and query the dashboards you create with Excel and the Power tools. It is not simply an add-on to Excel, but a radical enhancement of the… Read More

By Stuart Box

Excel Power BI Resources PowerPivot 20th June 2013

PowerPivot 6 – The Joy of Sets

Time Intelligence Functions One of the most powerful features of PowerPivot is the ability to analysis your data across time periods.  To use the Time Intelligence functions, you must have a table in the PowerPivot window that comprises all the dates from the date range of your data.  For example, my wine sales range is between 1st September 2010 and the current date.  Therefore, I’ve created a Date Table that lists all the dates between these two dates.  I’ve also… Read More

By Stuart Box

Excel Power BI Resources PowerPivot 10th June 2013

PowerPivot 5 – Measure for Measure

“Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.” ― William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure Creating Measures A Measure is a formula that is created specifically for use in the Values area of a PivotTable (or PivotChart), very similar to Calculated Fields in a normal Excel Pivot Table.  However, in PowerPivot a Measure uses DAX functions.  The Values area of a Pivot Table will always require some kind of aggregation and… Read More

By Stuart Box

Excel Power BI Resources PowerPivot 30th May 2013

PowerPivot – 4

Calculations in PowerPivot PowerPivot doesn’t use Excel’s formulas or functions but uses its own special expressions, known as DAX (Data Analysis Expressions). DAX Functions are different from Excel Functions in the following ways:- DAX doesn’t reference single cells or ranges of cells (e.g. B1 or C2:D11). A DAX function always references a complete column or a table. If you want to use only particular values from a table or column, you add filters to the formula. DAX includes functions that… Read More

By Stuart Box

Excel PowerPivot 2nd May 2013

PowerPivot – 1

We've started doing a lot of Training in Microsoft PowerPivot for Excel. This is a wonderful add-on to Excel that allows you to collect data from varying locations and combine than with a PivotTable or Chart. PowerPivot is often used to build Business Intelligence Dashboards in Excel. We've found that people who attend our Training get really excited in what PowerPivot can do. But the first question to answer is "How do I get PowerPivot for Excel". The answer depends… Read More