Microsoft Excel Advanced Training Course Johannesburg and Pretoria

advanced excel training course

This practical, 4 day Microsoft Excel Advanced Training Course focuses on the MS Excel skills that the typical business user would require, and takes them from an Intermediate to Advanced level (do a free Excel skill level assessment on our sister site to make sure this course is correct for you- opens in new tab).

See what others say about our courses on our Google Reviews (rated at 4.8/5.0).

The course can be attended live in Midrand (so ideal for Johannesburg or Pretoria delegates) or virtually from anywhere in the world. The next course is being run from 10-13 Feb 2025 (see other dates here).

On completion of the course you will received a certificate of attendance AND can earn a certificate of competency for your CV. To understand how these work view our blog post on certificate of attendance versus certificate of competency.

Some of the key outcomes of the 4 Day Advanced MS Excel public course will include:

  • Using the new tools that Microsoft has introduced
  • Easily cleaning up data received to report on
  • Understanding and making use of Pivot Tables, to turn data into reports
  • Reporting findings graphically via charts and other visualisation techniques
  • Ability to create an automated reporting pack that changes month on month with no effort
  • Perform partial lookups where the words aren’t exactly the same
  • Get dates to work how you expect them to.
  • For a full listing see the contents below

Delivery Methods- Open Access Microsoft Excel Advanced Training Course

Live Face to Face MS Excel Training options

  • Public courses for Johannesburg and Pretoria
  • Onsite- We can provide the training onsite to corporate groups- for more information click the request for information button below.

Live Virtual Training Course

  • Virtual training to your staff (presenter is live, but delivered via Teams or Zoom, delegates can be wherever they want) (see more)

Online MS Excel Intermediate to Advanced Training

Course Outline

Ultimate Excel Tool

  • Flash Fill- Your new best friend?
Split key text into their own columns

MS Excel Tips and Tricks

  • Viewing many parts of the spreadsheet (at the same time)
  • Don’t hide rows- group them rather
  • See sheet names in portrait style
  • Selecting ranges with mouse and arrow keys- short cuts
  • Enter date and time stamps- unchanging
  • Doing Quick Calculations in a spreadsheet
  • The Quick Access Toolbar

Filtering and Sorting

  • Data sorting-Revision, colour and icon sorting
  • Sorting the columns instead of the rows
  • Create a custom sorting list
  • Data Filtering
  • Remove rows with the Filter
  • Remove duplicate rows
  • Use Advanced Filter for repeating filters
Move columns around or sort based on the colour of a cell
Easily delete unwanted rows

The Specials- GOTO and Paste

  • GOTO Special- find comments, values, formulas and more
  • Find errors, conditional formatting and data validation
  • Copy Visible Cells Only
  • Fill in all the blanks
  • Paste Special- Values, Formulas with/without formatting
  • Paste Special- convert negatives to positives
  • Switch rows to columns and columns to rows
  • Paste without overwriting blank cells
  • Re Use the Format Painter
Fill in Gaps (easily)

Tools for text

  • Find Replace- standard uses
  • Find Replace- Change formatting on many cells
  • Remove between brackets or characters
  • Single Column to Multiple Columns
  • Import CSV’s into the correct columns
  • Find partial names or between characters (fuzzy logic)
  • Change the $ signs on multiple cells with FIND/ REPLACE
  • Import CSV but correct for ‘numbers’ that start with zero e.g. credit card numbers
Learn complex data cleanups. Remove brackets and whatever is in between (even if it is not consistent)

 

Replace unwanted parts of cells

 

Split columns but decide how it must handle leading zeros. Bank Account numbers/ Employee Numbers/ ID numbers- you must keep the zeros. Payments- you can lose the zeros
Put imported data into its own Excel columns

Pivot Tables

  • Required data format for Pivot tables
  • Create a Pivot Table- Step by Step
  • Inserting Values into a Pivot Table
  • Enhancing the values e.g. percentage of another column
  • Show the details of a number in the Pivot Table
  • Laying out the Pivot Report in completely separate columns
  • Working with the rows in a Pivot Table- dropdown
  • Working with the rows in a Pivot Table- field settings
  • Normalize Pivot Reports to use elsewhere as a copy paste
  • Working with the Columns in a Pivot Table
  • Working with the Filter in a Pivot Table
  • Automatically duplicate your Pivot Tables with different selections
  • Slicers in a Pivot Table
  • Control all Pivot Tables and Charts at once
  • Timelines in a Pivot Table
  • Grouping Dates into days, months, quarters and years in a Pivot Table
  • Grouping Dates into weeks in a Pivot Table
  • Grouping Text in a Pivot Table
  • Grouping Numbers in a Pivot Table
  • Pivot Charts in Excel
  • Problems with grouping in Pivot Tables
  • Protect the source data of a pivot table
  • Add a calculation INSIDE a Pivot Table
  • Conditional Formatting within a Pivot
  • Get information out of a Pivot into a cell
  • Switching off the GETPIVOTDATA
  • Add up ITEMs within a Pivot Table Field
Turn data into reports (in seconds)

 

Create a dashboard type feel for your spreadsheets
Pull out only the parts of the Pivot Table that interest you

 

Building formula outside the Pivot Table looking into the Pivot Table? Rather build the formula directly into the Pivot Table

Conditional Formatting

  • Change cell colour based on value
  • Change color based on benchmark in another cell
  • Highlight all above average cells
  • Add comparative bars into cells
  • Create heat maps in Excel
  • Add risk robots, milestone, up and down icons to Excel cells
  • Control the heat maps, icons and data bars in conditional formatting
  • Conditional Formatting- Linking to different cells
  • Control what is entered in an Excel cell- Data Validation
  • Control the inputs in a cell based on another cell
Improve the visuals on your spreadsheets
Want to easily see where the numbers change month on month? Let them automatically change colour if the previous cell is a different number to the current cell.

 

Make spreadsheets easier to read by changing cell colours where there is a significant change in data.

 

Create intelligent dropdown lists that check whether the user is sure about their entry

Function and Formula Basics

  • Tip- Opening Frequent files
  • Enter formula into many cells (at the same time)
  • Function Wizard
  • Auditing Toolbar
  • Referring to fixed cells
  • Using the F4 shortcut for $ signs
  • Dollar Sign ($A$1) Examples
  • The basic “IF” function
  • How to (safely) build a nested IF formula
  • IF this AND this AND this is True
  • See the numbers behind a formula
  • Change formula across many sheets at the same time
  • Update the calculations on only one sheet (for large spreadsheets)
Find errors in your formulas
Nested IF’s a problem. Learn how to create them in the easiest, safest way.

 

See the numbers behind a formula without scrambling through the spreadsheet. No need to pull out your calculator to ‘check’ Excel.

Text Functions

  • Fitting text inside a cell
  • Quick entry of rows of data
  • Quick Drop Down List
  • Printing Tips
  • Get Excel to read out the text and numbers
  • Join text from many cells
  • Extract parts of the text from cells
  • Force Excel to see the value (instead of text)
  • Change text to lower, UPPER or Proper case
  • Remove unnecessary spaces
  • Create a find/ replace formula
  • Find where a certain character is in a cell
  • Force excel to treat number as text
Neaten up your spreadsheets
Create ‘Word’ like reports in Excel

 

Join cells together
Lost the leading zeros? Put them back in

Key Lookup Functions

  • VLOOKUP explained in simple terms
  • Build your first VLOOKUP
  • The many uses of VLOOKUP
  • Vlookup approximate match (True instead of False)
  • Vlookup partial text from single cell- fuzzy lookup
  • Automatic Sorting in Excel
  • Handling Error Messages- Remove the impact of #NA, #DIV/0! and more
Merge databases together
Categorise data WITHOUT using complex Nested If’s.

 

(Easily) reconcile lists. What items are missing, what is matching and what appears more than it should?

 

Lookup partial matches like a surname in a list of full names

 

Remove errors from Formulas

SUM, COUNT, AVERAGE IFS

  • Sum, count or average if certain cells match
  • Sum, count or average cells e.g. bigger than
  • Sum, count or average with many conditions
  • Sum, count or average with partial matches
Add up all similar items even if they are not in order.

Date functions and issues

  • How Excel Handles Dates
  • Safest way to capture a date in Excel
  • Pull the day, month or year out of the date
  • Create a VALID Excel date with the day, month and year
  • Calculate the proper end of month
  • Determine what day of the week a date is
  • When is the next workday
  • How many working days between dates
  • What week number is a date
  • Make Excel recognise a date

 

Fix messy system dates

 

Sort out problemsome Excel dates

Charting In Excel

  • Excel Charting introduction
  • Create a chart
  • Align chart to the grid lines
  • Chart doesn’t look right? First thing to try
  • Customise the chart title, area, legend and more
  • Vertical Axis- force the scale, reverse the order, labels and more
  • Horizontal Axis- dates vs text, reverse order, show all labels
  • Series- overlapping, big and small series, gaps
  • Add more series to the chart- 3 ways
  • Show big and small numbers on the same chart (and be able to see them)
  • Show months, quarters AND years on the chart axis
  • Bar Charts
  • Pie Charts
  • Area Charts
  • Radar Charts (to compare projects?)
  • Show mini trend charts for large reports
  • Copy the format of one chart to another chart
  • Remove Zeros from chart labels
  • Combine a column with a line chart (or other combinations)
  • Stop charts stretching when the column width changes
  • Customise the series marker to your own image
  • Add linked commentary directly to the chart
  • Add commentary to the axis
  • Add commentary to labels and call outs
  • Add commentary to labels for older versions of Excel
  • Hiding a series with NA()
  • Create a waterfall chart (pre Excel 2016)
  • Create a waterfall chart (Excel 2016 and higher)
  • Understand and use XY charts e.g. Risk Register
  • Change the default colour scheme in charts
  • Create a chart template for re-use
  • Add a trendline to a chart
  • Benefit of using a table for chart data
  • Link Excel chart to PowerPoint or Word
Insert mini charts to show the trend of data
Show big and small numbers on the same chart

 

Fix date issues on charts

 

Add more information directly to your chart

 

Differentiate between the main key chart information and the ‘Other’ information
Learn how to ‘Format Paint’ a chart. Find the chart you like and simply absorb its format

 

Build a chart series selector. The user can switch on and off any series and the chart will adapt. Great for dashboards

 

Get fancy with your charts. Trick Excel into creating some of those fancy charts you have seen (it is much easier than you think)

 

Add shading to a chart (WITHOUT manually colouring it in) to show where the good and bad areas are

 

Need to explain what happened. Learn how to create a waterfall chart both in the new version of Excel (which has waterfall charts) and the older versions (where you have to trick Excel)

 

Make a line chart change colour at a significant point e.g. actuals in blue and budget in red.

Feedback & Who Should Attend

  • I’m glad I invested my money and time on this course, it was worth it.I also like the fact that i will be assisted even after completing the course. I walked out a different lady, just confirming what De Wet said.- Kefiloe M.
  •  It dealt with my daily challenges at work- IS Management Accountant.
  • There was nothing I did not like about the workshop. Adrian was fantastic- Accountant.
  • This course really add significant value to my life as a data analyst- Lonmin
  • … first the assessment is a good tool to determine that the trainee is allocated to the correct training, secondly, although the training is intense the content is brilliant and very well presented. Being able to express real live occurrences during the training makes for understanding of applications. All Krones personnel that have attended this training has had their skillset enhanced. Being proficient in excel has allowed the flow of work from department to department to become more and more efficient and not to mention, look more professional. Audit Excel is my only choice for Excel Training.- Debbie L- Krones

Typical Attendees

  • All persons using Excel spreadsheets. Professions that have attended include accountants, actuaries, auditors, business analysts, chartered accountants, civil engineers, construction, consulting, corporate finance, engineers, farming, finance, hr function, landlords, lawyers, quantity surveyors, research analysts, retail, scientists and engineers

Pre Requisite (s)

We recommend that all delegates should, using our free MS Excel Skills Assessment, have a minimum skill of Beginner-to-Intermediate or Intermediate (get your delegates to do the  free MS Excel Skills Assessment on our new site to make sure this is the correct level of training).

This is a very hands-on, non-intimidating, course – delegates work through various exercises under the supervision, and with the help, of the facilitator to get to grips with the nuances of Excel’s functions.