Course Introduction

In today's business world, the trend of making data-driven decisions is gaining popularity. This approach relies heavily on data analytics, which involves analyzing raw data to draw specific conclusions. You might picture this as a series of complex charts on a screen, but reaching that stage requires a lot of groundwork.

The most popular tool for data analytics is Excel. It's flexible, fast, and affordable, making it a go-to resource for anyone looking into data analysis.

During this course, you will gain practical, real-world experience. Imagine you are a new Business Analyst or a small business owner looking to save time for quality business decisions. We will automate data analysis for the Artisan Bakeries using one and a half years of data. Each chapter represents a step towards understanding and practically preparing for the final dashboard.

We will begin with preparing raw data from various file formats (such as Databases, CSV, Excel Workbooks, Google Sheet, and even Web page) using PowerQuery, followed by modeling and additional calculations with PowerPivot to set up the dashboard charts. You will learn to use PivotCharts for building interactive charts and how to create slicers for effective and visually appealing dashboard management.

We will explore why simple Excel functions and tools are inefficient and labor-intensive.

Now, let’s clarify all the upcoming calculations in simple steps:

• Our goal is to calculate Gross Profit and visually display it across different product categories. For this, we will use data such as Revenue, COGS (Cost of Goods Sold), Quantity, OPEX (operating expenses), and additional information about products, bakeries, and managers;
• We will also analyze product Sales Volumes by aggregating sales quantity data;
• Finally, we will compare sales from the first half of two different years.

Note

If you are new to these terms, here is a short presentation for you.

You can use these practical skills to analyze any type of business.

Now, let’s move on to the chapters that focus on hands-on practice and the initial steps of the project.🚀

Note

In this course, we primarily use Microsoft Office 365. However, it is also compatible if you have the following versions:

• Office 2013 Professional +
• Office 2016 Professional +
• Office 2019 Professional

The interface of those versions is different.

Also, Microsoft Excel on macOS has limited functionality, which may only allow you to complete the first two sections of the course due to the absence of Power Pivot. The subsequent sections can still be followed as theoretical knowledge. Alternatively, if your MacBook is running on an Intel system, you might consider installing a virtual Windows environment to access full functionalities.