I’ve only recently started including material on using Copilot with Excel in my bespoke training courses.
The reasons for my reticence are as follows;
Continue reading “Using Copilot with Excel – what I train”Using Copilot with Excel – what I train
A day’s Excel training in Cardiff
Last week I delivered a day’s Excel training in Cardiff for a medium-sized charity.
I designed this bespoke course for a group of finance and data folk who had already done my half day Introduction to power query course and had good Excel knowledge to begin with.
I always love training people who work together, because I know that there’s an increased chance that the learning will continue after the course.
What we covered
I’ve posted before that I don’t have a standard “intermediate” or “advanced” Excel course. This is because clients have different needs, and different starting points. I don’t want to waste time showing you stuff you already know, or are never going to need.
But as an example of what could be included in a day’s bespoke Excel training, let’s look at last week’s Cardiff session. I had previously circulated a questionnaire to the delegates to understand what they already knew and what they wanted to find out more about.
We revised key building blocks like Tables, and concepts such as number vs text. We then went onto some upgrades. For example, we went through XLOOKUP and the many ways it’s better than VLOOKUP.
And we also covered lots and lots of new Excel content.
Some of this we did via brief examples – such as REGEX, Checkboxes and TRANSLATE. (It was interesting to see how it copes with Welsh!)
Dynamic arrays were completely new to everyone, so we spent a bit of time looking at FILTER, UNIQUE and GROUPBY, and also discussing what made dynamic arrays different.
We then finished with a session on dynamic charts, including some data visualisation tips.
Throughout the day I shared examples of useful shortcuts and navigation tools to make everyday work in Excel a little bit more efficient.
Book me for Excel training in Cardiff (or Newport)
I can design and deliver a day of bespoke Excel training in Cardiff (or Newport) for £875 (£825 for not for profits). I’m based in Bristol so Cardiff is a really easy trip for me and I always enjoy spending time in Wales.
Please get in touch via my Contact page to discuss your needs in more detail.
What I learned at the 2025 Global Excel Summit
I attended the 2025 Global Excel Summit last week – this time in person for the first time.
It’s become a bit of a tradition that I blog about what I learned, so here goes!
Continue reading “What I learned at the 2025 Global Excel Summit”Five tips for using Googlesheets if you’re used to Excel
Here are five tips for using Googlesheets if you normally use Excel.
1. Check your document is actually a Google Sheet
If you’ve imported it from Excel, it might still be an Excel file that’s being read by Google in compatibility mode. You can tell because name and file type of the workbook will end in XLSX.
This is the worst of both worlds, as you are getting neither Excel nor Google functionality. Save the file as a Google sheet (in the file menu)
Ten things I learned at the Global Excel Summit 2024
I attended the Global Excel Summit 2024 online earlier this month, and in no particular order, here are ten things I learned.
1. Power Query at Chanel
The most inspiring session was given by two people who work for Chanel, who explained how they had used Power Query to reduce thousands of hours of processing time.
In the middle of a day that was focussed on the theoretical uses of AI, it was fantastic to hear about a tried and tested but scandalously underused technology being used to deliver real business change.
More generally their approach to business process improvement sounded fascinating and I’d love to see this become more widely known.
Continue reading “Ten things I learned at the Global Excel Summit 2024”Excel training for auditors
I recently designed and delivered some Excel training for auditors. Specifically, it was Excel training for audit trainees who had just started at the firm.
I benefitted enormously at the start of my career when my employer arranged for all new audit trainees to have Excel training as part of our induction. Even though it was pretty basic, it established a good grounding in things like formula construction, absolute and relative cell references, and a few shortcuts.
Continue reading “Excel training for auditors”Why I don’t have a standard Intermediate Excel course
I don’t offer a standard Intermediate Excel course (or indeed, a standard Beginners course or a standard Advanced course).
There are a couple of reasons for this.
Firstly, I tailor all Excel training that I deliver to the needs of the course participants.
Continue reading “Why I don’t have a standard Intermediate Excel course”What do I mean by bespoke Excel training?
I offer bespoke Excel training (and tailored Power Query training), particularly to finance teams. But what do I mean by “bespoke”?
Continue reading “What do I mean by bespoke Excel training?”How English language teaching helped me become an Excel trainer
Before I was an Excel trainer, even before I was an accountant, I taught English as a foreign language. Even though the subject matter is quite different, I learned some really useful techniques and principles which I apply to Excel training now.
Continue reading “How English language teaching helped me become an Excel trainer”Excel for Finance Directors
How much Excel do you need to know as a Finance Director?
After all, you should be beyond the detail by this point, busy strategising and partnering, not spending all day with your face in a spreadsheet. Right?
Continue reading “Excel for Finance Directors”