Introduction

What is Excel?

Excel is spreadsheet software that allows students, teachers, businesses, and other professionals to analyze data, create visualizations, and more. Formulas and functions are commonly used - perhaps the most common being vlookup or a pivot table. Regardless of the maturity of an organization, People Analytics and Human Resources teams will almost always use Excel in some type of way. Therefore, it is an essential skill that must be learned.

Installing Excel

If you are a student, there is a strong likelihood that you already have access via this website. A common alternative to Excel is Google Sheets which only requires a user to have a gmail account. The following tutorials will predominantly utilize Excel, though it should be noted that Google Sheets can be used as a substitute in most cases.

Fundamental Skills

Before going into specific examples of using Excel in the People Analytics space, make sure you are familiar with the following formulas and functions:

• Vlookup
• Pivot Tables
• Conditional Formatting
• Countif
• Sumif
• Find Duplicates
• Additional Formulas and Functions

Once you feel comfortable with the above, you are ready to for a beginner-friendly analysis with people data!