Tools Needed to Run Data Analysis in Excel

Excel is one of the famous products of Microsoft. It has many basic and complex functions. Sometimes, you need to go through training to be able to use the right formula to effectively run data analysis.

There are some simple functions that will greatly help you to analyze data. These fifteen basic functions will aid your capacity to analyze data with ease.

Data Analysis Features in Excel

Let’s find out some outstanding features in Excel that can be used to analyze data.

#1. Sort

Sorting is a feature that helps you to sort data in Excel. The sorting can be done on a single column or different columns. Data can also be sorted in ascending or descending order.

#2. Filter

If you only want to find records that correlate with certain criteria, then the Filter feature can be used. Its main function is to filter data.

#3. Conditional Formatting

When you want to use color to highlight cells that are dependent on the value, then the conditional formatting feature in Excel is the tool to use.

#4. Charts

Excel chart is easy to create. It is far more than just number representation. It can be used to give a good representation of data that makes it easy to be interpreted.

#5. Pivot Tables

You can use a pivot table to extract the significance from a large set of data.

#6. Tables

The Excel tables enable you to easily analyze the data quickly.

#7. What-If Analysis

The What-If Analysis tool in Excel lets you test different data values for formulas.

#8. Solver

The Solver tool in Excel is used to carry out research to find the best solutions for all kinds of decision problems.

#9 Analysis ToolPak

This is a special add-in program in Excel that is used to analyze financial, engineering as well as statistical data.

Some Other Notable Data Analysis Tools in Excel

#1. CONCATENATE

The most simplest and powerful formulas used to analyze data is the CONCATENATE tool.

It can be used to create

• API endpoint
• SKU for products
• Java queries

#2. LEN

=LEN tools will give you access to find the total number of characters in a selected cell.

#3. COUNTA

=COUNTA is used to check if a cell is empty or not.

#4. DAYS/NETWORKDAYS

=DAYS function is used to find out the number of calendar days between two selected dates. It can help you to find out date-related information of a product, contract, as well as help you to effectively rate the revenue that depends on service length.

=NETWORKDAYS on the other side is used to find out the number of “workdays” that is between two selected dates. You can also choose to account for holidays.

#5. SUMIFS

=SUMIFS is a very important feature that every Excel data analyst must know. It is commonly useful in finding out how much each product is adding to top-line income.

#6. VLOOKUP

The VLOOKUP is yet another tool that will help you to compare data together during analysis. For example, you may need to merge two or more data at some point. Receiving data from the different departments may need you to use the VLOOKUP to check out the two or more data.

#7. FIND/SEARCH

=FIND/=SEARCH is one tool that you will always use. It has been designed to isolate some specific texts within a set of data.

=FIND is designed to return a case-sensitive match while =SEARCH is designed to return a non-case sensitive match.

Finally, it is now time for you to utilize these useful functions on Excel when running your data analysis.