Going through the Big “D” Clay WIlliams

Who am I? PestSure’s Safety Specialist MS in Business Analytics from UT Dallas 5 years in insurance industry

What is Business Analytics? Business analytics (BA) is the practice of iterative, methodical exploration of an organization's data, with an emphasis on statistical analysis.  Business analytics is used by companies committed to data-driven decision-making.  Three main parts: descriptive, predictive, prescriptive

What is Excel? Excel is a computer program that is used to create spreadsheets, which are documents in which data is laid out in rows and columns.

Why is Excel important for BA? To analyze data, you have to have a program to do it with. Python, R, Hadoop, SAP, Excel Plug-Ins Excel is where everyday analytics starts, but isn’t the most powerful

What makes Excel useful for everyday analytics? Formula and GUI-based (clicks and simple phrases) Vlookup, Pivot Tables, Conditional Formatting Excel is really a box of legos, you can make what you want with it.

Where should I start? Data cleansing process Import into Excel, make it usable by Excel, make a back-up, manipulate data for information Don’t forget what you’re trying to accomplish!

Some tools to analyze data Pivot Table – most intuitive, used to pull from a set of columns and rows and manipulate for comparison Conditional Formatting – Let Excel do the hard part! Give it rules, it does the work for you. Vlookup – Used to search for a certain value and return a different value from the row.

Other useful formulas If statements (countif, if, iferror, etc.) Sum and product Tons of built-in formulas, Excel helps you write them

Anatomy of a VLOOKUP formula VLOOKUP(lookup_value, table_array, col_index_num, range_lookup) Lookup_value = Value we’re trying to find Table_array = Where we’re looking for value Col_index_num = What value we want to return Range_lookup = True -> closest match False -> exact match (highly suggested you use FALSE)

Keyboard Shortcuts Ctrl and Shift keys – move around Excel faster! Crtl-Shift-L – automatically adds filtering Ctrl-PgUp/PgDown – move through tabs quickly Shift-= - Automatically creates Sum formula Many more, just have to try them out and see what sticks

I got my data, how do I present it? Graphs and Charts! Line Graph – Used to show data changes over time Bar Chart – Used to compare data side by side quickly Dual Axis Graph – Used to combine 2 different Graph/Chart formats (bar + line)

“What about Pie Charts? They’re my fave!” They’re not bad, just not really good Simple by design, but too simple to convey real information Better options for the space you’re losing by using it. Bar charts are better.

Some famous Pie Charts

How should I present my data? Dashboard is the buzz word today Word documents with graphs and Better options for the space you’re losing by using it. Bar charts are better.

How about some examples! Pivot Table Vlookup Formula Cross Spreadsheet Formulas Dashboard Example Occurrence Ratio Report Simple Updatable Weekly Report