Excel and Data Analysis
Excel can be a powerful tool for analysis Excel provides many tools for analyzing data –Filtering –Sorting –Formulas –Charts –Pivot Tables –Pivot Charts
Hard Way -- Easy Way You can fight Excel –By Formatting your spreadsheets in a traditional report style You can work together with Excel –By Formatting your spreadsheets in a way Excel prefers
Traditional Way
The Way Excel Likes
Well Formed Data? Using Excel to analyze data can be much easier if your data is well formed Well formed Excel data follows a set of simple rules
Rules of Well Formity One value per cell One type of data in each column No blank rows One row of column headings Be consistent –Windhoek, WHK, WNDHK, Whoek, The Hoek… Avoid separating similar data across tabs
One Value Per Cell
One Type Per Column
No Blank Rows
Be Consistent
Well Formed Data Its easy for a computer to process Excel is designed to help you analyze such data
Summary Microsoft Excel can be a powerful tool for data analysis Microsoft Excel works best with well formed data Following a set of rules can help your data be well formed
The Rules One value per cell One type of data in each column No blank rows One row of column headings Be consistent –Windhoek, WHK, WNDHK, Whoek, The Hoek… Avoid separating similar data across tabs
Final Note Using Excel to create well formed data can result in the duplication of some information This duplication is necessary, because Excel is not a relational database